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PMatzko's profile
Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko

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Paul Matzko

@PMatzko

Historian. Author of "The Radio Right" (Oxford, 2020). Cato Institute. Editor for Tech & Innovation at http://Libertarianism.org 

amazon.com/Radio-Right-Br…
Joined September 2010

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    1. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

      The case, Trinity Methodist Church South v. Federal Radio Commission (1932), made its way to federal circuit court, which denied his license renewal and, more importantly, upheld the FRC's power to license or deny stations on the basis of the content of their speech.

      1 reply 6 retweets 111 likes
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    2. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

      All subsequent jurisprudence on broadcast speech regulation hinged on Trinity and a handful of other cases from the time.https://www.leagle.com/decision/193291262f2d8501585 …

      1 reply 7 retweets 100 likes
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    3. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

      There's a big contrast b/t what was happening in free speech cases in broadcasting vs print media. Just before the Trinity case (& cited by it), the US Supreme Court had ruled in Near v. Minnesota (1931) that prior restraint on newspapers was censorship.https://billofrightsinstitute.org/e-lessons/near-v-minnesota-1931 …

      1 reply 7 retweets 115 likes
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    4. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

      So we ended up with two very different regimes in mass media. Print speech received firmer & clearer protections from the courts. Meanwhile, broadcast speech was given second-class status. The FCC could grant/pull licenses based on whether it favored the content of their speech.

      1 reply 16 retweets 137 likes
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    5. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

      You might wonder how the FRC/FCC got away with it? Simple. They invented a reason. They came up with the "scarcity rationale," which said that since the radio spectrum was finite, the First Amendment shouldn't apply because the government *had* to choose winners/losers.

      1 reply 13 retweets 148 likes
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    6. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

      But the scarcity rationale was a legal fiction, if for no other reason than b/c the FCC has *never* hit the technical limit on the # of possible stations, either then or now. Nevertheless, that was the ex post facto justification that the courts bought until 1994.

      4 replies 13 retweets 149 likes
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    7. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

      What do you think politicians and interest groups would do if we suddenly removed most free speech protections from a mass media form today? They would game the system to punish the speech of people they dislike & reward their allies for speech that they prefer.

      3 replies 24 retweets 168 likes
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    8. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

      And that's what happened in the 1930s. For instance, President-for-Life Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't like criticism. He believed he was saving America from the Great Depression and had little tolerance for those who criticized his New Deal plan.

      5 replies 15 retweets 139 likes
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    9. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

      The worst offenders were conservative newspaper owners who increasingly criticized him, especially after his Supreme Court-packing scheme in 1937. Now, cases like Near v. Minnesota had established that FDR couldn't go after his print critics, but...

      2 replies 8 retweets 115 likes
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    10. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

      ...he COULD go after his critics in radio. And many of those newspaper magnates were buying up radio stations. So FDR "put the blowtorch" on his FCC Chairman, Larry Fly, to use FCC regulatory authority to clamp down on the president's critics.

      1 reply 8 retweets 123 likes
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      Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

      Indeed, Fly's most lasting legacy was the Mayflower Doctrine, a precursor of the Fairness Doctrine. In Mayflower, a station that had "editorialized"--aired the opinion of the station owner--and attacked FDR lost its license to a disgruntled former employee.

      5:16 AM - 25 Jan 2021
      • 5 Retweets
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      • Kalendae.Arum LR-Escobar🪐 jdkahler Derek Tarantula Hawk🔔🦇 Robbie Clark Queen of Thirst Jynx🏳️‍🌈🔞🟣 NateGraynor BLM|RideDaArc🔞
      2 replies 5 retweets 120 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          Fly wrote, "A truly free radio cannot be used to advocate the causes of the licensee. It cannot be used to the support of principles he happens to regard most favorably. In brief, the broadcaster cannot be an advocate.” It was the "No True Scotsman" fallacy enshrined in policy.

          3 replies 7 retweets 126 likes
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        3. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          The radio industry pushed back, which ultimately ended with the FCC in 1949 repealing the Mayflower doctrine but still asserting that licensees who editorialize are "under an obligation to insure that opposing points of view will also be presented."

          1 reply 6 retweets 108 likes
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        4. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          This 1949 statement was the basis of the later Fairness Doctrine, which Congress indirectly validated in 1959 while trying to make sure that upstart politicians couldn't get a broadcast advantage over incumbent politicians in the election of 1960.

          1 reply 9 retweets 105 likes
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        5. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          The FCC slipped the Fairness Doctrine in w/ this "equal time" rule, but let's focus on the Fairness Doctrine. From 1949 - 1963, the FCC had exercised a policy of salutary neglect. There was relatively little attempt to control the content of broadcasting compared to the 30s.

          1 reply 2 retweets 99 likes
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        6. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          But something big was changing just under the surface of the radio industry. The big radio networks, which had controlled ~95% of all stations in the 1940s, turned its attention to the new television medium.

          1 reply 3 retweets 98 likes
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        7. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          Most new radio licenses started going to small-timers, like a car dealer who wanted a station to promote their business. Money was tight for these indie stations, so they were open to selling timeslots to previously marginalized and radical groups.

          2 replies 4 retweets 102 likes
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        8. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          That included a new generation of right-wing radio broadcasters who (unfairly) attacked liberals and Democrats as communist sympathizers. By 1961, President JFK was a particular target, whether for his mishandling of the Bay of Pigs or his proposed Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

          1 reply 2 retweets 94 likes
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        9. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          And this new "Radio Right," as I call it, went from nothing to something in just a few years. For example, the top of these broadcasters, the fundamentalist minister from New Jersey Carl McIntire, had gone from airing on 2 stations in 1956 to over 468 by 1964.pic.twitter.com/vvGOn9UNrF

          1 reply 4 retweets 98 likes
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        10. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          To give you a sense of the scale, McIntire's estimated weekly audience was 20 MILLION (which, for sake of comparison, is as many as Rush Limbaugh at his peak some forty years later.)

          1 reply 3 retweets 91 likes
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        11. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          JFK, who had narrowly won in 1960, wanted these Radio Right guys quashed. His brother & Attorney General Robert Kennedy (also the reason for anti-nepotism rules that held until Trump & "the Kush") concocted a plan with the help of labor union allies Walter & Victor Reuther.

          1 reply 5 retweets 94 likes
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        12. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          Their plan, nicknamed the "Reuther Memorandum," was, first, to use IRS audits to dry up the flow of listener donations to right-wing broadcasters; then they would use FCC Fairness Doctrine complaints to put pressure on the stations that sold these broadcasters airtime.

          1 reply 6 retweets 92 likes
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        13. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          You'll have to read my book for more about the IRS's "Ideological Organizations Project," but the Fairness Doctrine component was also highly successful. JFK told his newly appointed FCC Chairman Bill Henry in the summer of 1963, "It is important that stations be kept fair.”

          2 replies 5 retweets 91 likes
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        14. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          Henry promptly issued a "clarification" of the FD rules that singled out examples of conservative speech needing balancing by liberal voices. If a station didn't balance, well, someone could file a Fairness Doctrine complaint that would be considered at license renewal time.

          1 reply 2 retweets 80 likes
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        15. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          Losing a license was the death penalty for stations. Your expensive transmitter & tower were worthless without it. But even if you didn't lose your license, you might have to bear the expense of hiring legal counsel to fight the complaints, extra staff to show FD compliance, etc.

          1 reply 3 retweets 85 likes
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        16. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          Henry also formulated something called the Cullman Doctrine, which stipulated that response time to personal attacks--like, say, a criticism of an administration official--should be provided for free if the victim of the attack said they couldn't afford to pay.

          1 reply 2 retweets 84 likes
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        17. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          (They could never afford to pay.) This made allowing direct criticism of public figures an expensive proposition for station owners, who responded by ditching conservative broadcasters known for making attacks. Apolitical and mainstream content was less fuss, less muss.

          2 replies 2 retweets 89 likes
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        18. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          Here's an example of how the JFK administration used the FD to mute critics. JFK wanted a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty w/ the USSR as the centerpiece of his reelection bid. (He didn't yet know that he'd soon lose a meaningful portion of his skull in Dallas.) The Radio Right hated it.

          4 replies 4 retweets 94 likes
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        19. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          The White House organized a secret front organization, the Citizens Committee for a Nuclear Test Ban, to threaten stations that aired critiques w/ FD complaints unless they were given free response time. The plan was a success & 100s of hours of free pro-treaty time was secured.

          2 replies 4 retweets 93 likes
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        20. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          To give just one more example, the Democratic National Committee also secretly organized a pressure campaign in 1964 to get free airtime for the LBJ campaign. Eg, they demanded response time after a host accused LBJ of using the Gulf of Tonkin incident as a pretext for war.

          1 reply 5 retweets 92 likes
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        21. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          Johnson had done precisely that, of course--infamously saying behind closed doors that he didn't care if the radar ghosts were whales--but the truth in this instance was damaging and the lie politically useful.

          1 reply 2 retweets 84 likes
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        22. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          Some stations attempted to fight back. One case went to the US Supreme Court, Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC. The court, citing the Trinity precedent, upheld the FD, making a tortured comparison to acceptable limits placed on trucks carrying loudspeakers. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/2 

          1 reply 3 retweets 76 likes
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        23. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          But the justices had been snookered. They were totally unaware of the facts of the case, of the carefully laid plan for censorship created by the Kennedy administration and carried forward by the DNC. Indeed, the DNC had secretly backed and funded the complainant.

          1 reply 4 retweets 82 likes
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        24. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          They paid for his health insurance, notified him of Red Lion's personal attack, and so on. So the court had pooh-poohed allegations of censorship while validating the most successful episode of government censorship of the last half century.

          1 reply 1 retweet 83 likes
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        25. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          In any case, the censorship campaign was a wild success. Radio stations started dropping right-wing broadcasters in numbers, as you can see from this chart of Carl McIntire's total station count. By the 1970s, the Radio Right was a shadow of its former self.pic.twitter.com/ncIKsGuXa9

          1 reply 6 retweets 82 likes
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        26. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          Paul Matzko Retweeted Victor Pickard

          To step back from the story for a moment, let me note that techno-progressives often have a misplaced nostalgia for the Fairness Doctrine, a belief that leads them to gloss over these sordid examples. Does any of this sound "imperfect but legitimate"?https://twitter.com/VWPickard/status/1349065201732251649?s=20 …

          Paul Matzko added,

          Victor Pickard @VWPickard
          Ultimately, the FD was an imperfect but legitimate attempt to prevent predictable biases that emerge in highly commercialized media systems that tend toward monopoly control. Early reformers saw what would happen to broadcasting & sought to maintain a modicum of media diversity.
          Show this thread
          2 replies 6 retweets 103 likes
          Show this thread
        27. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          The end of the Fairness Doctrine era began in the late-70s w/ the laissez-faire commissioners appointed by Jimmy Carter (the true Great Deregulator). Reagan's FCC ended the rule in '87. Congressional Democrats tried to reinstate the rule, but Reagan vetoed and that was that.

          1 reply 8 retweets 99 likes
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        28. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          So what does that history have to do with today? The Fairness Doctrine's been gone for ~ four decades. Besides, it wouldn't apply to cable or the internet since there is no scarcity rationale for either. So why are people suddenly talking about the Fairness Doctrine again?

          1 reply 8 retweets 96 likes
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        29. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          First, note how lucky we are that the courts/Congress decided to regulate the internet under a print regime rather than a broadcast regime. As a result, the internet was "born free," to borrow an @AdamThierer phrase, with all the speech protections that had accrued for print.

          2 replies 11 retweets 103 likes
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        30. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          For example, with the (in)famous Section 230, Congress formally codified for the internet a set of legal precedents that had sprung up to protect bookstores from publisher liability, as @bskorup and @jrhuddles have detailed. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3501713 …

          1 reply 3 retweets 84 likes
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        31. Paul Matzko‏ @PMatzko Jan 25

          Thank goodness! Imagine how disastrous a Fairness Doctrine for the internet would have been, if outlets & platforms had an affirmative obligation to ensure that articles published or user posts permitted were carefully balanced according to an ambiguous public interest standard.

          2 replies 10 retweets 89 likes
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