Equal, Fair, and Farce

When NBC affiliates in Tennessee showed the movie “Necessary Roughness” in 1994, those affiliates were required to give a Democrat Senate candidate 4 minutes and 13 seconds of free air time. The Democrat was running against Fred Thompson, the actor turned Republican Senate candidate. When Thompson ran for President in 2008, NBC stopped aired re-runs of “Law & Order” that featured Thompson, who had been the District Attorney on the show.

The Equal Time Doctrine is not new. But the national press corps, always ready to pounce on Donald Trump and Republicans, has suddenly declared it a censorious abomination. In the process, they have also shown their willing ignorance about the medium so many of them are in.

The Fairness Doctrine was an old rule that required broadcast networks doing news and opinion shows to give equal time to both sides. It was widely considered unconstitutional and ultimately died. The Fairness Doctrine had stood in the way of the rise of conservative talk radio. Hosts would have had to be paired with liberal counterparts. But the Fairness Doctrine is not the the Equal Time Doctrine, the latter of which is actually federal law.

47 U.S.C.A. § 315 requires that any “broadcasting station” that gives a candidate for office air time, must give that candidate’s opponents equal time on the air. There are four exceptions: a bona fide newscast; a bona fide news interview; a bona fide documentary wherein the candidate’s appearance is incidental to the subject matter; or on-the-spot coverage of a bona fide news events. The law applies “during the forty-five days preceding the date of a primary or primary runoff election and during the sixty days preceding the date of a general or special election in which such person is a candidate.” The law does not apply to cable channels.

This is not some new thing. The candidate’s opponents must actively seek the equal time. It is not just given, but has to be asked for. But if it is asked for, it will not be denied. Thus, in the 1994 special election for the United States Senate, Democrat politician Fred Cooper got just over four minutes of free air time on NBC affiliates in Tennessee because the network aired “Necessary Roughness.”