First Amendment for TV in limbo
The study titled “Fake TV News,” released in April, revealed 77 TV stations violated FCC standards and prompted an investigation. A lobby group for TV and radio news directors calls the FCC inquiry “an unprecendented intrusion” and claim First Amendment protection. First Amendment experts agree.
“Broadcasters’ First Amendment rights target of FCC investigation”
Brent Battle
The Daily O’Collegian
The nation’s main lobby for news directors claims a Federal Communications Commission investigation violates the First Amendment rights of 77 TV stations.
The Radio-Television News Directors Association filed a petition Oct. 6 urging the FCC drop its “unprecedented intrusion” of TV newsrooms that began in August.
The petition, filed through the law and lobby firm Wiley, Rein & Fielding of Washington D.C., demands the FCC withdraw the “letters of inquiry.” The letters request stations turn over tapes, news transcripts, outtakes and video news releases to confirm a study published in April by the Center for Media and Democracy, a media advocacy group in Los Angeles.
A spokesman for the FCC declined to comment about the investigation.
“We don’t talk about the stages [of the investigation],” David Fiske of the FCC said. “That’s one thing we don’t get into. We send out a letter of inquiry [to each station and] we ask a lot of questions, which determine the facts. We’re still at that stage.”
The study, “Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed,” prompted the investigation.
It revealed that 77 stations aired video news releases without properly disclosing the source, a violation of FCC standards and the RTNDA code of ethics.
“Professional electronic journalists must clearly disclose the origin of information and label all material provided by outsiders,” the code states. But the agency is against the government stepping in to ensure the proper disclosure of public relations releases used in news casts.
Published online, the study claims 98 violations occurred where TV stations aired footage written, shot and edited by public relations firms disguised as news casts made by a TV station. About 60 cases of misuse can be viewed on its Web site, http://www.prwatch.org/.
TV stations typically substitute the voice of their reporter or edit the releases “to create a segment looking as if the station developed it,” writes Doug Simon, one of the nation’s leading producers of video news releases, in a 2002 report for a pharmaceutical company.
A spokesman for the RTNDA could not be reached for comment Tuesday. The association claims the FCC’s inquiry places a “chilling effect” on TV stations and their use of video news releases from public relations firms.
The study named KOKH in Oklahoma City the nation’s “top repeat offender” after it showed the Fox affiliate aired six VNRs without disclosing the source. John Rossi, the station’s general manager, said KOKH will avoid using corporate-sponsored video news releases “as much as possible, if not altogether.”
Paul McMasters, a First Amendment expert who works for the First Amendment Center in Washington D.C., said the investigation might compromise some constitutional protections for freedom of the press.
Letting the FCC regulate TV stations and their use of video news releases is “an intrusion” that “steps across the First Amendment line,” McMasters said.
Read the full story at The O’Collegian’s Web site by clicking here. Read my opinion column on this issue here.