Evidence suggests that the fairness doctrine worked really well until we ended it. Until it’s elimination mass media news in the US was pretty middle of the road.
Seems to me around the time that it was ended there were several other things going on.
The advent of cable news networks which gave a massive incentive to sensationalism and strong partisan ties as multiple players joined the space with a need to create a sustainable viewership.
Satellite feeds became common ensuring a single message instead of having a layer of abstraction in the form of a local or regional newscaster; instead of relaying facts, they can relay a highly opinionated version.
Local and independent news stations were being purchased and consolidated into national telecom companies with their own partisan editorial bends, a la Nexstar and Sinclair.
I have to believe that all of the above had a much greater influence on news discourse in the past few decades than the elimination of the fairness doctrine. Furthermore, if you give government the power to regulate anything; always expect the current party in power to use that regulation as a weapon. Can you imagine what our leaders would do given even more power to control and manipulate the media narrative? Ending this was a good decision.
I feel there should be some laws for when someone calls themselves news or journalism. So no monopoly for news, but when does call themselves this, there should be some ethical and truth finding considerations attached.
>there should be some ethical and truth finding considerations attached.
But who decides what's true? And why should we let them? Majority consensus is an easy answer, but we'd need something else if we were to regulate truth at a level we could enforce on journalists.
I'm personally more worried about that question spiraling out of control than I am about offering equal air time.
Truth might not be the best word, but the intention is about factual and empirical observations. So news/journalism is X happened at Y, backed up with as much sources as the journalist can muster.
