Like back when we had those little civil defense triangles on our AM radios?
That ship has sailed. We have an entire generation who has never felt a threat. Their life has been on auto pilot too long. They don't understand the need for truth.
Not exactly.
There's a much simpler reason why we don't have the old Civil Defense symbols anymore.
Much of the United States has moved beyond the old AM radio service.
Terrestrial radio in general is on life support.
But even so, ALL commercial radio stations are now participants in EAS, because it is required as part of their commercial broadcast license.
When an EAS alert goes out, it's not only broadcast on ALL available AM and FM frequencies, it's also broadcast on all available television frequencies, all available cable channels and all available commercial broadcast satellite channels, as well as all available wireless cell phone sites.
https://www.ready.gov/alerts
To date, the internet is not as yet connected to any global emergency alert system however, that being said, it is highly likely that FEMA is actively working on setting up such a system, which for now is called IPAWS.
https://www.fema.gov/integrated-public-alert-warning-system
What I was referring to was related to the agreement between broadcasters back in the days of the Fairness Doctrine.
Commercial broadcasters operated news departments as nonprofit public services. News departments did not lose money, and broadcasters traded on the prestige of their news departments commitment to providing accurate and objective news and information. The result was a profit anyway despite the independence of the news department. The broadcasters were fulfilling their obligation as part of their responsibility as FCC license holders entrusted with the public airwaves.
Today it would look a lot different because the public airwaves comprise only a very small part of the information infrastructure, so a fairness doctrine would operate in ways which are different. A cable news channel cannot survive as a strictly nonprofit public service, so "news SHOWS" would continue as before however they might be clearly labeled, or else the straight news would be clearly labeled and kept separate.
As it stands now, the only real actual source of objective and impartial news is found on the TICKER at the bottom of the screen on most cable news channels.
So, the old Fairness Doctrine isn't strictly applicable in traditional form, because like you said, that ship has sailed.
But it doesn't change the fact that nearly ALL NEWS in the United States is sold as a consumer product instead of as a public service.
And that is the reason why news media seems slanted. They don't have a choice.
That's what needs to be fixed.
