The Fairness Doctrine was a U.S. federal policy that required broadcast journalists to give comparable attention to multiple competing opinions when covering controversial public interest issues. While the Fairness Doctrine was revoked in 1987, its underlying principle—that journalists should provide “balance” by portraying multiple sides of an issue—has become a norm in American journalism. Oreskes and Conway suggest that this has contributed to systematic media bias ever since, because covering multiple “sides” of a scientific controversy once work scientists have already reached a consensus really just means giving unearned coverage to fringe contrarians.
Fairness Doctrine Quotes in Merchants of Doubt
The Merchants of Doubt quotes below are all either spoken by Fairness Doctrine or refer to Fairness Doctrine. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 6
Quotes
Imagine providing “balance” to the issue of whether the Earth orbits the Sun, whether continents move, or whether DNA carries genetic information. These matters were long ago settled in scientists’ minds. Nobody can publish an article in a scientific journal claiming the Sun orbits the Earth, and for the same reason, you can’t publish an article in a peer-reviewed journal claiming there’s no global warming. Probably well-informed professional science journalists wouldn’t publish it either. But ordinary journalists repeatedly did.
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Fairness Doctrine Term Timeline in Merchants of Doubt
The timeline below shows where the term Fairness Doctrine appears in Merchants of Doubt. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...Thus, the pamphlets made settled science look like a lively, ongoing controversy. Moreover, the federal Fairness Doctrine required journalists to take balanced approaches to controversial issues, and when it came to cigarettes...
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Conclusion
...argue that democracy is impossible without a free press to inform citizens. Even though the Fairness Doctrine is no longer law, U.S. media still tries to give equal coverage to every “side”...
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