00:00The FCC has been making more and more headlines.
00:03There's been calls from the president and some on the right for the FCC to take action
00:08against what they see as biased or fake news across public airwaves.
00:13There's also been some concern, largely from those on the left,
00:17over whether the FCC would overreach its authority by making content decisions.
00:23Recently propelled after FCC Chair Brendan Carr weighed in over the Jimmy Kimmel controversy,
00:28suggesting ABC should take him off air, which they ultimately did, but only briefly.
00:37With all the talk about the FCC, let's take a step back from the noise and look at the bigger picture,
00:43what the Federal Communications Commission is responsible for,
00:47how it served at different capacities as a regulatory enforcer over the years,
00:52and why one media law expert says the changing media landscape we're in today
00:57could drastically change the FCC's role.
01:02Since the 30s, the FCC has had the authority to regulate broadcasters,
01:08including some forms of content regulation.
01:12David Oxenford is a broadcast and digital media law attorney.
01:16He spoke with Straight Arrow News about the longstanding history of the FCC
01:21and how the agency has been at the center of free speech and public interest debates for many years.
01:28The FCC was established in 1934,
01:32installing a list of regulations and standards for radio and later TV broadcasters.
01:38Prior to the 1980s, the FCC had some very strict requirements
01:44as to the number of minutes of news reporting that stations had to do,
01:52the number of minutes of public affairs programming that stations had to do.
01:57At this point in time, broadcasters were also abiding what was called the Fairness Doctrine,
02:02which was an FCC policy introduced in 1949 and required broadcasts to present controversial public issues
02:11in a fair and balanced manner and requiring equal airtime to opposing viewpoints.
02:17And that was done away with 30 years ago because of the First Amendment concerns.
02:22Basically, the FCC determined, hey, we can't impose, after some court questions,
02:30we can't impose the Fairness Doctrine, we can't enforce the Fairness Doctrine
02:35consistent with our statutory obligation to stay out of First Amendment issues.
02:41While there were stricter FCC regulations in the immediate decades after it was established,
02:47a deregulation era took place in the 1980s
02:50under Republican President Ronald Reagan,
02:53repealing that Fairness Doctrine and also repealing other broadcast regulations,
02:58including ownership limits being loosened
03:01and public interest requirements easing, all in the name of free speech.
03:06There is a clear statutory requirement imposed by Congress
03:11that the FCC not abridge the free speech rights of broadcasters.
03:18Since that era of deregulation 30 years ago,
03:21there have been questions over whether the rules and standards eased too much.
03:26Since then, there have been many questions raised at different points in time
03:33as to whether the FCC should go back to some sort of quantitative requirements
03:39or some more specific obligations to be imposed by broadcasters
03:45for their obligation to serve the needs and interests of their communities.
03:50Broadcasters who have FCC licenses do have rules to follow,
03:54one being they must operate in the public interest,
03:57something that can be interpreted differently.
04:00I think there are questions about whether the public interest itself
04:05gives the FCC the authority to make up regulatory requirements
04:12that aren't set out by Congress.
04:18Throughout the FCC's history,
04:20there have been attempts to determine exactly what is in the public interest
04:30for broadcasters who are generally supposed to meet the needs and interests
04:37of the communities that they serve.
04:40Both Republican and Democratic administrations of recent
04:43have looked into the scope of the FCC's regulatory power.
04:47In 2005, President George W. Bush
04:50signed the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act,
04:53legislation that increased FCC fines
04:56for obscenity and indecency broadcasted on public airwaves.
05:01I think the last probably instance
05:04in where the FCC really captured the public imagination
05:08was in some of the indecency regulation
05:11that they have engaged in over the years.
05:14The Janet Jackson incident during the Super Bowl.
05:18That Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction
05:20directly coincided with Bush's legislation.
05:24Oxenford says there's been other more recent studies
05:27over whether FCC regulations
05:29should expand in the name of public interest.
05:32In the first part of the Obama administration,
05:35there was a big study commissioned
05:38about the informational needs of communities.
05:41Again, a big study was done, a report was put out,
05:45and then nothing happened
05:48because it's so hard for the government
05:51to regulate what broadcasters should be doing
05:57consistent with the First Amendment.
05:59It's a double-edged sword here,
06:01enforcing public interest without infringing on free speech.
06:06And that's a tricky balance for the FCC.
06:09It's very difficult to adopt general rules
06:15that don't put the government
06:17in the position of assessing speech
06:21to determine what is and is not in the public interest.
06:28Back in the 40s and 50s, radio and TV was a scarcity.
06:32Not everyone could broadcast.
06:33And because of that, the FCC said broadcasters
06:37had a special responsibility to the public.
06:40But Oxenford raises the question
06:42of whether today's changing media landscape
06:45could one day change that.
06:47There's questions today
06:51about whether that scarcity doctrine
06:53that justified regulation of broadcasters still applies.
06:57Broadcasting is no longer
06:59the single ubiquitous way,
07:03the way that everybody gets their news and information.
07:08People don't even have radios
07:09and over-the-air TVs in their homes.
07:13So whether any content regulation
07:17still makes sense for broadcasters,
07:20I think, is an open question
07:21and probably one that the courts
07:23will be addressing in the years ahead.
07:28So I think a lot of the justification
07:30for the FCC's regulation of broadcasting
07:33may over time disappear.
07:35Thank you for watching our news story
07:37and thank you to David Oxenford
07:39for his time talking with us
07:40about an issue that is very relevant
07:42in today's news cycle.
07:44For more stories that matter to you,
07:46download the Straight Arrow News mobile app
07:48or visit us online at san.com.
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