And now, the rest of the story.

As historian Paul Matzko has chronicled thedispatch.com/article…, the FCC under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson used the Fairness Doctrine to target right-wing radio hosts in the 1960s. Under the advice of United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther, the Kennedy administration created a front organization to file Fairness Doctrine complaints with the FCC against anti-Kennedy broadcasters. Networks either changed their programming to comply with the FCC’s demands or pulled conservative shows off the air.

The Democratic National Committee fleshed out this strategy during the Johnson administration, with political operatives paid to covertly coordinate FCC complaints against right-wing broadcasters across the country. One station sued, and in the 1969 case Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fairness Doctrine was constitutional. Unknown to the justices was that the initial complainant to the FCC that led to that case was paid by the DNC. “The Supreme Court had been hoodwinked by the most successful government censorship campaign of the last half century,” Matzko wrote.