Nomination--FCC: Hearing Before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate, Ninety-seventh Congress, Second Session on Stephen A. Sharp, to be a Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission, September 22, 1982

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Page 19 - It is axiomatic that one of the most vital questions of mass communication in a democracy is the development of an informed public opinion through the public dissemination of news and ideas concerning the vital public issues of the day.
Page 19 - Commission has consequently recognized the necessity for licensees to devote a reasonable percentage of their broadcast time to the presentation of news and programs devoted to the consideration and discussion of public issues of interest in the community served by the particular station.
Page 19 - ... issues of interest in the community served by the particular station. And we have recognized, with respect to such programs, the paramount right of the public in a free society to be informed and to have presented to it for acceptance or rejection the different attitudes and viewpoints concerning these vital and often controversial issues which are held by the various groups which make up the community.
Page 19 - The effect would be to shackle the First Amendment in its attempt to secure "the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources.
Page 19 - It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.
Page 20 - [S]peech concerning public affairs is more than self-expression; it is the essence of selfgovernment.
Page 19 - It is this right of the public to be informed, rather than any right on the part of the government, any broadcast licensee or any individual member of the public to broadcast his own particular views on any matter, which is the foundation stone of the American system of broadcasting.
Page 20 - In our view, the essential basis for any fairness doctrine, no matter with what specificity the standards are defined, is that the American public must not be left uninformed.
Page 19 - The narrowing of national debate inevitably limits the options open to the policymaker. Both the President and the Congress are constrained by what Abraham Lincoln called "public sentiment," without which, he said, "nothing can succeed." If the mass media persist in excluding a significant sentiment or preference from public debate, that preference will eventually be ruled out as an alternative deserving serious policy consideration and the policymakers will be virtually forced to choose among those...
Page 22 - Winston, executive director and general counsel of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters.

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