Dear Donald… A Word on Equal Time and the Fairness Doctrine

Why You’re Wrong On American Law… Again

Yesterday, during your morning constitutional and roughly two hours before you arrived at Trump National Golf Club for your 65th visit to a golf club (54th confirmed golfing activity)since the inauguration at a cost of approximately $72,392,178 to American taxpayers so far…

you made the following public statements on your favorite medium:

This was likely a response to your favs at Fox & Friends:

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After considering this episode, I think you’re in need of some basic education on a few of the issues at hand: The Equal Opportunity Provision and The Fairness Doctrine.

First, the Equal Opportunity Provision. . .

The Equal Opportunity Provision, Section 315 of the Communications Act of 1934 , is a U.S. Broadcasting Regulatory Rule that dates back to the Radio Act of 1927 — the first major broadcasting legislation in the U.S. The provision requires that radio stations, television stations, and cable systems which originate their own programming to treat legally qualified political candidates equally when it comes to reasonable access to paid or free air time. If the time is paid time, it is to be available to all candidates at the rate a broadcasting station or cable system offers its “most favored advertiser.”

The concern that set this regulation in motion was the fear that if equal opportunity was not mandated, some broadcasters might attempt to manipulate elections by making their preferred candidate more visible to the people. (Can you imagine!)

To put it simply, if a station gives or sells time to one candidate, they must also sell or give time with the same audience potential to all other candidates for the particular office in question. If a candidate cannot afford airtime, they will not be afforded free airtime unless his or her opponents are also afforded free airtime. This means that candidates with more significant resources will still have an advantage, assuming free airtime is not on the table.

Congress has created four exemptions to this Act:

1. Stations who gave time to candidates on regularly scheduled newscasts
2. Stations who gave time to candidates on news interview programs(like late night television)
3. Stations who gave time to candidates via documentaries, assuming the candidate wasn’t the primary focus of the documentary
4. Stations who gave time to candidates via on-the-spot news events (Presidential press conferences and debates have been labeled on-the-spot news, even if the sitting president uses his or her remarks to bolster his or her campaign.)

Appearances by candidates in shows which do not fit under one of the four exemptions triggers the Equal Opportunities Provision, even if the appearance is irrelevant or only tangential to the campaign.

Now… A few things I’d like to point out:

1. You will notice I’ve set apart the word “candidate,” in its various forms, in boldface and italics. I want you to pay careful attention to this word as you are not a candidate. You have not been a candidate for 334 days — Yes, we’re counting.
2. The election process in the U.S. begins in the spring in the year prior to the election. As the next presidential election will occur on November 3, 2020, assuming you are not in prison, that you haven’t been forced to resign or flee the country, and that you intend to run for a second term at that time, you will not be a candidate again until approximately March 20, 2019. It is only at this time that this provision will again apply to you. It currently does not… because you are not a candidate.
3. Moving past the fact that you are not a candidate, I draw your attention to the first of your two tweets where you state

“Late Night host(s) are dealing with the Democrats for their very ‘unfunny’ & repetitive material, always anti-Trump!”

If we’re to believe that you aren’t talking out of your ass, this statement suggests that late night hosts (no need to capitalize as late night in this context is not a proper noun) are “always” discussing you — repetitively, even. If this is true, it would seem that you actually receive a greater proportion of coverage on late night television programs than any other political figure.

As a regular consumer of each of these late night programs, I can confirm that this is likely, although I haven’t done any form of quantitative content analysis. The problem with the coverage; however, is that you don’t like what the late night hosts say about you, your ill-informed policy moves, and your inhumane agenda each night. In fact, a recent Salon article notes,

“He’s upset because the late-night hosts are making fun of him on a daily basis. Trump’s so distressed by all the ridicule, he sent out another tweet claiming that “more and more people” were asking Congress and the White House to look into ‘equal time on TV.’”

Sadly, regardless of whether or not you care for what they say, they ARE talking about you nearly every night — if not every single night! Again, if you were a candidate — which you’re not — you’d be afforded access to airtime, but you wouldn’t be guaranteed control over what that content would be. Thus, the Equal Opportunity Provision is, again, a moot point.

4. Finally, late night television shows are, in fact, news interview programs, which are clearly covered under exemption #2 above. This means that regardless of all of your rage-toilet-tweeting, it really doesn’t matter what content is king in late night television because shows like these are exempt from the regulation altogether.

So, does the Equal Opportunity Provision apply to your overwhelmingly negative late night coverage?

The Fairness Doctrine

The fairness doctrine, a parallel regulation to the Equal Opportunity Provision, was a 1949 policy of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)(Read: NOT a law passed by Congress), which aimed to ensure that all coverage of controversial issues by a broadcast station be balanced and fair. The FCC considered broadcasters “public trustees” and felt that this obligated them to “afford reasonable opportunity for discussion of contrasting points of view on controversial issues of public importance” or even to “actively seek out issues of importance to their community and air programming that addressed those issues.”

The reason for this regulation was to prevent broadcasters from using their stations to advance a singular perspective. However, the fairness doctrine was dissolved in 1985 when it was found that the regulation was no longer having its intended effect and may actually have had a “chilling effect,” where in order to avoid the requirement to seek out contrasting viewpoints on every controversial issue, some journalists simply avoided any coverage of controversial issues at all. This was the opposite of what the FCC intended and quite possibly a violation of the First Amendment.

According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications, “the fairness doctrine remains just beneath the surface… and some members of Congress continue to threaten to pass it into legislation. Currently, however, there is no required balance of controversial issues as mandated by the fairness doctrine.” This likely explains your tweet-threats to restore this defunct doctrine this weekend.

Like Bloomberg Politics,

• I wonder if you would be in favor of requiring conservative media outlets to give balance to opposing perspectives.
• Do you realize that enforcement of a fairness doctrine would require your “besties” at Fox to balance their ideas with the liberal ideology you’ve decided to despise at this juncture in your political career? I mean, any other enforcement applied solely to broadcasters or programs that “lean left” would be nothing short of selective, fascist censorship of the media by a government entity and, effectively, a violation of the First Amendment. But I digress . . .

Granted, the media is having a rough go of it since you declared your candidacy. They’re trying, but they have no precedent for reporting on an abomination of this magnitude. They’re using their best judgement, which is often simply not good enough. But some might say the late night hosts, because they often come from the world of improv comedy, sketch, and satire, are best suited to cover politics today as they have impeccable bullshit meters and they aren’t afraid to call out this most unusual thing.

Further, most people — especially those who are educated and more likely to enjoy satirical late night television — are wholly capable of reason and sorting out one-sided or distorted coverage of an issue without an undue intrusion of forced fairness on the part of the government. This applies equally to liberal and conservative viewers.

I mention the fairness doctrine because just about everyone — except you, of course — knew that the Equal Opportunity Provision you incorrectly cited as “Equal Time” on Saturday morning was likely another man-baby Twitter tantrum about something you perceive as unfair. Eric Lieberman at the Daily Caller made a valiant attempt to translate what he thought you might have meant during your rant. But, otherwise, the fairness doctrine — having been dissolved for 32 years now— is completely irrelevant to late night television programming or your weak cries for ego gratification.

So, does the fairness doctrine apply to your overwhelmingly negative late night coverage?

Again…

Perhaps instead of letting Fox & Friends trigger you on a Saturday morning and rage-tweeting a man-baby tantrum about the negative coverage you receive, you should turn your attention to the root of the problem and address the reasons why the coverage is SO negative — every day.

Hint: It isn’t because of “Fake News” or “Liberal Bias.” It isn’t Hillary’s fault. . . it’s your fault. . . because you are a horrible human.

Address that and I bet the coverage will improve exponentially!