Net Neutrality

Eli,

I'm reading Thomas Hazlett's "The Political Spectrum." So far Hazlett has chronicled the FCC's opposition to FM radio, broadcast TV, local TV, low power FM, cable TV, opposition that retarded the growth of those industries for decades. Now I'm up to the Mayflower and Fairness Doctrines.

During the New Deal, FDR was angry newspaper owners who also controlled radio stations were opposing his program. Hazlett writes:

...opposition to an outright ban on newspaper ownership of radio stations still ran high in Congress. The Commission sharpened its focus. If it could not force anti—New Deal publishers to sell their stations, perhaps it could mute their editorializing. It did so via the “Mayflower Doctrine,” establishing that information delivered via radio, including news, must be presented “fairly” and “objectively.”

The policy was targeted at the unabashedly right-wing Yankee Network, owner of three radio stations in New England, including WAAB in Boston. The network ran commentary from the likes of Father Charles Coughlin, an outspokenly anti-Semitic cleric suspected of pro-Nazi sympathies, whose ideology had drifted from the radical left to the extreme right. By the late 19305 he had found his voice as a staunch critic of “Franklin Double-crossing Roosevelt.” [16] In 1939, when WAAB’s license came up for renewal, Mayflower Broadcasting filed a competing application. The challenge was dismissed for factual misrepresentations, but Fly’s FCC took the opportunity to send a warning to the Yankee Network by scheduling a renewal hearing. While the Commission elected not to withdraw the station’s license, it issued an ominous nonendorsement:

Radio can serve as an instrument of democracy only when devoted to the communication of information and the exchange of ideas fairly and objectively presented. Indeed, as one licensed to operate in the public domain the licensee has assumed the obligation of presenting all sides of important public questions, fairly, objectively and without bias. The public interest-not the private—is paramount. [17]

Yankee got the message and promised to stop editorializing. Enshrined as policy, the Mayflower Doctrine implicitly forbade all other broadcast licensees to editorialize. Anti—New Deal station owners were silenced. Mission accomplished.

 I suppose some still think it's a good idea for the government to determine what should and shouldn't be said on radio and TV, but I'm not one of them.

What confuses me, particularly with our current President is why some still think we should allow such power to reside in the hands of appointed bodies like the FCC. After all, if Trump is indeed a fascist or totalitarian or whatever he is being called today, why in God's name would you want to give him more power.

I rephrase the question,  why would you want to give anyone that power. I certainly don't want LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama or Trump with control over what can be said, nor where. Counting on a philosopher king to wisely pass laws is foolish. Besides, if I remember my Plato correctly, the philosopher king he envisioned was a totalitarian.

As I read this book I keep asking myself why the demand by many for the FCC to impose net neutrality regulations that would allow the FCC to filter fake news, or pass judgement on new products and services and even impose price regulation. In the Hazlett telling, we've been there, done that, and it sucked.

Our penchant for nostalgia results in romanticizing an era when only three broadcasters  fed us news and entertainment. I much prefer the cacophony of today even though there are loud voices that are sometimes/often/mostly idiotic. (I'm lumping Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Sean Hannity,  Bill O'Reilly, and many others in the loud dumb bucket).

Even if the President were wise and beneficent and even if his/her FCC were the same, why would you want the FCC to have that kind of power when there's a pretty strong likelihood at some point the President and commissioners won't be as wise.

Bill