Selects: How the Fairness Doctrine Worked

**Josh Clark** (0:00)
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.

**Chuck Bryant** (0:29)
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio.

**Josh Clark** (0:39)
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jer Dogg, the Roam Land of all time over there, and this is Stuff You Should Know.

**Chuck Bryant** (0:52)
Wow.

**Josh Clark** (0:53)
I gotta pep it up a little bit, you know?

**Chuck Bryant** (0:56)
Is that what that was?

**Josh Clark** (0:58)
Oh, you gotta screw it up a little bit. That's what I meant to say.

**Chuck Bryant** (1:03)
Speaking of screwing up, Chicago, Illinois is screwing up.

**Josh Clark** (1:09)
It is.
I was trying to think about this, like, which approach should we take? Should we just outright lie and say, like, there's very few tickets left, so you better go get them now?

**Chuck Bryant** (1:18)
No.

**Josh Clark** (1:19)
Or should we shame them and say, there are plenty of tickets left, a disappointing amount of tickets left?

**Chuck Bryant** (1:25)
I think we should just be honest and not shame them, but express our disappointment. Nothing works better than disappointment.

**Josh Clark** (1:34)
You know, Chicago, we really expected a little more from you than this.

**Chuck Bryant** (1:41)
So, if you're confused about what we're talking about, it's 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.

**Josh Clark** (1:56)
Yeah, yeah, we've never been to Orlando before, we've never been to Portland, Maine before.

**Chuck Bryant** (2:00)
That's right. But we are going to Chicago again because we thought Chicago loved us on July 24th at the Harris Theatre.

**Josh Clark** (2:07)
Right.

**Chuck Bryant** (2:07)
And then Toronto the next night on July 25th, they're buying a lot of tickets, they love us up there.

**Josh Clark** (2:11)
Yeah, at the Danforth.

**Chuck Bryant** (2:13)
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 of October.

**Josh Clark** (2:23)
Yeah, another three-night run at the Bell House in Brooklyn, which is going to be great. That's right.
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?

**Chuck Bryant** (2:38)
Yeah, I mean, the seats are only going to get worse.

**Josh Clark** (2:41)
True that, Chuck, true that.

**Chuck Bryant** (2:43)
So just go to SYSK Live for our home, our touring home on the web, thanks to our buddies at Squarespace.

**Josh Clark** (2:52)
Oh, yeah.

**Chuck Bryant** (2:52)
And now let's talk about the fairness doctrine.

**Josh Clark** (2:56)
Okay.
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 going to 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, what are those called when it's an impossi— Thought experiment? 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.

**Chuck Bryant** (3:45)
But, you know, since podcasts don't fall under the FCC, then I doubt if it would have mattered.

**Josh Clark** (3:50)
Oh yeah, I guess that's true, huh?

**Chuck Bryant** (3:52)
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.

**Josh Clark** (4:02)
I heard 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. And I was like, yeah, I guess we could, I guess we could curse, but I like that we don't, Chuck.