How would you apply the fairness doctrine to the web though. Will I have to host opposing viewpoints on my blog or face fines? The fairness doctrine made sense back when your ability to broadcast your opinions was limited by the shared medium of the radio spectrum. But now that anyone with any viewpoint can broadcast to everyone via the Internet the fairness doctrine doesn't make sense.
I think if the fairness doctrine were applied solely to broadcast media (as it is described in aforementioned wikipedia link) then it works.
It's not a per-episode or per-program level, it's per-broadcaster. Also the fairness doctrine doesn't include (but worked in conjunction with) the Equal Time rule [1].
Paradoxically there are many people who are conditioned to believe the random blog over the newspaper. People have been told to "think for themselves" and "do their own research", and so when they stumble on a conspiracy-minded blog, it feels like a more authentic voice than mainstream media.
I don't know what the solution is. It's impossible and unreasonable to expect individual bloggers to hold the same standard as newspapers traditionally did. Maybe social networks could do something to educate readers?
Swiss director Jean-Luc Godard provocatively said once that real impartiality is 50% time for the Jews, 50% time for Hitler. I don’t think I should have to support the views I disagree with anymore than a government should be able to impose their views on my free speech.
