FCC and Broadcasters Argue Over Burden of Foreign-Sponsored Content Rules
A foreign media outlet that registers with federal databases but doesn’t identify itself as foreign-sponsored to broadcasters would be a “rare bird,” said broadcast groups in a closing reply brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.…
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Circuit Friday in their challenge of FCC foreign-sponsored content disclosure rules. “This entire regulatory scheme will accomplish nothing,” said NAB, the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council. But arguments that such situations will be uncommon ignore “the value of reminding lessees of the sponsorship identification regulations” and the rule’s promotion of transparency, the FCC said in its own final reply brief. “The name search is thus by no stretch of the imagination, ‘a wild goose chase,’” the FCC said. The order is “focused precisely” on the problem: “the leased use of the nation’s airwaves by foreign governmental entities without adequate disclosure,” the FCC said. The order’s “extraordinary reach and sheer pointlessness” in applying to every lease agreement for every broadcaster mean it isn’t narrowly tailored, the broadcasters said in a second brief. Statutory limits on how much diligence the FCC can require of broadcasters were never intended to prevent requirements that stations use available databases to confirm information received from lessors, the FCC said: “A reasonably diligent broadcaster cannot take at face value a lessee’s response” when “ready evidence is available to confirm.” “The Government cannot bear its burden of showing that the Order effectively redresses real harms without burdening more speech than necessary,” said the broadcasters. A broadcaster-requested stay of the rules was denied Friday (see 2202250061). Oral argument in the case is set for April 12.