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Argument: Balanced left/right broadcasting exist w/o Fairness Doctrine

Issue Report: Fairness Doctrine

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“Broadcasting, reintroducing the Fairness Doctrine”. Debatabase. 27 Aug. 2008 – Some people may find right wing radio distasteful, or object to the slant Fox News gives to its coverage of politics and world affairs, but such stations are only part of the whole broadcasting spectrum. In fact talk radio has less than 5% of the total radio market. Most conservatives believe that the mainstream media, such as National Public Radio and the traditional big three television channels (ABC, NBC and CBS), is strongly left-leaning, and that talk-radio acts to balance this bias.

…Talk radio actually covers a wide spectrum of opinion – there is no plot in which its commentators agree a common line on the key issues of the day. In any case, the audience for talk radio is media savvy – they know that particular hosts and stations have particular viewpoints and take account of this when forming their views. Almost no one listens only to talk radio in order to learn about current affairs – citizens expose themselves to a wide range of material, including television, radio, newspapers and the internet. Because there is already this wide range of competing views available every day, there is no need to require each station to pointlessly reflect all of these in its own broadcasting.

Pete Winn. “Democratic Senator Tells Conservative Radio Station He’d Re-impose Fairness Doctrine–on Them”. CNS News. 28. Oct. 2008 – “[Jim Villanucci:] in this market, for instance, you’ve got KKOB. If you want liberal talk, you’ve got Air America in this market, you’ve got NPR, you’ve got satellite radio – there’s a lefty talk station and a rightie talk station. Do you think there are people who aren’t able to find a viewpoint that is in sync with what they believe?”