I'm sure it's a symptom of something but my point was Fox News (which was established in 1996 according to Wikipedia) could never have been born prior to 1987.
What happened yesterday in Washington, DC may prove a counterpoint to 1st amendment claims that all speech should be allowed, regardless of consequences.
Edit: I see I was wrong about Fox as it is a cable network and not broadcast over public airwaves. I still think their viewers are insulated from opposing viewpoints and that's part of the problem.
The fairness doctrine never applied to cable channels. The only reason it was plausibly Constitutional was the use of the airways, which are considered a public resource. Private cables strung by private companies into private homes were never regulated by the fairness doctrine.
I stand corrected about cable networks. But my thesis that allowing one-sided broadcasting of views still stands: it insulates people from contrasting views and makes them uncomfortable with having those views challenged. I'm not suggesting we go the route of state run media, but state regulation of media may come about thanks to what happened yesterday.
Seems to me, at least on cable, people are only as insulated as they want to be. They can always change the channel to one of any of several hundred others. There are more views being expressed on cable than were ever allowed on the airwaves during the fairness doctrine era.
Some of those channels are spewing hateful horseshit, but with dozens of channels to choose from, you can't blame the medium for people being insulated. They keep the dial tuned to Fox News because they like it.
Unfortunately I don't think it's that black-and-white. Fox News is a small part of the information bubble, which includes other sources like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. And there's evidence that social media addiction is real. So the content is feeding into a positive feedback loop that prevents people from regulating their ability to tune into something else.
This doesn't absolve the viewers from responsibility, but it also doesn't place it entirely on their shoulders.
Yes, but the stuff that people find most objectionable- the Fox opinion shows, Hannity etc- have their home on Fox-the-cable-channel. They might get picked up on some Fox affiliates (though I doubt it, they're the special sauce that gets people to pay for cable), but the engine of the thing is the cable channel.
The programming on Fox broadcast channels is different than Fox News, which is specifically transmitted via cable or satellite and, legally, not via public airwaves. Fox broadcast channels are subject to the same laws as other broadcast channels.
It would require the FCC to apply to content produced outside of the US and consumed within. That will never fly. The age of where the fairness doctrine was needed is long gone.
With the democratization of the media which was completed with the ascent of the internet both governments and established media players; some of which were merely mouth pieces for various political factions; lost their ability to control the message but most importantly lost the ability to control the truth.
The issue faced now is insuring that people have the opportunity to identify information authenticity without having to go back to the situation where we were just expected to trust what we were told.
News, information, whatnot, is now world wide and governments all over will do their best to control what you can see and say and it is up to everyone to make their job harder if not impossible. the only way to a free society is by not allowing governments to control the truth
The FCC will have close to zero impact on twenty first century media.
I don't know how or even if we can fix this.