Ayn Rand on the Fairness Doctrine — VOICES for REASON

I’ve registered my pleasure at the news that FCC chairman-to-be Julius Genachowski has vowed not to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. But some of you may recall an article in which Ayn Rand seemed to support the Fairness Doctrine and even recommended extending it to the field of education. Let’s look at what she actually said.

This is from Rand’s 1972 article “A Fairness Doctrine for Education” (reprinted in Philosophy: Who Needs It).

The doctrine is a typical product of the socialist sentimentality that dreams of combining government ownership with intellectual freedom. As applied to television and radio broadcasting, the fairness doctrine demands that equal opportunity be given to all sides of a controversial issue–on the grounds of the notion that “the people owns the airwaves” and, therefore, all factions of “the people” should have equal access to their communal property.

The trouble with the fairness doctrine is that it cannot be applied fairly. Like any ideological product of the mixed economy, it is a vague, indefinable approximation and, therefore, an instrument of pressure-group warfare. Who determines which issues are controversial? Who chooses the representatives of the different sides in a given controversy? If there are too many conflicting viewpoints, which are to be given a voice and which are to be kept silent? Who is “the people” and who is not?

It is clear that the individual’s views are barred altogether and that the “fairness” is extended only to groups. The formula employed by the television stations in New York declares that they recognize their obligation to provide equal time to “significant opposing viewpoints.” Who determines which viewpoint is “significant”? Is the standard qualitative or quantitative? It is obviously this last, as one may observe in practice: whenever an answer is given to a TV editorial, it is given by a representative of some group involved in the debated subject.

The fairness doctrine (as well as the myth of public ownership) is based on the favorite illusion of the mushy socialists, i.e., those who want to combine force and freedom, as distinguished from the bloody socialists, i.e., the communists and fascists. That illusion is the belief that the people (“the masses”) would be essentially unanimous, that dissenting groups would be rare and easily accommodated, that a monolithic majority-will would prevail, and that any injustice done would be done only to recalcitrant individuals, who, in socialist theory, do not count anyway. (For a discussion of why the airwaves should be private property, see “The Property Status of Airwaves” in my book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.)

In practice, the fairness doctrine has led to the precarious rule of a “centrist” attitude: of timidity, compromise and fear (with the “center” slithering slowly, inexorably to the left)—i.e., control by the Establishment, limited only by the remnants of a tradition of freedom: by lip service to “impartiality,” by fear of being caught at too obvious an “unfairness,” and by the practice of “window dressing,” which consists in some occasional moments of air time tossed to some representatives of extreme and actually significant opposing viewpoints. Such a policy, by its very nature, is temporary.

What, then, did Ayn Rand’s support of the Fairness Doctrine consist of?

At a time when the airwaves were not private, but government controlled; at a time when these government controlled airwaves were the only outlet for mass communication aside from print; at a time when there was a seemingly impenetrable intellectual establishment seeking to secure its dominance with government power–in that context, Rand held that the Fairness Doctrine was “a minimal retarder of the collectivist trend,” which “prevented the Establishment’s total takeover of the airwaves,” and which was “the last chance that the advocates of freedom [had], as far as the airwaves [were] concerned.” A pretty qualified endorsement, that.

And Rand made it clear: the proper goal was genuine freedom on the airwaves. This meant privatizing the airwaves and barring the government from any interference in the communication of ideas.

Today the context is radically different. Instead of 4 or 5 TV channels and a handful of radio stations held tightly in the fist of the FCC, people today have virtually unlimited ways to communicate to a mass audience, from cable and satellite TV to satellite radio and above all the Internet. And while the airwaves continue to be subject to a significant degree of government control, pro-freedom voices are no longer effectively barred from radio and TV. To revive the Fairness Doctrine in today’s context would be to move toward less free speech, making it harder for rational ideas to get heard.