Foreign-Sponsored Content Rules 'Exercise in Futility,' NAB, MMTC, NABOB Tell Court
The FCC’s foreign-sponsored content disclosure rules impose “an open-ended duty of investigation” on broadcasters that would be “an exercise in futility,” said NAB, the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and the Multimedia, Telecom and Internet Council in a brief…
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filed Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in docket 21-1171. “It remains unclear how a broadcaster could ever determine the programming’s true source even if it identifies the lessee as a registered foreign agent,” the broadcast groups said. “Investigating government databases will not yield the information necessary to make that declaration.” The rules don’t include any provisions to counteract the harm the FCC is attempting to address -- foreign propaganda, the filing said. “The only possible harm that the Order’s investigation mandates could address is misrepresentation by foreign registrants of their status as sponsors of broadcast programming,” the broadcast groups said. “But that problem has never been known to occur.” Congress has expressly limited diligence that can be required of broadcasters to obtaining information from their own employees and those they directly deal with “and nothing more,” the filing said.