But with a Democrat majority in Congress and a sympathetic president, Nancy Pelosi , Harry Reid, and others would be in a strong position to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine and its broadcast regulations. Reid, when talking with Salon.com , stated (speaking about blogs vs. other media outlets), "We have a better shot at 'em. Still not as good as it would have been had we not had everything consolidated, and the Fairness Doctrine [had not gone] out the window, and all the things that were so 'fair.' We don't have that, but we've made progress."
Of course, many readers may support a return to the Fairness Doctrine, and feel that there is nothing to fear in such a reinstatement. But restricting the airwaves is not as noble as it sounds - if that is how it sounds. Many conservative talk shows would more than likely be dropped. And say what you want about the conservative voice - or, as Huffington would so affectionately call it, the Nea Con ("Neanderthal Conservative") voice - but fairness is truly demonstrated in freedom of speech. And in an election in which even the mainstream media itself is starting to acknowledge its own lack of balance , it seems a very delicate time to support a further stifling of a side that still has quite a lot of "public opinion" support. I have no problem with liberal talk shows and would not want self-identified lefters to have to give time to views that they seek to combat under some government mandate. Why should this be required of the right, either? (Where I would like to see "balance" is in mainstream journalism outlets that claim to report facts without bias - which is not the role of opinionated talk radio hosts, conservative or liberal.)
I don't know what a Pelosi-Reid-Obama trio is going to mean, and would like to avoid buying into all the speculation and hype from the right and wait and see what happens, in spite of seeing what two-thirds of the group supports. Since Obama claims to be against its resurrection, I can only hope that if the Fairness Doctrine is moved through Congress, he will veto it. Perhaps unlike Pelosi and Huffington, he truly sees the value in bipartisanship - although he certainly doesn't have a history suggesting that he does. (But he'll certainly have the time to meet with Republicans, since he apparently won't be tied up meeting with Iran without preconditions .)
