Trump Considers Forming Panel to Review Complaints of Online Bias

[forgotmylogin]

18. Wasn't this what the Fairness Doctrine was about?

From Wikipedia:

In 1985, under FCC Chairman Mark S. Fowler, a communications attorney who had served on Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign staff in 1976 and 1980, the FCC released its report on General Fairness Doctrine Obligations[18] stating that the doctrine hurt the public interest and violated free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. The Commission could not, however, come to a determination as to whether the doctrine had been enacted by Congress through its 1959 Amendment to Section 315 of the Communications Act.

In response to the 1986 Telecommunications Research & Action Center v. F.C.C. decision,[19] the 99th Congress directed[20] the FCC to examine alternatives to the Fairness Doctrine and to submit a report to Congress on the subject.[21] In 1987, in Meredith Corporation v. F.C.C. the case was returned to the FCC with a directive to consider whether the doctrine had been “self-generated pursuant to its general congressional authorization or specifically mandated by Congress.”[22]

The FCC opened an inquiry inviting public comment on alternative means for administrating and enforcing the Fairness Doctrine.[23] Then, in its 1987 report, the alternatives—including abandoning a case-by-case enforcement approach, replacing the doctrine with open access time for all members of the public, doing away with the personal attack rule, and eliminating certain other aspects of the doctrine—were rejected by the FCC for various reasons.[24]

On August 5, 1987, under FCC Chairman Dennis R. Patrick, the FCC abolished the doctrine by a 4–0 vote, in the Syracuse Peace Council decision,[25] which was upheld by a panel of the Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit in February 1989, though the Court stated in their decision that they made "that determination without reaching the constitutional issue."[26] The FCC suggested in Syracuse Peace Council that because of the many media voices in the marketplace, the doctrine be deemed unconstitutional, stating that:
The intrusion by government into the content of programming occasioned by the enforcement of [the Fairness Doctrine] restricts the journalistic freedom of broadcasters ... [and] actually inhibits the presentation of controversial issues of public importance to the detriment of the public and the degradation of the editorial prerogative of broadcast journalists.

(emphasis mine)