Arguing that the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) decision abolishing the Fairness Doctrine rested on unquestionable and untestable ideological assumptions, this paper asserts that the FCC has pursued broadcast deregulation with inadequate consideration of either social scientists' knowledge about the news media and their audiences, and without providing a theoretically and cogently defensible interpretation of their policies being in the public interest. The paper articulates a theory of public interest, generates five necessary statements concerning the public interest, and compares these statements with the FCC's Fairness Doctrine decision. The paper concludes that the arguments on behalf of scrapping the Fairness Doctrine are a form of rationalization where the hidden agenda may have been the key component: the legal arguments are primarily forms of ideological rationalization designed to justify interests rather than principles. Thirty-eight notes are included and 65 references are attached. (RS)