Media Groups Back WJFW In Political Ad Fight

Seven broadcast and media organizations today voice moral support Joe Fuchs and his WJFW-TV Rhinelander, Wis., which has been sued by the Trump campaign for airing an anti-Trump spot the campaign says is false and defamatory.

The organizations include the Big 4 affiliate groups, the RTNDA, the Media Institute and the Society of Professional Journalists.

The spot, paid for the Priorities USA PAC, attacks Trump for his handling of the pandemic, alleging that his response was slow and cavalier.

The campaign was particularly incensed by a sentence that makes it appear that Trump was calling the COVID-19 a hoax —“Coronavirus, this is their new hoax.” The producers claim the sentence was created by editing together two other sound bites.

Demanding damages, fees and a jury trial, the campaign sued WJFW in Price County, Wis., which is within the station’s DMA (134).

In their letter to Fuchs, the supporting organization did not directly address the content of the spot, but rather argued that content of a controversial nature was the very stuff of American politics and fully protected by the First Amendment.

“By making opportunities to air political ads broadly available to individuals and groups across the political spectrum, local television stations serve as a platform for the discussion of all sides of public issues and political candidates. That is the American way,” the letter says.

“The open and robust discussion of political candidates and issues that results is rooted in the First Amendment. Our Constitution is premised on the notion that the cure for speech with which a candidate or group disagrees in more speech that advances different and sometime contrary ideas in response, not attempts to squelch speech with which they disagree with libel claims made in litigation.”