Reagan FCC Abolishes Fairness Doctrine in 4-0 Vote, Eliminating Balanced Coverage Requirements for Broadcasters

FCC Chairman Dennis R. Patrick’s Commission votes 4-0 to abolish the Fairness Doctrine in the Syracuse Peace Council decision, eliminating the 38-year requirement that broadcast licensees using publicly-owned airwaves must provide balanced coverage of controversial issues and present opposing viewpoints. The decision culminates a coordinated corporate lobbying campaign and Reagan administration deregulation effort to remove public interest obligations from broadcasters, justified by claims that the doctrine violates First Amendment rights and that marketplace competition will ensure media diversity without regulatory enforcement.

The abolition follows systematic groundwork by Reagan-appointed FCC Chairman Mark S. Fowler (1981-1987), a telecommunications attorney and Reagan campaign staffer who releases a 1985 FCC report declaring the Fairness Doctrine “hurt the public interest and violated free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.” Reagan judicial appointees Judges Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia provide crucial legal support through a 1986 D.C. Circuit Court opinion declaring that Congress had not actually codified the doctrine into law despite the 1959 amendment to Section 315(a) of the Communications Act explicitly requiring broadcasters to “afford reasonable opportunity for discussion of conflicting views on matters of public importance.”

When Congress attempts to restore the Fairness Doctrine through the Fairness in Broadcasting Act of 1987 (S. 742), President Reagan vetoes the legislation in June 1987, arguing that government oversight of editorial practices is “antagonistic to the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment” and would be “unthinkable” for any medium besides broadcasting. Congress fails to override the veto. The National Association of Broadcasters president Edward O. Fritts applauds Reagan’s veto, declaring the doctrine “an infringement on free speech and intrudes on broadcasters’ journalistic judgment” - revealing industry lobbying’s central role in the doctrine’s elimination.

The Fairness Doctrine’s abolition enables the rapid rise of partisan and “unfiltered” talk radio including Rush Limbaugh’s nationally-syndicated show (launched 1988), contributing to increasing polarization of American media and political discourse. Subsequent attempts to revive the doctrine are blocked by President George H.W. Bush’s veto threat (1991). The FCC’s willingness to abolish a 38-year regulatory framework through a single 4-0 vote, overriding congressional intent and public interest protections, demonstrates how regulatory capture and ideological deregulation can dismantle democratic safeguards protecting media diversity and balanced public discourse. The trajectory from the Fairness Doctrine’s establishment (1949) to its abolition (1987) to six corporations controlling 90% of American media (2017) illustrates how removing public accountability requirements for private use of public resources accelerates monopoly consolidation and undermines democratic information systems.