Edging The Government Out of TV

By Otto Friedrich

Does TV always have to be fair? And if so, who decides what fairness is?

The Meredith Corp. never dreamed that the issue would become a major problem when its station WTVH in Syracuse broadcast some ads in favor of a nuclear power station in 1982. But the Syracuse Peace Council charged that the company had violated the Federal Communications Commission's "fairness doctrine" by failing to broadcast any material opposing the nuclear plant. The FCC, which receives thousands of such complaints every year (and generally does not act on them), somewhat reluctantly decided that Meredith had indeed broken the rules. But Meredith went to court, arguing that the 38-year-old FCC rule violated the First Amendment ban on any law abridging freedom of speech and press. A Federal Court of Appeals ordered the FCC to reconsider that constitutional issue. Last week the FCC responded by junking the fairness doctrine entirely. /

Far from encouraging the free discussion of public issues, the FCC argued, Government regulation had a "chilling" effect on TV. Said FCC Chairman Dennis R. Patrick: "We seek to extend to the electronic press the same First Amendment guarantees that the print media have enjoyed since our country's inception." Or as Meredith's attorney, Floyd Abrams, put it: "This is the beginning of the end of government control over the content of what appears on television."

Well, not quite. Still in effect are the equal-time rule, which requires broadcasters to provide equal time to competing candidates for public office, and a provision obliging stations to cover issues of importance to the local community. So what will actually change? At larger stations, probably very little. Says Dennis FitzSimons, general manager of Chicago's independent WGN- TV: "Our policy has always been to air opposing views and to be fair." But smaller stations may be a different matter. For instance, under the old rule, says Robert L. Foss of the Florida Association of Broadcasters, many small operators hesitated to air editorials.

When regulation began in the 1920s, the airwaves seemed limited, but today the U.S. has 10,128 radio stations and 1,611 TV stations (compared with 1,657 daily newspapers). The power of the unfettered marketplace is not an unmixed blessing, however. Says Ben H. Bagdikian, dean of the graduate school of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley: "I don't think there will be a significant increase in public affairs on TV because it's much more profitable to do other things."

If this prediction proves correct, nobody will be quicker to sound the alarm than Congress. Both Houses passed legislation earlier this year to "codify" the fairness doctrine, but President Reagan vetoed it as "antagonistic to the freedom of expression." Congressional backers of the doctrine are preparing to try again, and one of them, Democratic Senator Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina, denounced last week's FCC action as "wrongheaded, misguided and illogical." They face an uphill battle, though, against both the Administration and the press. As the Washington Post pointedly editorialized, "The FCC has done the right thing, and Congress should take no action to overturn its decision."

With reporting by Elaine Shannon/Washington, with other bureaus