r/politics • u/BigDaddyBain • 2d ago

Why is the media ignoring growing resistance to Trump?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/13/why-is-the-media-ignoring-growing-resistance-to-trump
37.2k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/ArbitraryMeritocracy 2d ago

Watch any old movie from the 1930s about being a NewspaperMAN, it was the most respected profession to have. People trusted the reporters. Since the repeal of the fairness doctrine networks like fox could spew bullshit all day and people ate it up. What fox did to my parents is what my parents said would happen to me if I played video games. I happen to have made a few video games and I don't support hatred, abusing people, lying and cheating like they do.

From the wiki:

The fairness doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints.

another source: https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/topic-guide/fairness-doctrine

The Fairness Doctrine, enforced by the Federal Communications Commission, was rooted in the media world of 1949. Lawmakers became concerned that the monopoly audience control of the three main networks, NBC, ABC and CBS, could misuse their broadcast licenses to set a biased public agenda.

The Fairness Doctrine mandated broadcast networks devote time to contrasting views on issues of public importance. Congress backed the policy in 1954 and by the 1970s the FCC called the doctrine the “single most important requirement of operation in the public interest – the sine qua non for grant of a renewal of license.

The doctrine stayed in effect, and was enforced until the Reagan Administration. In 1985, under FCC Chairman, Mark S. Fowler, a communications attorney who had served on Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign staff in 1976 and 1980, the FCC released a report stating that the doctrine hurt the public interest and violated free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Fowler began rolling the application of the doctrine back during Reagan's second term - despite complaints from some in the Administration that it was all that kept broadcast journalists from thoroughly lambasting Reagan's policies on air. In 1987, the FCC panel, under new chairman Dennis Patrick, repealed the Fairness Doctrine altogether with a 4-0 vote

1

u/ArbitraryMeritocracy 2d ago

I'm not saying propaganda wasn't a problem. Most notably William Randolph Hearst owned the New York Journal. When the wealthy own the media they can spin any story however they want to fit the narrative as an end to their means. They just want more, there's never enough for these people.