In Which I Lose Confidence in Howard Dean Over Government Media Regulation

Howard Dean used to be one of my favorite people in the whole wide world. Working on his campaign was a privilege. I remember being very impressed with his willingness to talk policy with me. Most candidates don’t give college-age supporters the time of day. Governor Dean gave us a lot more than lip service.

I was also impressed with his approach to gun control as a state’s rights issue. “Here’s a guy who is willing to abandon the expedient party line in favor of a balanced, informed, novel approach to policy,” I thought.

Now it seems that I was either very wrong, or the job of being Democratic Party Chairman has changed Governor Dean. Either way, I’m deeply disappointed in his advocacy of government regulation of the media.

Democrats are lobbying hard for a re-institution of the Fairness Doctrine, which until 1987 required that media outlets give “equal time” to all sides of an issue. How many sides there were, and what constituted equal time was left up to the government.

We need look no further than PRAVDA to understand why government control of the media is a terrible idea, if not downright unconstitutional here in the good ol’ U.S.A.

And even if government control of the media were a good idea, we live in a world where anyone with a modem can start a blog and start expressing his opinion. The government couldn’t possibly exercise control over the neutrality of all media, so why even try?

As George F. Will so aptly put it, any successful political party will need to “compete in the marketplace of ideas” in order to succeed with the body politic. The Democratic Party’s newfound obsession with the Fairness Doctrine demonstrates their lack of confidence in their ability to appeal to the masses.

The best approach is to scrap the Fairness Doctrine entirely and spend our time having a frank discussion about how American public schools prepare the next generations of Americans. Critical thinking skills and a basic understanding of economics, history, and politics should be absolute prerequisites for high school graduation. We need to empower people to sift through the sea of information, synthesize the facts, and come up with their own well-informed perspectives.

Government-enforced “fairness” couldn’t possibly compare to that.

Shame on you, Chairman Dean.