Broadcasting & Cable reports that the Media Research Center delivered almost 400,000 petitions to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “to hold a floor vote on a stand-alone bill to prevent the FCC from re-imposing the fairness doctrine.”

As Commissioner Michael Copps noted in reply, the FCC has no intention of bringing back the fusty old regulation — before it was scrapped in 1987, the doctrine required broadcasters to both cover issues of public importance and to seek out opposing viewpoints on those issues — but MRC and its crazed leader Brent Bozell still fear that “the doctrine, or something like it, might return in the guise of localism initiatives Copps is backing.” Copps rightly has noted that tying the two together is “issue-mongering,” as the industry trade journal puts it.

The House did pass a bill last session sponsored by former radio talk show host Mike Pence (R-Ind.), which placed a one-year moratorium on funding any FCC re-imposition of the doctrine. Democrat David Obey (D-Wis.), suggested that this was a red herring, a nonissue and that it was being debated only to provide sound bites for conservative talkers and “yap yap TV,” who had ginned up the issue.