JK: Of course, the First Amendment looms large in any such discussion. But the reason why I picked broadcast for analysis is because broadcast is already extremely regulated. You cannot broadcast without a license; you cannot speak Carlin’s dirty words in the afternoon; you have to show three hours of children’s educational programming per week; etc. The option of “no regulation” is not an option; we already regulate the heck out of broadcast. Now, some think that this is unwise and unconstitutional. But we know that this precisely what we do today, and most folks lose no sleep over it. …

SQS: Does the FCC have the legal authority to impose such rules?

JK: Rethinking the equivalence between the “public interest” and “local news” creates no First Amendment problems. Encouraging voluntary public service announcements that promote tolerance and decrease bias poses no First Amendment problems. However, a soft guideline on the local news would no doubt be struck down as violating the First Amendment. But it’s a harder case than one might initially imagine. And working through the argument consistently uncovers what we as a society really care about. We’re willing to stop the airing of the F word with almost no social scientific evidence [of harm]. It’s just our values. But no matter how compelling the scientific case might come to be on the issue of implicit bias, we would not permit any modulation. It’s just our values. What does that say about our values?

SQS: You label your ideas “thought experiments” designed to generate discussion. What has been the response thus far?

JK: There has been much discussion, but in the popular press the tendency is to create a straw-person. “Some academic wants to repress the truth to change how you think about colored folks: Thought Control? News at 9 p.m.” A 100-page article in the Harvard Law Review with 525 footnotes, most to social scientific research, cannot be summarized into a sound bite. My goal as an academic is to ask questions that reveal blind spots, hidden assumptions, unintended consequences, and probe hard for answers. The task of a responsible press is not to dumb down and try to create sensational conflict, to draw readers. It is to translate without reductionism. The response has spanned the gamut in quality. I’m thankful to have catalyzed a conversation.

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