I’d like to humbly submit a new rule for The Pendulum for the 2007-08 school year: thou shalt not write lame conservative editorials without doing some kind of research.

This new rule might protect us from journalistic disasters like last week’s “The Fairness Doctrine.”

First of all, I should be clear that I’m not particularly interested in arguing the merits of the Fairness Doctrine. I think it was pretty ineffective, and there are probably better ways of tackling bias on the public air waves.

What makes this editorial so shockingly bad is its brazen disregard for facts. The Fairness Doctrine, when it was in effect, applied to broadcast licenses.

The entire idea of issuing a license is predicated on the notion that the public owns the airwaves. Private companies own and operate the stations, but they are merely trustees of the public airwaves. The real owners of the airwaves are American taxpayers.

The Fairness Doctrine never put the government “in charge” of any stations - it merely mandated that stations must include contrasting points of view on controversial issues.

The oft-used example is the case in which a station editorialized against a candidate - they were required to allow the candidate to respond. Whether or not it’s a good idea, it certainly doesn’t qualify as state ownership.

The most laughable part of the entire piece, though, is when the author wildly speculates that the Fairness Doctrine could be applied to movies. This frightening scenario is impeded by one small issue: the FCC has no jurisdiction over movies, and has never regulated films. Ever.

It’s all well and good to talk about letting “the marketplace” decide what we should be talking about, but it just doesn’t have anything to do with the reality of the situation.

The fact is, the public airwaves aren’t the property of “the market” - they belong to us. And if the public interest isn’t being served by the trustees of those airwaves, we have the right and responsibility to punish those neglecting their duty.

So, what’s the lesson here? If you want to write conservative editorials with silly straw-man arguments, fine. Go for it. But please do your readers a favor and at least Google something before spouting off.

Student: Daniel Shutt ‘09 - 09/05/07