Posted on 09/10/2003 8:11:15 AM PDT by El Conservador
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Even though shock jock Howard Stern's radio and television show features scantily clad women and raunchy chatter, regulators on Tuesday ruled it a news program, exempting it from equal time rules on political coverage.
The staff decision by the Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) opens the way for the show to book two of the sexier candidates for California governor: Hollywood he-man Arnold Schwarzenegger (news) and porn-star Mary Carey.
A media watchdog group immediately denounced the FCC (news - web sites) ruling, calling it a reversal of decades of U.S. media regulation designed to promote fairness in election coverage and an informed public debate on government policy.
Executives at Infinity Broadcasting, which owns Stern's home station WXRK in New York, had been concerned that an appearance by either candidate would have required the show to make time for the more than 130 candidates running in California's hectic Oct. 7 election.
Schwarzenegger, a Republican front-runner who announced his candidacy on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno (news - Y! TV), had been slated to appear on Stern's freewheeling show in late August before an abrupt cancellation due to concerns about running afoul of regulations.
Carey, the star of adult videos such as "Double D Dolls" and "Decadent Divas" and one of several entertainers jostling for attention in the race, had also been slated to appear on the Stern show this week, her campaign manager said.
The equal opportunity provision of the Communications Act of 1934 requires broadcasters to treat political candidates equally when selling or giving away air time, although regulators had made exceptions for news programs such as "Meet the Press" and "Face the Nation."
"We expected the commission to rule favorably and we're pleased with the result," said Dana McClintock, a spokesman for Infinity Broadcasting.
In a written ruling, the FCC's Media Bureau also said that other broadcasters airing programs that qualify as news programming, such as "The Howard Stern Show," would not need to seek its approval before airing interviews with candidates.
The FCC staff said that the Stern show had qualified under the law because it was regularly scheduled and that Infinity had decided which guests to book based on their newsworthiness, without looking to advance any particular candidate.
The Washington, D.C.-based Media Access Project vowed to appeal to the full, five-member commission and file a lawsuit if that failed, although it conceded that neither challenge was likely to succeed before the California vote.
Although the California governor's race is being watched by much of the nation as a kind of political comedy, the FCC decision sets a serious and dangerous precedent that would allow local broadcasters to favor certain candidates or air interviews with only those deemed most entertaining, the head of the watchdog group said.
"You shouldn't let the oddity of the California election eviscerate 75 years of sound legal principles," said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of Media Access. "As this applies to local radio and city council elections, it is not funny at all."
Noting that the Communications Act was meant to provide an exemption for "bona fide" news programming, Schwartzman said, "When guests are selected by the size of their bust, it is not bona fide news programming."
Mark Kulkis, campaign manager for Carey, said he hoped to be able to book an appearance on the Stern show in early October. A spokesman for Schwarzenegger was not immediately available for comment.
A representative of "The Howard Stern Show" also could not be immediately reached for comment.
He's appeared on it plenty of times before.
That appears to be the answer as to whether he has any class.
So the watchdog group is arguing that all 150 or so candidates must be given equal time. That's impossible to achieve, so there will be no coverage other than the local/national news coverage. That means there will be *less* public exposure for the candidates in whom the voters are most interested.
I hope Arnold and George W. have the sense to go ON the show. Howard helped plug Pataki in the come-from-behind `94 win over Mario Cuomo.He also helped Whitman, Giuliani, and D'Amato win races. While some of them might be called "RINOs", their opponents were inevitably socialist Democrats.
-Eric
The staff decision by the Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) opens the way for the show to book two of the sexier candidates for California governor: Hollywood he-man Arnold Schwarzenegger (news) and porn-star Mary Carey.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.In other words, the Federal Government is not allowed to control your opinion, or your expression of it. If you want to buy a press--you probably have a printer hooked to your computer--and publish a newspaper you do not apply to the government for a license which the government is forbidden to require. Whether or not I or anyone else thinks you are "operating in the public interest."
The FCC--disposing governmental powers--was created to determine what use of electromagnetic spectrum is "in the public interest." It decided that you aren't allowed to transmit on almost any frequency, but that certain of its favored elite are awarded a title of nobility called a broadcast license--and everyone else is entitled to shut up and listen.
Your "right to know" is beautiful clothing for the presumption of the objectivity of journalism. But if I disagree with you, one or the other of us is wrong--and if we both have a right to talk, no one has the right to hear only the truth.
Even people who buy ink by the barrel are deterred at the prospect of arguing with other people who buy ink by the barrel. Thus the true nature of journalism is not truth but consensus; what you are told--on the Internet or in print or on the air--may be the truth, or simply an urban ledgend which somehow flatters the teller of it.
Nothing the FCC does would be constitutional if applied to print or to in-person speech. Everything the FCC does should therefore be subject to "strict scrutiny" of the courts.
The "objectivity" of journalism is a naked emperor, and the FCC should be sued and forced to bring its tendentious licensees under control. As interested as you may be in the results of voting on election day, for example, it is not in the interest of the proper conduct of elections that government-licensed broadcasters put their--and thus the government's--imprimatur on guesses or even factual truth about how other people have voted.
There is time enough, when the responsible officials have made their tallies, to report the facts after the polls are closed nationwide. Had that rule been followed on Election Day 2000 we would have known the result a month sooner than was in fact the case.
Bingo. That Schwarzenegger would consider appearing with Stern -- let alone regularly -- is all I need to know about Arnie.
Let the Kennedys have him. They deserve each other.
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