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What is the purpose of the media? How is the media regulated? These are questions that many Americans can't answer. They certainly aren't sexy hot topic issues you'll hear candidates talk about. Most have a vague idea of an organization called the FCC, but generally speaking, most think the FCC is just about bleeping out bad words or blurring naughty bits.
However, this is an election year. You and I are getting our information from the media. So, who is watching them? The short answer is well kinda no one. This being Newsvine, the short answer won't suffice. So let me give you a brief background on US Broadcasting policy regarding election advertising. (This information is collected from the Museum of Broadcast information and the FCC.gov web pages)
In 1927 radio was dominating homes and politicians began to get concerned over candidate time on the airwaves. Remember, this is a time when Uncle Bob could own a radio station and Uncle Bob could just decide to put nothing but his son's commercials on the air. This could sway an entire area to Uncle Bob's political preference. So, the Radio Act of 1927 was passed to mandate equal time for candidate air time (Section 18). This act also created the Federal Radio Commission and gave them the power of granting and denying licenses. It did some other stuff, but for the sake of Brevity, I'll just post a link here to an article explaining the rest of the Act.
Now, I'm going to skip ahead a little, so we can get to the item known as section 315. Remember that number, 315. Got it? Good. Ok, so in 1937 Congress established an equal time requirement in seciont 315 . This required broadcasters to offer "equal opportunity" to all legally qualified political candidates. ALL candidates, heck, the local dog catcher could run ads, but the station had to guarantee equal time for the opponent dog catcher. Now, later in 1949, this little love nest of communication regulation welcomed the "Fairness Doctrine". Now before we get into this you have to understand, Congress has ruled several times that the airwaves are public property. No one can "own" a frequency. The stations have to continue to be licensed by the government. The Fairness Doctrine was supposed to require stations to basically be truthful, fair and balanced.
This doctrine was used by politicians to get air time. Your candidate has more moo la than you? Nooo problem, they may bribe their way on the air, but under the Fairness Doctrine, you can get free air time to put in your rebuttal. Sounds good right? Wellll not so much. See, imagine you are a small radio station and George Fat Cat comes and pays you cash to run some local political ads. Well Frank Skinny-Wallet comes along and says "Hey, you need to let me on too, I can't pay you but that doesn't matter." After a while, you'd want to stay away from letting any candidate on your station and bippity boppity boop you have free speech being attacked.
Ok now some other stuff happened...and we're at 1987. In August of 1987 (Reagan years if you are keeping track). The FCC voted to get rid of the Fairness Doctrine. Congress wasn't too pleased with this and tried to do an end-run around this decision and wanted to make the Fairness Doctrine Law. Weeelll Reagan didn't agree and vetoed the act. Since then, it's been dead. Well, kinda. They tried to reinstate it in 1991 but Bush mark 1 said he would veto, Kerry talked about it and Barrack has alluded to it.
Noooow, what is that number? Good! 315, it is still here. However, it is horribly outdated for the most part.
So 315 requires basically everyone get charged the same. Equal time rules are suspended for debates* and news events. That's it.
Good or bad, there is a VERY VERY bared down history of political advertising. Tomorrow, I'll write more on my opinion of this thorny issue.
Radio Act of 1927 (I know Wikipedia, but it is a concise article)
Radio Act of 1934
*Debates are seen as news events therefore are not subject to the 315 policies, same would happen say if a candidate got ill or was arrested. However, there is nothing in it about editorial control.
