Human Events’ John Gizzi is reporting today that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “signalled her strong support” for revival of ‘The Fairness Doctrine,’” yesterday at a breakfast meeting hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.  The report sparked a flurry of activity by supporters of Rep. Mike Pence’s stalled Broadcaster Freedom Act, which would permanently ban re-institution of the regulation.  

The reaction to Pelosi’s comment is rather surprising, given that its hardly news that the Democratic leader would support the doctrine.   Last year, in fact, it was reported that she would “aggressively” pursue reinstituting the doctrine.   That never happened, and in fact the House ended up voting for a one-year appropriations rider banning the FCC from reviving it.   

News or not, the renewed attention for the Pence effort is welcome.   Still, supporters of free speech shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking that this is the whole of the battle, or even the main theater of conflict.  In truth, while many still give lip service to the Fairness Doctrine, the real battle over media regulation is moving forward — with closed lips — elsewhere.   Free Press and the Center for American Progress laid out the strategy last year in a report on how to balance the “conservative bias” on talk radio.   Their recommendations ranged from media ownership restrictions to vague “public interest” requirements enforced by the FCC.  Tellingly, the report dismissed the Fairness Doctrine itself as ineffective.

The battle over stealth fairness regulation may already underway at the FCC, which has already launched a proceeding to consider imposing rules on broadcasters to ensure local content and diversity on radio and TV, giving regulators renewed powers to control what is said and heard.     And, as Cord Blomquist has pointed out: “Localism will compel speech of which FCC Commissioners … approve. In a world of limited broadcast hours, compelling one sort of speech means sacrificing speech of another, effectively censoring speech.”

We’ve heard that song before.

By James Gattuso - Cross Posted on TechLiberation.org

Some surprising news from the folks at Broadcast and Cable magazine: Barack Obama is now against restoring the Fairness Doctrine.  In an email Wednesday to B&C, press secretary Michael Ortiz wrote: “Sen. Obama does not support re-imposing the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters.”  With John McCain already firmly in the anti-fairness regulation camp, that means that both major presidential candidates are now on record against reinstituting the former FCC policy.

So is it time for fans of the First Amendment to break open the bubbly?   Well, not quite.  While welcome, the Obama statement was hardly a vigorous denunciation of the doctrine, or its chilling effect on speech.   In fact, it doesn’t seem the senator actually opposes the rule, as opposed to not supporting its return.  (Notably, he hasn’t yet signed onto the “Broadcaster Freedom Act,” which would ban its re-imposition). According to Ortiz, the reason for the senator’s non-support is that he “considers this debate to be a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible.”

Not because it is a violation of free speech principles, or because it is insidious government censorship, not even because it is counter-productive, but because it’s a “distraction.”

A distraction from what, you ask?  Other forms of media regulation of course, including, according to Ortiz: “media-ownership caps, network neutrality, public broadcasting, as well as increasing minority ownership of broadcasting and print outlets.”

As has been argued many times before (including here, here, here, here, here, and here) it looks like the battle against government interference in media won’t end with the Fairness Doctrine, but will continue – and in fact is already under way — under different names.

By James Gattuso

Targeted by Chairman Kevin Martin’s apparent war on cable, the cable industry has had a tough time at the FCC of late.  Being a cable lobbyist at the FCC today is like being a Communist in the State Department in the 1950s.  One can just imagine the question:  “Are you now, or have you ever  been, a user of coaxial technology?”

That said, the cable folks don’t always lose.  Just this Friday, they won one – handing a defeat to Martin. The problem is that its one they really should have lost.  

The question at hand (addressed ably by Berin Szoka on Friday, and by Adam Thierer earlier) is whether telephone companies should be able to contact customers who have requested that their phone numbers be switched over to a competitor, and try to convince them not to switch.   Several cable firms filed a complaint against Verizon over the practice early this year.  The practice is anti-competitive, they said, pointing out that Verizon was able to ply customers with “price incentives and gift cards” to convince them not to switch. 

 In April, the FCC staff said it would side with the telcos on this one.  But on Friday the commission voted 4-1 – with Chairman Martin the only ‘no’ vote – to ban the practice.

That is unfortunate.  Far from being a threat to competition, being able to fight to keep your customers – and even to ply them with a few incentives – is at the heart of it. The practice is common in other highly competitive industries – just try letting a magazine subscription expire.  In fact, as Verizon’s Tom Tauke argues, cable firms have long engaged in similar activity to keep customers from moving to telco video service.  Why should it now be wrong for telcos to do the same thing for telephone services?

I don’t say this often, but Chairman Martin was right on this one.  Not because cable should lose, but because consumers would win.  

By James Gattuso

Slimmer Is Better

• Posted June 16th, 2008 at 4.10pm in Entrepreneurship.