ABSTRACT
The field of broadcast regulation has seemed, of late, to be slipping into constitutional chaos. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has repealed the “fairness doctrine”—a regulatory mainstay since before there was an FCC-calling it unconstitutional.1 The Supreme Court decision upholding the fairness doctrine, the FCC blithely stated, “cannot be reconciled with well-established constitutional precedent.”2 A D.C. Circuit decision a few years ago took the position that the entire
basis for our broadcast regulatory scheme is incoherent.3 Courts have seemed eager to strike down as unconstitutional federal statutes regulating broadcasting;4 Presidents Reagan and Bush vetoed bills on the same ground.5 The cable television regulatory scheme has been the subject of especially punishing judicial attack.6 Academics have joined the
onslaught. Some have attacked specific aspects of the regulatory scheme,7 while others have suggested that the entire American broadcast regulatory system is hopelessly m conflict with core First Amendment values and should be discarded.8
