Public regulation of the broadcast media is now under strong attack and may even be fighting for its life. Opposition to regulation has been gaining strength gradually over the last decade, but it has now gathered such force that even the very federal agency that developed the principal regulations at issue and has served as overseer of the regulatory system for the past half century is openly calling for a return to the free market system as the exclusive mechanism for ensuring a rich marketplace of ideas. That politics makes strange bedfellows has long been appreciated, but the alliance of political ideologies that stands behind this opposition to public regulation gives new life to that adage. The Federal Communications Commission's 1985 “Report on the General Fairness Doctrine Obligations of Broadcast Licensees,” which issues the call for the abandonment of the fairness doctrine, draws heavily on the writings and opinions of Justice William O. Douglas.

It is, indeed, the fairness doctrine that is now the primary battleground for the war being waged over public regulation of the media. Generally, three arguments are leveled against the doctrine. First, it is claimed that the doctrine chills more speech than it fosters. Because the doctrine imposes a variety of costs on broadcasters – such as the cost of covering opposing viewpoints at the broadcaster's own expense and the costs of resisting fairness doctrine complaints – broadcasters often choose not to cover public issues at all, thus reducing instead of expanding the amount of discussion of public issues on television and radio.