688
Stevens, J., dissenting
Congress chose a system of private broadcasters licensed and regulated by the Government, partly because of our traditional respect for private enterprise, but more importantly because public ownership created unacceptable risks of governmental censorship and use of the media for propaganda. "Congress appears to have concluded . . . that of these two choices—private or official censorship—Government censorship would be the most pervasive, the most self-serving, the most difficult to restrain and hence the one most to be avoided." Id., at 105.8
While noncommercial, educational stations generally have exercised the same journalistic independence as commercial networks, in 1981 Congress enacted a statute forbidding stations that received a federal subsidy to engage in "editorializing." 9 Relying primarily on cases involving the rights of commercial entities, a bare majority of this Court held the restriction invalid. FCC v. League of Women Voters of Cal., 468 U. S. 364 (1984). Responding to the dissenting view that "the interest in keeping the Federal Government out of the propaganda arena" justified the restriction, id., at 415 (opinion of Stevens, J.), the majority emphasized the broad coverage of the statute and concluded that it "impermissibly sweeps within its prohibition a wide range
last ten years, in Germany and many other European countries, public broadcasting has been weakened by competition from private television channels").
8 The Court considered then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover's statement to a House committee expressing concern about government involvement in broadcasting:
" 'We can not allow any single person or group to place themselves in [a] position where they can censor the material which shall be broadcasted to the public, nor do I believe that the Government should ever be placed in the position of censoring this material.' " 412 U. S., at 104 (quoting Hearings on H. R. 7357 before the House Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 8 (1924)).
9 Public Broadcasting Amendments of 1981, Pub. L. 97-35, 95 Stat. 730, amending § 399 of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, Pub. L. 90-129, 81 Stat. 365, 47 U. S. C. § 390 et seq.
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