I recently stumbled upon an intentionally shocking tv ad for presidential candidate Randall Terry that includes graphic abortion pictures and compares celebrities to Nazi leaders. The ABC network aired a disclaimer that "The following is a paid political advertisement, and the ABC television network is required to carry it by federal law. The advertisement contains scenes that may be disturbing to children. Viewer discretion is advised.”
The candidate seems to be manipulating FCC regulations to spread his message. What are your thoughts - should the regulations be adjusted to prevent this level of hate speech? Or is this an inevitable outcome of free speech? How long until we see candidates taking this even further with verbal and/or visual obscenity?
Absolutely not. Randall Terry’s freedom of speech should be preserved.
The question is whether ABC should be coerced into broadcasting Terry’s speech.
When the average city just had three government licensed TV channels, I can see the justification. But once UHF stations were allowed to have competitive transmission power (1975 or so?), this was no longer justified. ABC should be allowed to accept or reject ads as they wish.
What makes me nervous, in saying this, is the implications regarding bigoted Trump ads. I have not thought that through.
Nobody should restrict someone’s right to say what they want, however a TV network shouldn’t be forced to air something they deem unsuitable for their audience. I hope at least some people saw it and complained loudly to the FCC about it.
You make a good point. Currently ABC cannot reject the ad, but CNN can reject it. That works in this candidate’s favor since he is trying to rile the 60+ demographic who watch network tv, but it does seem coercive to require ABC to air the ad.
I believe something like this has happened in the past. I remember back in the 80’s(?) there were similar shocking political ads with graphic images of abortions. The stations had similar disclaimers about how they were obligated to show the ads.
I don’t think that stations should get to pick and choose political ads because that would allow stations to control which ads are shown. Stations with a Republican owner would end up saying that the Democratic ads are too offensive for their audience regardless of their content. However, I don’t think the politician should be immune from prosecution for the content in their ad. If they show things that are illegal, then they should be held accountable.
I have not watched the ad as I am currently working (I am presently playing a legally required recording for a caller. This gives me time to type and read posts and interact with my personal laptop visually. I must keep my headphones on and listen for problems with the recording and to be sure to resume the call promptly when the recording ends. I cannot interact with my personal laptop by listening to any audio). But, this reminds me of when Septa (the local transit authority) was legally required by equal free speech regulations to accept and display ad posters that openly and without pretense compared the leaders of various arab groups and countries to Nazis. One ad showed a photograph of the leader of an arab country (I forget which one) meeting with Hitler.
There was much public outcry. To prevent it from ever happening again, Sepat stopped carrying any and all political ads. That was the only thing they could do.
This controversy goes back at least to Lyndon Johnson’s Daisy ad in 1964 which only ran once (but was shown over and over on news and talk shows) and Lyndon LaRouche’s inflammatory and wildly false accusations during his and his suppporters’ heyday in the 1980s.
@DocCathode is right. Either let every qualified candidate say what they want to say, or ban political advertising completely. Otherwise you’ll end up with the Sinclair stations refusing to run Harris ads.
I am strongly against that. Last time I checked, I would need a few hundred signatures, to do some paperwork, be a natural born citizen, and be over a certain age (I can never remember if it is 35 or 40) to become a fully legal candidate for President. I don’t need to have millions of dollars. I do not need to belong to any major political party. I do not need to have views and positions that most people agree with. I can even hold, within the very broad confines of the First Ammendment, views and positions that many people find ludicrous or offensive.
Definitely, limiting the message itself for ones but not others is a no-go.
At best the stations could be allowed to require keeping with “broadcast standards” e.g. you can acuse your opponent of anything but if you show blood and gore or use profane language you can only do so on the late night slots.
Qualified candidates include every crackpot who can scratch up the filing fee and enough signatures for that office. That includes candidates for mayor, state representative, U.S. representative, and fringe presidential candidates.
How are you going to split these people up? Is Marjorie Taylor Greene, an incumbent member of the House of Representatives, more or less qualified than Jill Stein, who got only 1.4 million votes across the entire country running for President as the nominee of an established political party? Do you disqualify Ross Perot, who invented a political party but got 19.7 million votes in 1992? Do you want the Federal Election Commission deciding a candidate may meet the legal standard to get on the ballot, but isn’t “qualified” to buy advertising for some reason?
Or would you prefer as @JRDelirious seems to, to leave the choice to each individual television and radio station? More than 16,000 individual station managers deciding whether one candidate calling another a fascist or baby killer meets their community’s “standards” or might possibly open the station to a libel suit or a challenge to their FCC license?
Note that that was posing that an “at best” scenario could not apply to substantive content but only to form. Not advocating it as a solution since as you state, it’s impractical.
One of my local TV stations, in Des Moines, aired some Lyndon LaRouche ads during the 1984 campaign, and one that lit up the switchboard was one I saw (and can’t find on YouTube; some of them are viewable there) said that the Mondale-Ferraro campaign was financed by the KGB. They said on that night’s news that they were legally required to air any ads that were paid for, regardless of content.
BTW, in the unlikely event that you want to know more about Randall Terry, read this. I can’t find this online, but during the 2020 campaign, he went to a Pete Buttigieg rally, also in Des Moines, and started yelling “Sodomite! Sodomite! This guy’s a sodomite!” Pete said something like, “Want to tell us what you really think?” I don’t remember if Pete knew who he was.
Yeah, I encountered that one today. If anything, it turned me off to the candidate because, frankly, having that shoved in my face while eating lunch and watching The View this morning was pretty damn nauseating.
Disclaimers before and after and cautions about children who might be watching.
Of course the candidate is trying to strong-arm the media. That’s the way the extremists roll these days.
Also - Randall Terry is still alive and kicking? He’s been around since the 80’s and looks like a couple miles of bad road.
If CNN can reject this but the broadcast networks can’t then it’s time for an update to the FCC regs, in one direction or the other.
I’m also getting heartily sick of people comparing others to Nazis. Particularly when it’s obvious they don’t’ actually have a good grasp of history.
I’m within airshot of two TV stations owned by Sinclair, a broadcaster with avowed rightwing leanings. I have no doubt they would refuse ads on the basis of political ideology were they not forced by law to run them.