The FCC’s stance on local radio stations has silently contributed to the devolution of diversity in the body politic, leaving Americans more divided now than ever. The dismantling of federal communications controls by Ronald Reagan eliminated the principles of fairness and balance as requisites for broadcasting over the public’s airwaves. Radio stations were no longer bound by equal time provisions or even required to air opposing points of view. Elimination of the Fairness Doctrine gave rise to the phenomenon known as conservative talk radio, which now dominates the AM band.

As damaging, was the relaxation of rules that limited ownership of multiple broadcast licenses in a single market and cross-media ownerships. The result is that media conglomerates now own newspapers and multiple radio and tv stations in the same market. The danger is that when all of the news and information in a market is llimited or controlled by one prevailing point of view or another, the public is unduly influenced and unfairly deprived of balanced information.

Eliminating diversity of thought produces homogeneity of thinking, which is contrary to the notion that ours is a free society.

Freedom of speech means all citizens are free to express their views, even if we don’t agree with them. So, anyone who wants to have the exclusive use of a publicly-owned radio frequency should at least be required to provide programming that serves the public interest. That’s only fair.