The anecdote remains with me, years after reading about it. In advance of the arrival of Pope John Paul II for his first papal visit to the United States, a prominent Protestant religious scholar and ecumenist received a call from a journalist for one of the major television networks. This producer needed help from the scholar, you see – in order to provide balance and fairness in the coverage of this historic event, it was necessary for her to find a “respectable anti-Catholic” to provide commentary during the broadcast.

Why the need to find someone to bash the Pope? Why not respectfully present the historical and religious event as significant in and of itself – perhaps even with a little bit of reverence? Because of a misguided notion of “fairness” as found in the so-called “Fariness Doctrine”, that’s why. Because of a government mandate that there be equal time given to different points of view, even the bigots need to be given their say.

Of course, advocates of this faux fairness would argue, equal time doesn’t mean that any old viewpoint needs to be given a chance to be heard on the airways. But as a practical matter, it will mean giving special prominence to “opposing views” that are outside the mainstream in the interest of making “good television” or “good radio”. We already see that, when Ann Coulter is used as the “conservative voice” on liberal shows. Rather than a thoughtful voice, we get screeching rants that contribute lots of heat and very little light. But at least Coulter has the advantage of being somewhat in the mainstream, as measured by book sales and circulation figures.

But imagine a discussion of terrorism. Will it be necessary for every discussion a bombing to include an apologist for Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda? And if the discussion doesn’t, has the station in question violated its obligation to provide balance? Doesn’t the Fairness Doctrine really do nothing more than create a new grievance class – in this case, marginalized terror supporters. Should the WTC attacks on 9/11 have been accompanied with the pious dronings of an America-hating Islamist to explain why our nation deserved to have thousands killed?

But the reality is that such extremes may still be left out, on the theory that their views are sufficiently bizarre to include. Instead, the new rules will be used to force conservative commentators to include liberal views – or broadcasters to exclude the conservative commentators that the audience has again and again shown that it wants. That isn’t fairness – that is out-and-out censorship. And it is the goal of those seeking to revive the Fairness Doctrine.

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