This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, May 29th, 2009.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The now dormant fairness doctrine was used by at least three presidents to make broadcasting

dissent more difficult and even if it doesn't come back something just as

troubling may replace it so says John Sam, director of the Cato Institute's Center for

Representative Government, his new paper, broadcast localism and the

lessons of the fairness doctrine, is now available at Cato.org.

Or. is now available at Cato.org.

What does the public think about the First Amendment in general?

If you ask about the First Amendment and whether a person supports it.

There is overwhelming support for the First Amendment,

for free speech, freedom of religion, those general terms.

Those questions attract 90% support.

However, for 50 years now, when polling firms have asked about specific instances of the exercise of free speech or other First Amendment rights,

it's always a much less encouraging set of responses.

What you really find is very rarely majority supporting actual freedom of speech in actual

concrete circumstances, like for example letting a controversial speaker let go at a local school or

something like that that does not get majority support and that is why I think the First Amendment is so important.

It really in concrete ways can constrain what is impulsive public reactions to speech.

How has the fairness doctrine been used in the past to squelch speech?

Well, the fairness doctrine has been used at various times in various

ways to make it more difficult to say things over the broadcast media that the dominant political

...