Eight Democratic senators have asked the commission to require stations to post online versions of political advertising information that stations are already required to include in their public inspection file in paper form.
Dems Want Stations To Post Campaign Info
A group of eight Democratic senators is urging the FCC to move swiftly to require TV stations to post online information about who is buying political advertising and how much they are paying.
“With campaign season in full swing and new super PACs springing up weekly, the public must have access to information about who is funding these ads,” the senators say in the letters.
The signatories include Jeff Merkle (Ore.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Mark Begich (Alaska), Jon Tester (Mont.) Al Franken (Minn.), Michael Bennet (Colo.) Daniel Akaka (Hawaii) and Tom Udall (N.M.).
The letter is timely as the FCC has proposed requiring the online posting of the political advertising information. As the senators point out in their letter, the FCC already require stations to place the information in their public inspection file in paper form.
“Taking the additional step of having these documents available online would create transparency in a time of increasing campaign-finance secrecy.”
The senators also ask the FCC to take into consideration the burden the requirements would place on broadcasters. “[D]o everything possible to find a cost-effective and efficient method for publishing this information online, especially for small and medium-sized stations.”
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Comments (2)
Craig Davenport says:
February 23, 2012 at 11:25 am
Here we go again…some political entity suspects (maybe rightly so) that their side is getting the short end of an imaginary stick and they want someone else to clean up the mess, or do all the work so they can have stuff handed to them. There is a process that works right now…get up off your dead arse, go to the station, walk in the door like a civilized human being, ask for permission to look at the PUBLIC FILE and then do it. Having to have a PAPER PUBLIC FILE, and then an ON-LINE PUBLIC FILE (I’m going to be sorry I typed this…) is crazy enough, but I’m just waiting for the next shoe (or jack-boots) to drop when the stations will be required to transcode all the PAPER PUBLIC FILES into Braille and then, transcoded/translated into Spanish, Chineses, French & Finnish FILES ON TAPE to accomodate every percieved injustice to the human condition perfect as possible. What’s next after that??? The stations will be required to pack up and hand deliver the complete set of files to every shutin within their DMA/ADI??? Let’s tell the politicians to get to work and get the budget fixed, lower everyones’ taxes and quit worrying about who’s spending what, where. If it wasn’t for THAT type of spending, some stations would be going black…which isn’t saying much about them either. GEESH…where’s a RECALL when you really could use one???
Albert Pica says:
February 23, 2012 at 1:15 pm
Why should this be the stations responsibility? There are others involved in the process of placing ads, and they are the ones who want access to the information.