Chuck

So the USDA radio service began talking to farmers in 1926.

The U.S.

Bureau of Home Economics

Had a chat program they launched, I believe in the same year, where they could talk about like, you know, any emergencies happening in regards to kids, like health and safety stuff, like a new disease going around that your kid maybe should get vaccinated against, stuff like that.

Newfangled polio.

But by the end of the 1920s, they were like, hey, there's a limited bandwidth and people are getting political messages out.

And we need to make sure that everyone in America is getting sort of equal access to these messages.

So, you know, no particular message gets out more than any other.

And that's where the Fairness Doctrine came about.

Right.

Yeah, we talked about that in the presidential debates episode, but I think it deserves its own episode.

It's so controversial.

But basically the fairness doctrine is what I was talking about earlier when I said the government wasn't shy about getting involved in regulating radio because of what you just said.

Like you can't just use radio at the time you couldn't to just put out one, say, specific political viewpoint.

So the Fairness Doctrine said you have to have equal time when you're talking about political matters.

You have to give equal time to both opposing viewpoints.

It also said some other stuff, too, that I thought was pretty cool.

It made sure that commercial concerns did not eclipse social ones.

So you couldn't screw over the public for your own bottom line, which is just refreshing these days.

that radio served the public good, and that you have like a kind of public programming that's essentially like, in addition to all of the, you know, ventriloquist acts and soap operas and all that, you have like stuff that makes people, helps people be more informed citizens.