The full FCC should reverse the Media Bureau’s...
The full FCC should reverse the Media Bureau’s decision to dismiss complaints that the then-Allbritton-owned ABC affiliate WJLA-TV Washington, D.C., and Sander’s KGW-TV Portland, Oregon, violated online political file disclosure rules, said the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause and Sunlight…
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Foundation in an application for review filed Thursday. The groups filed the original complaints that the TV stations had incorrectly reported the entity sponsoring political ads (CD Sept 5 p16). The ads were paid for by super PACs that received “essentially all their funding from a single donor, making that person the ’true sponsor’ of the advertisement,” the groups said. “However, neither station disclosed on-air the name of that single donor, thus violating the Communications Act and the Commission’s rules.” The Media Bureau dismissed the complaints for not showing that the stations had evidence that the sponsor wasn’t the super PAC. The bureau-level decision was wrong, the groups said. “The Communications Act and the Commission’s rules explicitly place the reasonable diligence requirement on broadcasters, not the public.” The delegated authority decision “shifted the broadcasters’ burden of reasonable diligence to the public, releasing broadcasters from any obligation,” the filing said. It said the full commission also should clarify that the public is not required to present evidence to the station prior to filing with the agency.