Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast. Let's talk about the fairness doctrine. It's a term getting

thrown around a lot today by politicians and pundits who say they want to bring it back,

but who don't really seem to grasp what it was or how it worked.

We're going to try to take a small step toward remedying that today by exploring the Fairness Doctrine's

history, what it was, what it wasn't, and what it would mean today. I'm your host, Corbyn Barthold.

I'm delighted to be talking today with Paul Matzgo. Paul is the editor for

technology and innovation at Libertarianism.org and the host of the podcast Building Tomorrow.

He is also a leading historian on the Fairness Doctrine. His first book, The Radio Right,

How a Band of Broadcasters took on the federal government and built the modern conservative movement, was published last year. Paul, it's great to have you on.

It's a pleasure to be with you, Corbyn.

So, Paul, people hear fairness doctrine, and it seems they think, who doesn't like fairness?

There's a lot of misinformation out there.

A fairness doctrine would force media outlets to give equal coverage to both sides on an issue.

You know, hey, let's do that.

I'll pick on Max Boot as one person expressing basically this sentiment. In a recent piece in the

Washington Post, he called on the Biden administration to, quote, reinvigorate the FCC,

the Federal Communications Commission. To get a clear picture of everything that's wrong with this sentiment, I think it'd

be good if you could walk us through the early history of radio, how the Fairness Doctrine

came to be, above all, what the Fairness Doctrine was, and how it rose and then fell.

Yeah, so it's funny when I hear people talk about the fairness doctrine today

because it's almost totemic in quality.

I mean, people don't actually know much about the real history of the fairness doctrine,

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