The Federal Communications Commission which, just by the title of the group, was probably started by some left-wing pinko deep state illuminati ski rental store disguised as a pizza parlor (you know because the name of the group has two 'Com's in it-you know, for Communism, of course), set up the first part of what came to be known as the Fairness Doctrine in 1941 which stated that radio stations, due to their public interest obligations, must remain neutral in matters of news and politics and were not allowed to give editorial support to any particular political position or candidate. In 1949, the policy was somewhat modified to give time to a opposing viewpoint after each and every original view on a popular or controversial subject, mainly because of the rise of television after the end of World War II in 1945.
One major overlooked part of this picture was that television, much more than radio, was always going to be a power struggle between information and entertainment. The leaders of the few TV network there were at the time basically said "hey boys, we'll be nice and set aside a few hours each week for public affairs and news programs. They'll be boring as hell and won't make us money but we don't any trouble from the government, see?" I imagine Edward G. Robinson saying those words for some reason. Anyway, most of these network Presidents were politically conservative but realized that in order to serve the greater good (and to make tons of money for their shareholders), the knew they had to play ball to keep the government off their backs. And thus, their network news divisions were loss leaders so that they could get wealthy by getting General Electric and Kraft Cheese to sponsor their live plays of the week. However, over time, these networks found out that they would have to keep making more money every year to satisfy the whims of their needy shareholders and so eventually they started making these news and public programs more and more sensationalistic and bombastic. Honesty and facts become more and more an afterthought.
Simultaneously, new technologies were coming the forefront that could also deliver information and, meanwhile in Washington D.C., the FCC were being seduced into reversing many of the earlier rules that encouraged not only fairness in showing both sides of a story, but also fairness in competition.
In the 1980s, it was argued that these policies and procedures regarding having a opposing view for every view regarding a controversial or vital public issue violated the 1st Amendment and so the FCC, during the Reagan administration, decided to do away with with the fairness doctrine. It was very easy to do since almost everyone on the commission was appointed by the current President. It also paved the way for our current state of cable news networks being horny cheerleaders for one political party or the other. The broadcast networks also made more cutbacks to their news departments leading to cutbacks in journalistic integrity. However, the true end of the doctrine ended in 2011 when the all parties involved could agree on exactly the correct language used in the law that sent the doctrine into the crapper. Then the real party started. Cue the cashflow.
The 1996 FCC Telecommunications Act further eroded any resemblance of fairness deregulating most of the regulations that encouraged healthy competition by opposing journalistic and entertainment business monopolies since and, in essence, journalism and entertainment have done a pretty damn amazing job in merging with themselves. It also made it easier for anyone to spout their opinions and then proclaim them the God's honest truth. And that's where we are today. You see; once you let the proverbial cat out of the bag, that darn cat just won't find the inside of the bag very attractive anymore. But, hey, at least we tried, right?
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