Is it unfair to televise an Obama speech?
Politicians and Free Media
Last Wednesday President Obama delivered his second speech to a joint session of Congress. The speech marked the fifth time since coming to office that the White House has ask TV networks to cover the President speaking during primetime (as a comparison, President George W. Bush addressed the nation during primetime only four times during his eight years in office).
Primetime is, well, the prime time to catch viewers. Some 32 million viewers watched the President’s health care speech. It is also the most lucrative period for TV networks, a fact that makes the hour-long, commercial-free broadcast a significant imposition. Of course, the TV networks need not air the President just because he requested it. FOX showed the season premiere of “So You Think You Can Dance” last week, the third time the network chose not to broadcast a primetime appearance by President Obama. But every other major networked and all the cable news stations, out of patriotic duty or respect for the office of the President, continue to televise President Obama’s prime time speeches and news conferences.
There are numerous normative issues here, including the interrelated ones of the responsibility of TV networks to air the President and whether the President can abuse the privilege of his office in repeatedly asking the networks to broadcast him in prime time. I want to briefly investigate a different question: is it unfairly unequal to televise the prime time addresses and press conferences of the President but not those of the other Party’s major figures?
We tend to believe in some kind of media equality for politics. TV networks appeal to this principle in their slogans: “Fair and Balanced”; “We report, you decide”. In running for Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg gave up his position of CEO at Bloomberg news. This belief is also codified in law: according to the Equal Time Rule (originated in the 1927 Radio Act), radio and television stations that give air time to a candidate for public office must provide an equivalent opportunity to any opposing candidates who might request it.
It is true that after a Presidential address to a joint session of Congress, the other Party gets a response. However, these are typically no more than five minutes long and can seem laughably staged following the gravitas of the President’s speech.
The Equal Time Rule was created in response to the fear that media coverage could easily manipulate the outcome of elections and, thus, only applies to official candidates for public office. But today’s political environment is a constant campaign. The President, in particular, is effectively the chief campaigner for his Party. And getting major bills passed is more like a campaign for election than a battle of minds to write good policy.
From 1949 to 1987, the Federal Communications Commission had the Fairness Doctrine, a policy (upheld by the Supreme Court) that required broadcasters to present controversial issues of public importance in an honest, equitable and balanced manner. Partisans on both sides have criticized the Fairness Doctrine as a violation of free speech and property rights. The case of politicians advocating for policies falls somewhere in between the campaign environment regulated by the Equal Time Rule and the public debate setting that the Fairness Doctrine once governed.
Though the proliferation of media sources made possible through the internet reduces the influence of any particular network, TV continues to be the most prominent media for political persuasion (how many newspaper campaign ads did you see in 2008?) A liberal or conservative network, it seems, could have a profound effect on the outcome of a major public policy debate by giving air time only to politicians that espouse the network’s particular position on the issue, all without having to sacrifice a single viewer of CSI: Miami. At the same time, regulating this would clearly violate some free speech and property rights of the network. In the case of campaigns, most people think this restriction is justified. The question is whether it is justified in a campaign-like political environment as well.
-Marc
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- The myth of a “national security” limitation on free speech
- Should Obama have fired McChrystal?
- The debate over net neutrality
- Hate speech and the Constitution
- Assessing Obama
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