Bill Ruder, a member of Kennedy's subcabinet, said: "Our massive strategy was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters in the hope that the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue." The Nixon administration frequently threatened the three networks and individual stations with expensive license challenges under the Fairness Doctrine.

In 1973, Supreme Court justice and liberal icon William Douglas said: "The Fairness Doctrine has no place in our First Amendment regime. It puts the head of the camel inside the tent and enables administration after administration to toy with TV and radio." The Reagan administration scrapped the doctrine because of its chilling effect on controversial speech, and because the scarcity rationale was becoming absurd.

Adam Thierer, writing in the City Journal, notes that today's "media cornucopia" has made America "as information-rich as any society in history." In addition to the Internet's uncountable sources of information, there are 14,000 radio stations—twice as many as in 1970—and satellite radio has nearly 14 million subscribers. Eighty-seven percent of households have either cable or satellite television with more than 500 channels to choose from. There are more than 19,000 magazines (up more than 5,000 since 1993). Thierer says, consider a black lesbian feminist who hunts and likes country music:

"Would the 'mainstream media' of 25 years ago represented any of her interests? Unlikely. Today, though, this woman can program her TiVo to record her favorite shows on Black Entertainment Television, Logo (a gay/lesbian-oriented cable channel), Oxygen (female-targeted programming), the Outdoor Life Network and Country Music Television."

Some of today's illiberals say that media abundance, not scarcity, justifies the Fairness Doctrine: Americans, the poor dears, are bewildered by too many choices. And the plenitude of information sources disperses "the national campfire," the cozy communitarian experience of the good old days (for liberals), when everyone gathered around—and was dependent on—ABC, NBC and CBS.

"I believe we need to re-regulate the media," says Howard Dean. Such illiberals argue that the paucity of liberal successes in today's radio competition—and the success of Fox News—somehow represent "market failure." That is the regularly recurring, all-purpose rationale for government intervention in markets. Market failure is defined as consumers' not buying what liberals are selling.

© 2007