"Fairness" in that sort of political context is rarely about fairness as it would be in real life interactions, but about allowing entrenched interests (or special interest groups in general) being artificially propped up by their political connections.
And that's not peculiar to journalists. Virtually every corporation thinks they're doing a public good, since people are voluntarily buying their product or service.
But here they omit facts relevant to their claims, and the omissions distort the history they're presenting:
> In the US, radio began as a free-market free-for-all.
It did begin that way, but in 1934 the FCC was formed and explicitly regulated speech via the Mayflower and Fairness doctrines.[1][2]
It was then revoked under Reagan[2#Revocation], much to the chagrin of special interest groups like the CJR, and political radio exploded.
When political radio was deregulated, consumers got options outside of traditional media groups who lost subscribers and influence.
An honest recounting of the history is that the US has had regulations in the name of "fairness" and those regulations do in fact quash a lot of speech.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_doctrine
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine