FCC Inaction Promotes Online Political File Violations, Transparency Groups Say
FCC inaction on violations of the online political file rules led broadcasters to conclude they face “no consequences” for filing incomplete or inaccurate information on buyers of political ads, said a joint letter Monday to Chairman Tom Wheeler from the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Sunlight Foundation and the Benton Foundation. It referenced 11 violations filed by the entities in May 2014 (see 1405130044) and 16 new complaints against Scripps' WCPO-TV Cincinnati. At the time of the 2014 complaints, Wheeler promised to address the problem expeditiously, but that hasn’t happened, said Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman, who represents the groups. “The FCC, in its failure to enforce laws that protect voters’ right to know, has clearly led broadcasters to freely ignore existing regulations with impunity,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director for the Campaign Legal Center, in a news release.
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The FCC has received and will review the letter, a Media Bureau spokeswoman told us. Another commission spokesman has told us the previous complaints are still being reviewed. Several broadcast attorneys told us they think it’s unlikely the FCC will move on the issue soon, though the groups behind the filing asked for action before the 2016 general election in November. Schwartzman said he believes the FCC will act soon, because “Tom Wheeler keeps his promises.” Scripps and NAB didn't comment.
WCPO political ad filings fail to include all the information the FCC requires, or include incorrect details, the complaint said. Such filings are supposed to include the names of candidates or issues, the election involved, a list of the buyer’s executive officers, the rate and the date and time on which the spot ran, the groups said. Sixteen WCPO filings don’t include all the information or are incorrect, the complaint said. Some companies don’t have all their executive officers listed, some filings don’t correctly identify the election the ad is for, and in several the issue is misidentified, or an unclear acronym was used, the groups said. “WCPO has agreed to carry ads for what it incompletely, inaccurately, and inconsistently identifies throughout its file using only the acronyms ‘DSCC’ or ‘DSCC-IE,’” said the complaint. “Most members of the public would be unable to discern the true identity of this sponsor, which is either the ‘Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’ or the ‘Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee -- Independent Expenditures.’”
There's a lack of certainty about how the FCC wants the forms filled out, one broadcast attorney told us. Not all of the directions on what information to include are clear, and that can lead to discrepancies, the attorneys told us. Ad buying also sometimes happens weeks or months before a spot is to run, broadcast lawyers told us, and at that time, the issue the commercial will be about may not be known, or it may change by airtime, they said. That can lead to that portion of the form being left blank, the attorneys said. Station ad sales workers may also be relying on the buyers to provide the necessary details, and leaving sections of the forms blank if that particular information isn’t provided. Other stations in the same market at WCPO were able to correctly fill out the form, the complaint said.
The 2014 complaint involved political file violations at 11 stations owned by Gannett, Scripps and others, and included bureau requests for further information and a warning from Wheeler. “We take political file complaints seriously and anticipate resolving these quickly,” said Wheeler in a May news release.
The problem may be more widespread, the transparency groups said in a release. It said a campaign Legal Center report, "Who’s Behind That Political Ad?: The FCC’s Online Political Files and Failures in Sponsorship Identification Regulation," shows 35 percent of political files in Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania “uploaded to the FCC’s database contained incomplete and inaccurate sponsorship identification.”