The "Fairness Doctrine" for Broadcasting was enacted in 1949 by the FCC and it required broadcasters to give equal time to dissenting opinions.
The Reagan-Bush administration abolished this act some twenty-five years ago and its absence is credited with having created the profound explosion of well-financed, "conservative talk" (rabid right-wing extremism, pro-Corporatism, anti-liberalism, anti-worker, anti-environment, hate-speech, propaganda) dominance over the radio.
Growing out of this miscarrige of the public airwaves was the rise of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, etc. and all the rest, and it has created a condition in this Country where there is no place that you can spin the dial and get away from the onslaught of this propaganda (wrapped in an American flag).
What is very sad to me is that when Bill Clinton was President he did not revive the "Fairness Docterine".
Not only would doing that have protected his own administration from an avalanche of baseless smears and attacks but it also would have helped create a more positive environment that would've made it easier for the Democrats to maintain control in Congress (or least avoid a total blowout).
Free Congress Foundation panelists (a right-wing group) "warned" that a Democratic president would be able to appoint FCC commissioners who could unilaterally reinstate the rule, though it didn't happen in the eight years of the Clinton presidency.
We need to make the resinstatement of the "Fairness Doctrine" a core agenda item and demand that our Democratic nominee whether it is Obama, Edwards, Hillary, Richardson, or whoever go on the record and commit to bring this back.
Not only should this be brought back, but in fact, it should be strengthened well beyond where it was 30 years ago. There needs to be some rules and regulation that applies to the public airwaves such that they behave in a manner that is consistent with the public interest.
Should an entity such as "Fox News" even be allowed to exist in the posture of a News network? Should political pundit programs ranging from cable news to "Meet the Press", etc. be allowed to have roundtable discussions and political analysis on any given program that does not include representatives from the liberal side of the spectrum (typically, we only see a dialog between right-wingers and "moderate Democrats")?
The Don Imus blowup can be used here as an impetus for getting this put back on the agenda. No Democratic candidate has spoken about this yet (although, I believe that Dennis Kucinich would support it), but we need to push them and make it clear that the next Democratic President has to address this problem and reinstate (and strengthen) the "Fairness Doctrine" for broadcasting.