The Daily Swarm

Last week I got a call from Randy Randall, guitarist for Los Angeles rock duo No Age, who are currently on the Sub Pop record label. Randy was flustered, talking a mile-a-minute, about what had just gone down. The band had just finished performing a song for some sort of Craig Ferguson/CBS TV thing that was to be broadcast October 27—just over a week before the presidential election. Cameras were about to roll when suddently they were told by an on-set CBS underling that something needed to go: Randy’s Obama t-shirt.

This wasn’t because CBS wanted No Age to go topless. They’re keeping that for the spring break special. No, this was because, the CBS person said, the Obama shirt was on-air editorializing—a possible violation of some FCC edict which this person claimed called for equal time to be given to opposing political viewpoints.

One problem: the last remnant of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” was repealed in 1987; the repeal was upheld by court ruling in 1989.

Since then, corrollary rules of the Fairness Doctrine—the “personal attack” rule and the “political editorial” rule—have also been struck down in the courts, with the last court ruling (and subsequent FCC order) coming in 2000.

In short, there is no fairness rule. Randy’s Obama shirt was perfectly broadcastable under every existing law.