Selects: How the Fairness Doctrine Worked

Back in the day, broadcasters were bound by law to provide contrasting opinions on political matters. Why? Because of the Fairness Doctrine. What happened to it? Listen to this classic episode and find out. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:40Josh Clark?

  Hey, guys, it's me, Josh. And for this week's episode, I've chosen our 2022 episode on the Fairness Doctrine. It's been coming up all over the place lately, so I thought it was high time that we released it as a select. And I went back and listened to this one, and I found that Chuck just kind of sat back and really just let me go. And I really appreciate him for that, because this one really got my goat. Enjoy.

• 2:09Speaker 04

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 2:19Josh Clark?

  Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and there's Jerdog, the roam-land of all time over there. And this is Stuff You Should Know.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 2:33Josh Clark?

  I gotta pep it up a little bit, you know?

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Is that what that was?

• 2:39Josh Clark?

  You gotta screw it up a little bit. That's what I meant to say.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  Speaking of screwing up, Chicago-ly annoying screwing up.

• 2:49Josh Clark?

  It is. I was, I was trying to think about this, like, which approach should we take? Should we, should we just outright lie and say, like, there's very few tickets left, so you better go get them now?

• 2:58Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:59Josh Clark?

  Or should we shame them and say, there are plenty of tickets left, a disappointing amount of tickets left?

• 3:04Speaker 02

  I think we should just be honest and not shame them.

• 3:07Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  But express our disappointment. Nothing works better than disappointment.

• 3:14Josh Clark?

  You know, Chicago, we really expected a little more from you than this.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  So if you're confused about what we're talking about, probably because you haven't heard, and that's our fault, about our live shows coming up all around the country to cities we've never been to before.

• 3:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, we've never been to Orlando before. We've never been to Portland, Maine before.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  That's right. But we are going to Chicago again because we thought Chicago loved us on July 24th at the Harris Theater.

• 3:47Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  And then Toronto, the next night on July 25th. They're buying a lot of tickets. They love us up there.

• 3:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, at the Danforth.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  And then Boston, August 29th, Portland, Maine, August 30th, Orlando and New Orleans, October 9th and 10th. And then Brooklyn, the 23rd through the 25th.

• 4:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah, another three, three night run at the Bell House in Brooklyn, which is gonna be great.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 4:08Josh Clark?

  But again, Toronto, you're doing great, guys. Keep it up. Chicago, you could stand to step it up a little bit. You got a little bit of time, but why wait, you know?

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the seats are only gonna get worse.

• 4:21Josh Clark?

  True dat, Chuck. True dat.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  So just go to SYSK Live for our home, our touring home on the web. Thanks to our buddies at Squarespace.

• 4:31Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  And now let's talk about the fairness doctrine.

• 4:35Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 4:37Josh Clark?

  We actually need to, if this were, say, pre 1987, we would need to have Jerry come in and say, "So here's all the reasons why you shouldn't buy tickets to Stuff You Should Know Live." If we were gonna follow the fairness doctrine. But it's not 1987. And as a matter of fact, I wonder how podcasting would, how this would apply or have applied to podcasting if it had still been around, or if podcasting would have been one of those things that kind of grew up around the fairness doctrine. Who knows? But it's a fascinating, um, what are those called when, uh,

• 5:13Speaker 02

  Thought experiment?

• 5:15Josh Clark?

  Sure, there's another word for it. When it's something that just can't possibly happen. Kind of like speculative fiction or something like that. I can't remember.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  But, you know, since podcasts don't fall under the FCC, then I doubt if it would have mattered.

• 5:30Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, I guess that's, that's true, huh?

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, we could, if we wanted to right now, we could say every curse word, every awful thing in the world under the sun. We elect not to do that, everyone.

• 5:42Josh Clark?

  I heard a, a radio DJ the other day say, "I know you want to curse so bad right now. This is why we're getting a podcast."

• 5:53Josh Clark?

  And I was like, "Yeah, I guess we could, I guess we could curse, but it's, I like that we don't, Chuck."

• 5:58Speaker 02

  I do too, and if you want to hear me curse, just, A, you can come to a live show.

• 6:02Josh Clark?

  True, true, yeah.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  Because it happens a little bit. Or B, you can just join, uh, me over at Movie Crush. I cuss a lot over there.

• 6:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think at first people were like, "Oh." And then now I think people go listen in part to hear you curse. They like to hear that blue streak coming out of that beard.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Hear the real me.

• 6:21Josh Clark?

  Oh, I like to think that both sides are the real you put together.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Well, for roughly two and a half hours a week, this is the real me.

• 6:31Josh Clark?

  Do you find it difficult not to curse on, on the show?

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Uh, no, I mean, I'm fully used to it by now.

• 6:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, same.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  But, uh, I definitely am not as fully freewheeling as I normally am.

• 6:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I guess I, I should say, I don't want to give the impression that I'm like some, you know, Flanders type or whatever. I curse pretty routinely myself in regular life. But I guess I find it kind of comforting just knowing that there's a, there's a safe space. Where I don't say the F word a lot.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  You should start another podcast just called Filth, Florin Filth with Josh Clark.

• 7:07Josh Clark?

  Okay, that's a pretty good idea.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  But, none of this has to do with the 1920s, except for the fact that people did not curse on the radio back then either, because there weren't a lot of people on the radio in the 1920s.

• 7:21Josh Clark?

  No, actually, pre-

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Or, early, early, early 1920s, that is.

• 7:25Josh Clark?

  Right, pre-November 1920, there was not much going on on the radio aside from Morse code, some ham radio operators, and remember, we did a pretty good episode on ham radio,

• 7:37Speaker 02

  if I remember correctly, yeah.

• 7:39Josh Clark?

  But, one of the things I remember about that ham radio episode is that there was a kind of a whole hacker anarchic ethos surrounding the early days of radio, you know, it's just a total free-for-all, you could broadcast on whatever station you wanted to and get in arguments with, you know, the government if you wanted to, who cared? There was, there was not a lot of ways to trace anybody, so there was a lot of anything goes mentality among the early ham radio operators. But, but, that was basically all you would hear, is people saying like, "Hey, how's it going?" kind of thing, you know, maybe some heavy breathing.

• 8:17Josh Clark?

  And then, in November 1920, a station called KDKA actually organized itself, and the first broadcast that it put out was reading the election results from the James Cox, oh my gosh, I almost just violated FCC rules.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  All this dirty talk.

• 8:39Josh Clark?

  James Cox, Warren Harding, 1920 presidential election. It was the first commercial licensed radio broadcast in the world, I think.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's a great trivia question. If someone were to say, what was, what city, you know, hosted, or whatever, was part of the first radio, commercial radio broadcast? Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And the follow-up would be, and what did they broadcast? A federal, a presidential election outcome. Which was a big deal, because it's weird to think about in 1920 that people all over the country were waiting for that morning paper to come out, except in Pittsburgh.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  They knew.

• 9:25Josh Clark?

  Right, they did know. And not everybody in Pittsburgh, just the people who had basically built their own radios, because that was the radios that were around.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  There were like eight people in Pittsburgh.

• 9:33Josh Clark?

  Pretty much, pretty much. But the fact that this happened and word spread pretty quickly, yeah, some people in Pittsburgh knew the election results because they were listening to the radio.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  And they ran around yelling that out and said, "We heard it on our radio." And everyone's like, "These people, lock them up."

• 9:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And also, other little-known fact, the first song played on the radio was "Radio Killed the Newspaper Star."

• 9:59Speaker 02

  Did you just make that up, or did you have that prepped?

• 10:01Josh Clark?

  I just made it up.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Okay, good job.

• 10:03Josh Clark?

  Thank you, man. I'm glad I got like that grudging "good job," because there was almost contempt in that first initial laugh.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  Well, because off the cuff, that's a great joke, but if you workshopped that over a few hours, then I don't know.

• 10:17Josh Clark?

  When's the last time I workshopped a joke?

• 10:19Speaker 02

  I don't know. You don't let me in your workshop anymore?

• 10:21Josh Clark?

  I know, I keep it a closely guarded secret. So, okay, so here's the point. This is the reason we're even talking about that first broadcast, is because that was November 1920. By 1924, I think there were, in 1920, there were like 20,000 radios. 1924, there were 1.5 million radios in the United States. By 1930, 80, no, 1940, 83% of every household in America had a radio. And so, there was this massive transition from distributing news and making sure everybody was up to date on all the information they needed to be like a smart voter, or hold like political, or social, or cultural opinions. That transition

• 11:06Josh Clark?

  moved from newspapers, from print, which still hung around.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 11:11Josh Clark?

  But over to radio. Radio became much, much more prevalent as far as the spread of information to an increasingly large number of people went in the United States in a very short time, in like 20 years.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, so in the 1940s, the FCC, and you know, there's some background to all this that we'll get to, but we haven't even really said what the fairness doctrine is yet.

• 11:38Josh Clark?

  No, no.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Finally, in 1949, the US government said, "You know what? We need some help here. We're a little bit worried that..."

• 11:49Speaker 02

  Geez, somebody could, some private citizen who's wealthy could go and buy all the radio stations and essentially propagandize the news.

• 11:58Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  And there's nothing we can do about it.

• 12:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so basically what they said was this, there is one thing we can do about it, we can flex our muscle as the government and specifically say, "You broadcasters can't do that."

• 12:13Speaker 02

  That's right, via something called the fairness doctrine, which had the overall goal of basically, and it's very kind of cute to look back at this time period, but its initial goal was to make sure that all the information on the, on the radio waves was good information and true and fair and enriching. And there, there's only so much space on a radio dial, so, and this is, this is very critical, that there were a limited number of frequencies available.

• 12:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's frequency scarcity, I think.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, just put a pin in that, because that's a very big deal, is how this weighed in the favor of the fairness doctrine and then also kind of helped kill it in some ways.

• 12:54Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  But basically, the, the very progressive view that public interests outweigh private interests and the public has a right to really good information over the free speech of the broadcaster even.

• 13:07Josh Clark?

  Yes, so you just, you just hit it right on the head, like that is the crux of the fairness doctrine. And it seems like, okay, depending on your viewpoint, either, like the most vile idea ever.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:23Josh Clark?

  Or just a completely sensible idea.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:26Josh Clark?

  And the reason that it can present the same, these two totally different opinions is because this idea, the fairness doctrine, is, it sits right at the heart of the difference between the right and the left, between conservatism and libertarianism and, and liberalism.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:46Josh Clark?

  Right? And it is, it comes down to this, like if you, if you have to promote public intercourse, like people understanding, not doing it in public, but I mean like-

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Discourse?

• 13:59Josh Clark?

  Discourse. Public intercourse. So, yeah, I guess doing it in public.

• 14:06Josh Clark?

  If you're going to promote public discourse and protect it as a government saying like the, like, it's the role of government to say, "We need to make sure that the quality of the information that's getting out there is protected." And, and that, "We have to do that, we have to limit what broadcasters can say, we have to curtail free speech." To people on the right, like, right there, full stop, that's a problem, that's an issue, it has fatally flawed because you are curtailing the free speech of somebody, whether it's NBC, or Joe Schmo, who wants to say something on the radio. It doesn't matter, you're curtailing free speech, and therefore, that is wrong.

• 14:48Josh Clark?

  The people on the left say, "Well, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is, this is, this is a privilege to broadcast on the radio, and in order to protect the larger public and its interests, we have to curtail that free speech of the very narrowed moneyed interests that can afford a license to broadcast." And, and there's no way to reconcile the two. You can't. You have to choose a side. You have to form an opinion, one way or the other, and whatever you choose is your larger view of whether you're a liberal or whether you're conservative.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it fell along those lines back then, and it still does today. Even though the fairness doctrine isn't around, the ideology is.

• 15:35Josh Clark?

  Well, it keeps getting brought out, and kind of, you know, forced along a, like, an angry parade route, in, in order to kind of say, like, "Look, look, look what the government's capable of doing, look at the overreach they really want to do, don't let them do it again with X."

• 15:51Speaker 02

  Right.

• 15:52Josh Clark?

  You know? So it is, it's a huge flashpoint, and it's understandable why. It seems like so, um, kind of limp and bureaucratic and boring, but when you dig into the history of the whole thing, and even the contemporary idea behind it, it's a huge flashpoint politically in the United States.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it had a couple of main components, and then, within that, a couple of big, big rules, very important rules. The first, the components were... They were known together as the fairness rule, which is private broadcasters must report on matters of public interest.

• 16:27Josh Clark?

  Like it's a responsibility of you as a broadcaster.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  That's right. And private broadcasters must cover opposing perspectives regarding that public interest.

• 16:37Josh Clark?

  That's a big one.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  That's a big one. And then the little rules there, the personal attack rule said that if you're a broadcaster and you are going to run a negative story on somebody or something, prior to that, you have to let these people know or this organization know and give them time to respond on the air. And then the political editorial rule, which is private broadcasters that air editorial programming that endorses a political candidate must inform other candidates and offer them time to respond on air, not to be confused with the equal time rule. That's different.

• 17:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the equal time rule is why debates have, are supposed to have all candidates because you're supposed to, if you give one candidate time, airtime to say, hey, here's my platform, you're supposed to give all other candidates the equal amount of time. And that political editorial rule kind of, it's close to it and it follows in the same tradition and principle, but really the personal attack rule and the political editorial rule that were part of the fairness doctrine, that's just like the foundation of good journalism, basically. It was not, they're not radical ideas.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  That's a good point.

• 17:49Josh Clark?

  So the idea, though, that public, or that private broadcasters have to talk about issues and then have to air opposing viewpoints, that is, that is kind of controversial because it's saying like, he, we, the government are saying, you have to do this. This is your responsibility. And the idea that the government even has control over airwaves is, is in dispute, but it actually dates pretty far back. And we'll talk about the background, the backstory behind the fairness doctrine after a message. How about that?

• 18:21Speaker 02

  Sounds good.

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• 20:47Speaker 05

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• 20:49Josh Clark?

  Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.

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• 21:16Josh Clark?

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• 21:39Josh Clark?

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• 21:57Josh Clark?

  Okay, Chuck, so there's one thing to really understand what we're talking about here. Initially, we were talking about radio waves, and then eventually TV waves, and then that eventually turned into the internet. But all these things, especially something like airwaves for radio and TV, these exist naturally, right?

• 22:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:16Josh Clark?

  There's not like a government factory that produces radio waves, and then the government can say, well, we produce these so we can divvy them up.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  That's what you think, man.

• 22:26Josh Clark?

  That's a, it's an artificial idea that the government can say, we regulate these airwaves. Because it's citizens listening to the stuff that's broadcast on the airwaves, and it's private companies broadcasting on the airwaves using equipment that's manufactured by other private companies. So the government is insinuating itself and saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is too important to leave to the market. We have to regulate this in some ways, and we're going to do that. And the whole thing actually started with the Titanic, to tell you the truth.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  The Titanic ship?

• 22:59Josh Clark?

  The Titanic ship, the very one, Chuck.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  That's right. Uh, leading up to the Titanic, you know, radio was being used, um, and quite a bit in maritime communication. Uh, in fact, we even passed the Ship Act of 1910, which required ships leaving the United States to have radio equipment, to know how to use it, uh, and sort of laid out some basic broadcasting standards.

• 23:22Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  But what they didn't do was say, "All right, we're gonna assign radio frequencies, um, and we're gonna like, reserve a channel for emergencies only." Uh, this kinda stung them because a couple of years after that, a little boat called the RMS Titanic sank.

• 23:39Josh Clark?

  The ship, the Titanic?

• 23:40Speaker 02

  It wasn't a little boat. It was a ocean liner.

• 23:45Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  I, I used to know the difference between an ocean liner and a cruise ship?

• 23:53Speaker 02

  I think ocean liners are transatlantic. Is that, is that the deal?

• 23:56Josh Clark?

  I've never heard the difference.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  I think that's the deal.

• 23:58Josh Clark?

  I just figured it was one and the same or something.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  Nah, I think an ocean liner specifically can cross the, to different continents.

• 24:04Josh Clark?

  I got, yeah, I guess a cruise ship could just hug the coast or something like that, like a schmo.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  But I might be making all that up.

• 24:10Josh Clark?

  I gotcha.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  So, uh, the, the Titanic sank, there was a lot of radio traffic going on as the disaster breaks out, obviously, so even though this, uh, in Newfoundland, they, they heard very early on and picked up this distress call, they couldn't really get it out because everything was all clogged up.

• 24:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there were a lot of ham radio operators screwing things up at the time.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  That's right, and that's what prompted the Radio Act of 1912, um, which was sort of the beginnings of the foundation of what would eventually become the Fairness Doctrine.

• 24:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  Uh, because what it did was it established spectrum allocation, and the FCC basically said, "Hey, listen, uh, if you wanna broadcast, you can't just broadcast, you gotta come to us and get a license."

• 24:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, initially, it was the Commerce Department that was, that was, um, issuing licenses.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:00Josh Clark?

  And then came the Radio Act of 1927 that formed the Radio Commission, and they started handling licenses, but not only did they start saying, "Okay, you're a broadcaster, here's your license, this is the frequency that you can, um, broadcast on." Prior to that, that was around in the Radio Act, that was the Commerce Department that did that, but there was no way to police it. And so if you were, say, NBC Radio, and there were a bunch of people broadcasting on your frequency at 7:00 PM, you'd just switch to...

• 25:31Speaker 02

  Tough luck.

• 25:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, well, no, you'd just switch to a different frequency and start broadcasting. And so there was no way to police it. Well, with the Radio Act of 1927 and the creation of the Radio Commission, there was a way to police it because you could have your license revoked. And if you kept broadcasting, guys would come to your house and kidnap your family.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, but the really important thing, and this is how it...

• 25:54Josh Clark?

  (laughing) Not your family. Right.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  The really important thing was that it established what we talked about before, which is spectrum scarcity.

• 26:02Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  There's only so much space now. If everyone has to apply for a license who wants to broadcast, it's just, it was very key in the setup and then, like I said, eventual downfall of the fairness doctrine.

• 26:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because it says this, like, okay, here's the full, here's the full spectrum, the radio spectrum that we can broadcast on. And we're going to carve it up, and each person gets a specific frequency to broadcast on. That's, that means that there's a finite number of frequencies, so there's a finite number of licenses, which means that not everybody can have a license to broadcast, which means that, that the people who do have that license to broadcast have a very important privilege afforded to them. And because it's a privilege, because the government has insinuated itself and said, "We're doling out these privileges," we've decided, we, the government, have decided that, that you

• 26:58Josh Clark?

  have a responsibility to present fair and balanced reporting to the government, to the public, including basically all sides of an issue. Like, you have a responsibility that supersedes your right to free speech as a broadcaster.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  That was, that's what spectrum scarcity created. Right. The 1927 Radio Act, while it did establish that, it kind of...

• 27:27Speaker 02

  Made some errors, basically, in how they set it up.

• 27:30Josh Clark?

  There were a lot of misspellings.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, there were a lot of misspellings. But they would say, basically, to the broadcasters, you have to air content in support of, quote, "public convenience, interest, or necessity," end quote.

• 27:42Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  But they didn't really define what that was.

• 27:44Josh Clark?

  Which, by the way, I looked it up, I was like, what does "public convenience" mean? Apparently, in the UK, it means a public toilet. And that's the only definition I could ever find for it. So somebody just made that up.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, to air content about public toilets.

• 27:59Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  That would be great, actually.

• 28:00Josh Clark?

  Like that part from Naked Gun. It's just nothing but the sounds of people peeing.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  But this is a big problem, because if something isn't clearly defined, then it can't be, it can't be enforced.

• 28:13Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  You know, so in 1934, they knew that this was a problem. This was, how many years later? Like, seven years later. And they said, you know what? We need to issue another act, because we're the federal government.

• 28:26Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  And so the Federal Communications Act replaced the Radio Act. The FCC was born, replaced the Radio Commission. And the FCC said, all right, the first thing we gotta do is define what this public interest thing is all about.

• 28:40Josh Clark?

  Right, because not only does it make it difficult to enforce, it makes it difficult to follow. So like, even if you're broadcasting, you're like, I totally agree with this. I do have a right and a responsibility. What's this public convenience thing again? Like, how do I do this? What am I supposed to be doing?

• 28:55Speaker 02

  And everyone's like, I don't know.

• 28:56Josh Clark?

  And if it's not defined, yeah, you can enforce it. You also can't follow it if you want to follow it. So there was just too much gray area. And so the FCC, when this was created, this idea of, okay, we're gonna set about, like, defining this stuff, and really generating this idea of what it means to be a responsible broadcaster. It happened at a really liberal time in America's history. Right after the New Deal had really kind of come along and changed the complexion of America pretty dramatically. And liberalism and progressivism had really set in and was entrenched in the fabric of American politics. And so there was this idea that the best way to prevent broadcasters from, from...

• 29:43Josh Clark?

  Asserting an overbearing influence on public discourse because they had the loudest voice because they had the radio licenses, right? Was to just say, "You guys can't editorialize at all."

• 29:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:56Josh Clark?

  And this became known as the Mayflower decision or the Mayflower doctrine. It was a 1941 FCC ruling that basically said, "You know what? You guys have to basically be neutral in that you can't say anything. You can't present any particular side. If we find out that you guys are promoting, say, the policy agenda or the favorite politics of like your station owner or your parent company or something like that,

• 30:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:26Josh Clark?

  You're in trouble." And that was kind of like the line that they drew. No editorializing whatsoever.

• 30:33Speaker 02

  That's right. And that really sort of laid the groundwork in a big, big way for the fairness doctrine, even though the fairness doctrine sort of undid that.

• 30:40Josh Clark?

  It did.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  And said, "Well, you can editorialize, but you just have to do it on both sides."

• 30:46Josh Clark?

  Right. You have to present, prevent, present both sides. And like, on the one hand, that was a gift to the broadcasters, right? They were saying, "Okay, you can use your own voice. You can state your own opinion. You can support your own political candidate. But you have to give airtime to the other political candidate. You have to give airtime to people with an opposing view of what you just said."

• 31:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:11Josh Clark?

  So it was kind of like a compromise, but it was also a weakening of the progressivist agenda, I guess.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, and the broadcasters did not like it for sure because, again, they were still sort of confused about what does public importance mean? We're not even sure, you know, everything's decided and applied on a case-by-case basis, in other words.

• 31:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's a big one.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, in other words, if somebody just files a complaint, basically, they will take up that complaint and hear that complaint. But it wasn't some like big sweeping thing.

• 31:44Josh Clark?

  No, but it was also, Chuck, that's so that means that it's... It's capricious and arbitrary, basically, applying the rule on a case-by-case basis rather than a sweeping regulation. But it's also a weakness because it means that the FCC is saying, "We'll leave it to you, the broadcasters, to police yourselves. We're only going to act when somebody complains."

• 32:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, so what happened in a lot of cases was some radio stations were like, "You know what? I'm not even going to go there, and I'm going to avoid controversy," you know, altogether. Because I don't think we pointed out, it wasn't just about politics. It was basically covered controversial issues in general. And this will play a big part, like everything from climate denial to the anti-vax movement in the 1980s. They all had to have equal time under the fairness doctrine.

• 32:36Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 32:37Speaker 02

  And a lot of people point to the fairness doctrine as like how these movements got jump-started to begin with because they didn't put those opinions in context. They were just like, you know, they didn't say, "This is very scientifically valid, and now here's the opposing viewpoint, which has no science to back it up."

• 32:54Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. And that was, the fact that they didn't do that, they were erring on the side of caution over editorializing, but also probably they were trying to make sure that everybody was not offended. They didn't offend either side because they didn't want to be boycotted with advertising, too.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  Or fined.

• 33:16Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:18Josh Clark?

  So that was a big problem with the fairness doctrine is that it was ill-defined. It was, it opened the door for opposing viewpoints that put them on equal footing or equal ground

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 33:30Josh Clark?

  With other viewpoints that were, say, scientifically backed, which created what's called the false balance problem. And then there was opposition to it, to basically the, to the fairness doctrine from the outset, not just the broadcasters who thought... They didn't want any kind of restriction on their speech. But also, interestingly, it represented a loophole to combat advertising too, which I think the FCC hadn't thought of. But they said, yeah, this actually applies when it came up. There was a ruling in 1967 that found that cigarette advertising qualified as a

• 34:13Josh Clark?

  a presentation of one viewpoint

• 34:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:17Josh Clark?

  of a controversial subject. Basically, cigarette smoking is great. Go smoke some cigarettes. And so some consumer groups petitioned the FCC and said, hey, we should be able to give the opposing viewpoint. Don't smoke cigarettes. It's bad for you. And the FCC said, you're absolutely right. And advertisers were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is a big deal. And now they jumped in to back up the National Association of Broadcasters, which was opposed to the fairness doctrine in general.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it also, you know, that kind of thing of advertising counts that opens the doors, and it did for, you know, like, and we'll get to this more specifically later, but like if a power company wanted to do an ad about their great new nuclear power plant that they were going to build, like a liberal group can come forward and say, no, no, no. Like, that's not an ad. I know they're paying for airspace, but that means we need to talk about the ills of nuclear power.

• 35:13Josh Clark?

  Right, right. And I mean, even if it was an ad, the opposing group could say, we get free airtime to say that this is the opposite of that. And so if you're a broadcaster, especially if you're in like a successful market, that, you know, 15, 30, 60 second spot is important. You don't want to give that away. But it may also, you may have like an interest in whatever the other group is protesting, so just on that, in that respect as well, you don't really want to air the opposing view. The problem with the fairness doctrine, if you're libertarian or conservative, is that it said, you have to do that. You have to air the opposing view. The FCC says so.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  That's right. So you got to think this is going to end up in court at some point.

• 35:57Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  And it did quite a few times over the years, not surprisingly. And for about a 20 to 30 year period, US courts basically supported the FCC in fulfilling this mandate. There were some real highlights in 1969. There were a couple of big court rulings that affirmed this enforcement. One was Red Lion Broadcasting Company Incorporated v FCC. It's a little mouthy.

• 36:26Josh Clark?

  It is.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  So this one was sort of two cases in one. The Supreme Court was able to kill two birds. One case was an FCC appeal of a lower court ruling that said this, you know, the personal attack and political editorial rules, those two big rules were unconstitutional. And the second was a broadcaster appealing of a lower court ruling that said the FCC's application of those rules was constitutional. So they said, all right, you guys, let's just combine this into one thing and we'll hear the case. And in the latter one, there was an investigative journalist named Fred J. Cook, and he filed a complaint. And like we said, it was case by case stuff. So this complaint made it all the way to the Supreme

• 37:08Speaker 02

  Court. Fred Cook filed a complaint against Red Lion Broadcasting, who owned WCGB, because they had a broadcast with Reverend Billy James Hargis that claimed that Cook, who was an author and wrote a very kind of salacious expose about the FBI. And this Reverend said, you know what, this author worked for the communists and he attacked J. Edgar Hoover. And we, it turns out they didn't contact Cook to give him that equal chance to respond. And they denied him his demand for that.

• 37:41Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  And it made it all the way to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said, you know what, Red Lion, you're wrong. You gotta do this.

• 37:47Josh Clark?

  Right. So, and since the Supreme Court ruled that Cook could have equal airtime, this is like, I think 12 years or nine years later, and I could not find anywhere if he actually took him up on it or not. But the whole thing was just like, it was an ad hominem attack, an attack on him, on Cook, because Cook had written a book against Barry Goldwater, who was a presidential candidate at the time. And the people who ran Red Lion didn't like it. So they attacked Cook, but he, so they, in this ruling though, and this is the whole point. Not, not that Cook got his time, his airtime, but that the, the Supreme Court ruled

• 38:29Josh Clark?

  that the FCC applying this fairness doctrine was good and fine and constitutional, which is a big deal. They ruled that the FCC could constitutionally exercise this fairness doctrine, which is, that was just enormous.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was a very, very big deal.

• 38:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 38:50Speaker 02

  The other big kind of landmark case was that same year. The Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ et al. the FCC. Another scintillating title.

• 39:02Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  There was a US appeals court who overturned the FCC's decision not to consider a petition to revoke the license of Lamar Broadcasting, WLBT. So the citizens got together, civil rights groups, and they were like, you know what, this station is awful. They are, first of all, they're not covering the civil rights movement, and they're flat out racist and segregationist.

• 39:26Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  And so we're going to petition this, and the FCC denied the petition in 1964 and said, citizens don't have the standing to file a petition like this.

• 39:36Josh Clark?

  Which is pretty surprising because, you know, the citizens are the ones that FCC have always been like fighting for.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  Right. It was a little.

• 39:44Josh Clark?

  Hinky?

• 39:45Speaker 02

  Hinky is the word that we used to use. So the petitioners appealed, and in 1966, yeah, 66, the, the Court of Appeals for DC said, you do have standing to petition the FCC to revoke a license.

• 40:00Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  Because that's all about protecting the public interest, which is what the FCC was supposed to be doing in the first place.

• 40:06Josh Clark?

  So get back to work.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  And finally, in 1967, the FCC revisited that petition, rejected it again.

• 40:14Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  Because they said, hey, this station is actually kind of taken some steps since then, and we think they're doing the right thing. Petitioners still weren't happy. They appealed that. And in 1969, the FCC actually revoked Lamar Broadcasting's license.

• 40:28Josh Clark?

  They did. As far as, as far as I could tell, Lamar Broadcasting was the one and only company to lose their license under the fairness doctrine.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  Like permanently, yeah.

• 40:38Josh Clark?

  Right. They never got it back. And chuck a little cherry on top because Lamar Broadcasting lost the license of WLBT in Jackson, Mississippi. It was up for grabs and it was taken by a majority black owned group that, that took over the station at that point.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 40:57Josh Clark?

  Isn't that nice?

• 40:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:58Josh Clark?

  So, um, things seem to be going smoothly for the fairness doctrine. What could go wrong? Well, we'll tell you what could go wrong after a break. How about that?

• 41:21Josh Clark?

  You know, eating is a huge part of our lives. It fuels us, it brings us together, and it's one of life's great pleasures. But once the meal's over, we don't think much about what happens next, unless something starts to feel off. Because what we eat and how our bodies respond to it is complicated.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  That's right. From the very first bite, food kicks off a chain reaction, signals moving between the gut, the brain, and the immune system, a constant back and forth we can't see and often don't fully understand. So we want to introduce to you Eating Interrupted, a new podcast from iHeart Ruby Studio. It's hosted by longtime journalist and Crohn's patient Cynthia McFadden. Eating Interrupted explores everything from food allergies and intolerance, and why they seem to be on the rise, to how digestion changes as we age, and what it's really like to live with a chronic GI condition.

• 42:05Josh Clark?

  Through personal stories and expert insight, listen in to unpack what it means when your body doesn't always respond to food the way you expect, and what science is now revealing about why. Listen to Eating Interrupted on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 42:26Speaker 02

  You know, you're never done decorating your home. You know what I mean?

• 42:29Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, because it's a process. There's always something you could do, or buy, or update. The only question is, what's next? For us, our animals just wear out our rugs so quickly. It's usually a new rug.

• 42:40Josh Clark?

  Well, Chuck, whether you need a rug, or whatever is next for you, you can go to Wayfair. It's the smart place to get it.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  That's right. Whatever your style, whatever your budget, whatever you're looking for, Wayfair makes it easy to find it. And you can feel good about your purchases, too, because Wayfair verified products go through a thorough 10-point quality inspection.

• 42:58Josh Clark?

  And with over 20 million 5-star reviews, Wayfair must be doing something right. You can find pieces made for real life and get even more value with Wayfair Rewards. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 43:32Josh Clark?

  Okay, Chuck. So, one thing that I've learned is it's not necessarily like the Supreme Court is, their decisions are final forever. They kind of shift and move over time, over long enough periods of time. And the fairness doctrine is a really good example of that. Because in the 60s, the Supreme Court ruled pretty clearly the FCC was constitutional. But by the end of the 70s, the Supreme Court started to side with broadcasters instead. The winds of change kind of blew through there. And there was one case in particular that the Supreme Court heard in 1979 that signaled a real change for the fairness doctrine and the FCC applying it.

• 44:17Josh Clark?

  And it was a case that involved WJIM TV in Lansing, Michigan.

• 44:23Josh Clark?

  Which was owned by a guy named Harold Gross.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the complaint here was that he, or the station, rather, via Harold Gross, had abused their broadcasting power to the detriment of the public. So what he did was, he denied airtime to political rivals in some cases. In other cases, he censored coverage of local businesses if they didn't advertise with them.

• 44:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he was accused of clipping, which is taking, like, when a network delivers a show, it has commercial breaks in it. He would have his editors go through and add even more commercial breaks, which we're not supposed to do. That was a big one. Didn't cover the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance because he didn't like Jimmy Hoffa's politics, even though it was a national and a local story.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, so in 1975, a hearing by the FCC said, you know, you violated the fairness rule. We're taking your license, buddy. But he appealed it, and this time, he won the appeal. And like you said, this was a big shift in the way things were being thought about as far as the fairness doctrine went.

• 45:28Josh Clark?

  Hey, one more thing about Harold Gross before we move on. This guy, he was such a businessman that when he started his TV station in 1950, WJIM, he was actually one of the first 108 license holders to broadcast on TV. But he wasn't sure that TV was going to stick around, that it was going to take off as a technology. So he built the WJIM facilities so that it could be converted into a motel if TV didn't go anywhere. So the original WJIM TV station had a pool out back.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  What is it now, do you know?

• 46:02Josh Clark?

  What is what?

• 46:03Speaker 02

  The building.

• 46:04Josh Clark?

  The pool? I don't know. I looked up to see if there was anything recent about it, and I didn't find any new stuff. But I saw a picture of the station, and there's definitely a pool out back from back in the 50s.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  It's kind of a nice perk.

• 46:18Josh Clark?

  I guess so. I wonder if he let anybody swim in it or not.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 46:23Josh Clark?

  Maybe if you advertised, he would have let you.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  So this was the mid to late 70s and then things really, really started changing in the 1980s because that whole thing about, remember when we said putting a pin in spectrum scarcity, that was no longer a problem. By the mid 1980s, there were more than 10,000 radio stations, 1,300 TV stations, about 1,700 newspapers. And the whole sort of drumbeat was like, uh, wait a minute, there's not a problem here anymore with scarcity. We should be able to do what we want because you told newspapers from the very beginning that their free speech was protected and they could do whatever they want. Why are we any different?

• 47:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's a really big point that a lot of people pointed to over the years is why does this just apply to electronic media? Like the print media literally has an editorial page where they come out with positions on candidates and all this stuff. Why doesn't it apply to them? And for years and years and years, it was any schmo can basically go get a newspaper printed. Radio's different because of that spectrum scarcity, but yeah, as the satellite people came along and as cable came along, that just kind of went out the door. So spectrum scarcity going away and the fact that the newspaper industry, the print media was not regulated anywhere near the same way, really kind of removed any remaining foundation

• 47:51Josh Clark?

  for the fairness doctrine to stand on.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, so in 1985, the FCC kind of got their gears turning and said, you know what? We think this is, we want Congress to review this, basically. We're going to institute a public comment period even and we think we should abandon the personal attack rule and in this case by case thing.

• 48:19Josh Clark?

  Right. And yeah, and they did this for like two years and while the FCC is holding like these public hearings on it, Congress at the same time was saying, well, we don't really want the fairness doctrine to go away. And not just the left, there was a bipartisan supported bill that got passed in Congress to codify the fairness doctrine, but it was vetoed by Reagan.

• 48:43Josh Clark?

  And so after that, that was basically it for the fairness doctrine.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, the FCC voted unanimously to just get rid of it.

• 48:51Josh Clark?

  They did, and so they didn't actually get rid of it, they just stopped enforcing it. Or some parts of it, they kept enforcing, I think, the personal attack and political editorial provisions up until like 2000 for like another 13 years. But the idea that you had to promote opposing viewpoints

• 49:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:14Josh Clark?

  on your television station or your radio station, that went away starting in 1987. And a lot of people say that really changed the American media landscape big time.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean,

• 49:33Speaker 02

  you know, depending on who you are.

• 49:36Josh Clark?

  I'm just gonna sit back and watch.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  I know, I'm trying to dance around this. Depending on who you are, you probably have a very strong opinion about the fairness doctrine, one way or the other.

• 49:45Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  Or you may think it was a mixed thing. It was definitely a flawed policy. I think everyone agrees that it wasn't perfect. But the legacy is really complex.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  You know, getting rid of it basically opened the door for what we have today, which is a degraded news standard. Minority viewpoints that aren't necessarily covered. And how polarized we are because, you know, people dug in and they said, all right, I'm gonna start my super conservative radio stations. And then people said, I'm gonna start my super conservative liberal website and radio shows. And liberals are gonna listen to theirs and conservatives are gonna listen to theirs, and never the tweens shall meet.

• 50:30Josh Clark?

  Right, right. And so especially if you have like each side promoting a viewpoint or an agenda to the detriment of the other side, there's like, the middle ground is lost, which, I mean, some people, I know some people aren't very hip on centrism these days anyway. But, I mean, You can keep a pretty decent sized society together when you when you kind of follow a centrist axis upward and onward, you know? And I think that, to me, the fairness doctrine showed that. I mean, like, I don't think it's a big surprise where I fall on whether the fairness doctrine was a good idea or not. But I just don't think it's, um...

• 51:14Josh Clark?

  Like, I can see saying, "All these people out here need good information." And it's probably not going to just get out there on its own if we, the government, don't step in and say, "Here's how we need to get good information out." And I think the current media landscape is just complete proof positive of that. That if you just don't, if you just let it all go free for all, then you end up with what we have. That this is what the market offers us.

• 51:42Speaker 02

  Echo chambers.

• 51:43Josh Clark?

  Echo chambers, polarization, and a huge division in the country without anybody saying, "Well, wait, wait, wait. Yes, over here, you guys are right. Over here, you guys are right." And things are really messed up. But also, what about this other stuff? We kind of all agree on this part, and what about this part? Yeah, we have a lot of common ground here. No one's talking about that. And that used to be the role that the media played before.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, one thing we can say is, without the fairness doctrine, we may not have gotten any of these minority viewpoints in the 1940s and 50s and 60s.

• 52:18Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  People might not have been as well-informed, except maybe via newspaper about the civil rights movement, women's rights movement, how bad smoking is, about nuclear power plants. Like, all of these things that were sort of in the shadows were now now had a guaranteed platform.

• 52:36Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  But like we mentioned earlier, because they didn't really... They had to give these opposing viewpoints. You also could have possibly borne the anti-vax movement and the climate denial movement and stuff like that. So it was flawed, to be sure.

• 52:52Josh Clark?

  Sure. Yeah, you, there's, from what I understand, like... Any Democrat to the right of Ralph Nader, which is almost everybody, says, yes, fairness doctrine, what a terrible idea, terrible idea. It was officially repealed in 2011. And if you'll think back, that was under the Obama administration. So the Obama administration's FCC was the one that officially took the fairness doctrine off of the books, removed it.

• 53:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I mean, that was a purge. That was just like, there's a bunch of rotten food in the fridge and why has no one thrown it out yet?

• 53:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but it was also pretty symbolic, you know, it was a symbolic act, whether they intended it or not. But, but the, the idea that, that it was, it was removed by a Democratic, lefty president's administration is, it's, I don't know, it's saying something, I think.

• 53:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. Here's where we are today, though. There was a poll, a Gallup poll, and just last year in 2018, that's found Americans don't trust the news. They guessed, let me see, 62% of what they hear is biased, 44% is inaccurate, and 39% is misinformation.

• 54:06Josh Clark?

  That's, those numbers seem low to me.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  That's not a great place to be in as a country, though.

• 54:11Josh Clark?

  No, it's a terrible place. It's a scary place. Like, how is this country still together, you know?

• 54:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:17Josh Clark?

  But, and, and the other thing is, we're going to get so much guff because we didn't come out and just stay completely down the middle. But I mean, I want to say, like, I understand where, where people on the right are coming from with this. Like, ideologically, this is censorship and the prohibition of the exercise of free speech. And that's, that is one of, that is a core founding value of conservatism and libertarianism. So, like, I can understand how you'd look at the fairness doctrine and be like, this is government overreach in its worst, in its worst examples, you know?

• 54:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it's like, it wasn't. It wasn't like state-run radio, you know?

• 55:00Josh Clark?

  No.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  It wasn't like the government, the federal government propagandizing their agenda.

• 55:05Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  But yeah.

• 55:07Josh Clark?

  It was saying like, hey, you can say this viewpoint.

• 55:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 55:10Josh Clark?

  You also have to show the other viewpoint. To me, that's almost impossible to argue with.

• 55:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think, don't newspapers of, of high standing still on their editorial page kind of print the two opposing opinions side by side?

• 55:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's what op-ed stands for, is opposite the editorial page. So the editorial page will be the newspaper's opinion, their editorial board, and then on the literal opposite page

• 55:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:36Josh Clark?

  is the, basically, the opposing opinion of that. Yeah, it's just a high journalistic standard.

• 55:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 55:41Josh Clark?

  But this is the government saying this. Newspapers do this on their own, I guess just out of tradition, whereas electronic media is a little more Wild West-y than that.

• 55:51Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 55:53Josh Clark?

  So, here we are today, pretty interesting times we live in, and it's all because the fairness doctrine went away. Anyway, thanks for listening to this episode of Stuff You Should Know. If you want to know more about the fairness doctrine, just go outside and see how you like things. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail.

• 56:16Speaker 02

  I'm gonna call this "The Sound of Our Voices," or I'm sorry, let me say this, "The Color of Our Voices."

• 56:23Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, I know what my voice is colored.

• 56:25Speaker 02

  This is good. In fact, yours isn't even colored. This is more of a feel thing.

• 56:28Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 56:29Speaker 02

  So, hey, guys, I listened to the episode on perfect pitch. You mentioned that synesthetes are often good candidates for having perfect pitch. I fall into the category of being someone who possesses both. I've been serious about my musicianship since my earliest recollections in life, and that's when I began involuntarily hearing all the individual musical notes in their own unique, unchanging colors. For example, the sound of the note F. I should have brought in, dude, I bought one of those little, what do you call it?

• 56:58Josh Clark?

  Pitch pipe.

• 56:58Speaker 02

  I bought a pitch pipe.

• 57:00Josh Clark?

  Why didn't you bring it in?

• 57:01Speaker 02

  No, I should have brought it in.

• 57:02Josh Clark?

  The one-note harmonica.

• 57:03Speaker 02

  I should have bought two. I'm gonna buy you one.

• 57:06Josh Clark?

  I would love it. Can you have it engraved, too?

• 57:09Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 57:09Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  So the sound of F for Allison has never not caused a rush of the color orange to sweep over her from head to foot.

• 57:19Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:20Speaker 02

  I also hear people's individual voices and colors. What's unique about voices to me, they're incredibly textured in and of themselves. You guys have voice colors and textures.

• 57:31Josh Clark?

  I love mine. Read mine.

• 57:33Speaker 02

  Josh's voice, anytime I hear it, sounds like suede. If suede- That is so cool. If suede could make a sound, painted medium to dark brown with a tiny hint of Easter egg purple. That's your voice.

• 57:45Josh Clark?

  Very nice. That is a lovely combo, if you ask me.

• 57:48Speaker 02

  Chuck's voice, on the other hand, has zero fuzz to it at all. Chuck's voice is very metallic, almost shimmery, like you're gazing upon a deep, blue-green body of water, and you can see straight to the bottom.

• 57:59Josh Clark?

  Nice. That's a nice voice right there, Chuck.

• 58:02Speaker 02

  These are both great voices.

• 58:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 58:04Speaker 02

  I'm very happy that, I mean, who knows what could have come out of this email?

• 58:08Josh Clark?

  Yours smells like puke.

• 58:11Speaker 02

  And yours sounds like nails on a chalkboard. The end. I've come to find out that no two voice colors are exactly the same, kind of like thumbprints in snowflakes. A person's voice color does not morph into something else, either, if they suddenly start speaking in another language. And it also has nothing to do with his or her particular personality type. So they're not saying you're smooth like suede, like, as a person.

• 58:35Josh Clark?

  Oh, yes, clearly. I think-

• 58:37Speaker 02

  Or that I'm shimmery as a person.

• 58:38Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 58:39Speaker 02

  The point of the matter, I delight in hearing both of your voices nearly every day as a tune into the show. It's become a staple in my daily existence. Keep on being wonderful. That is from Allison, who is at our Salt Lake City show.

• 58:50Josh Clark?

  Awesome.

• 58:51Speaker 02

  And she interacted with us from the crowd.

• 58:53Josh Clark?

  That's great. Thank you for interacting with us, Allison. We appreciate that.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  It's illegal at our shows, but I think I asked a question, and she answered it.

• 59:01Josh Clark?

  It's against the rules.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  That's what they say.

• 59:04Josh Clark?

  Well, thanks, Allison. That was one of the more interesting emails we've ever received, frankly. If you want to be like Allison and go to one of our live shows, you will never regret it for a single moment in your entire life. And if you want to get in touch with us like Allison did, too, you can go onto our website, stuffyoushouldknow.com, follow our social links there, or you can send us an email. Send it off to [email protected].

• 59:34Speaker 04

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 59:50Josh Clark?

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• 1:00:51Speaker 00

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