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Although the authors of the First Amendment did not foresee the days when
radio microphones and television cameras would revolutionize the news and
entertainment industries, courts generally have had little problem extending the
freedom of the press to broadcasters.
Like print journalists, broadcasters enjoy freedom from prior restraint, the
right of access to court proceedings, and protections against chilling
defamation and privacy lawsuits. As occupiers of the public airwaves, however,
broadcasters also are required to bear responsibilities inconsistent with the
First Amendment.
The original justification for regulating broadcasters was set forth by the
U.S. Supreme Court in 1969 in Red Lion
Broadcasting Co. v. FCC. In Red Lion, broadcasters challenged the
fairness doctrine, a Federal Communications Commission rule that required them
to give each side of an issue fair coverage. The Court upheld the rule, saying
the government, because it was allocating a finite number of broadcast
frequencies, could regulate the licensees of those frequencies.
Broadcasters strongly resisted this premise, but the “spectrum scarcity”
rationale was used by the Court again in 1978, in FCC v.
Pacifica Foundation. In Pacifica, a New York radio station
broadcast George Carlin’s “Filthy Words” monologue during an afternoon program.
In the monologue, Carlin used many words the FCC had deemed indecent but not
obscene. After a listener complained, the FCC issued orders holding that such
speech could be broadcast only when children likely would not be exposed to
it.
Although the Court did not find Carlin’s monologue obscene (and thus without
any First Amendment protection), it did find the monologue indecent. Relying in
part on the spectrum-scarcity rationale, the Court said the FCC could restrict
when indecent speech is broadcast. The FCC’s power to regulate, the Court said,
also rested on the facts that broadcasters, unlike print publishers, enjoy “a
uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans” and that
broadcasting, unlike newspapers and magazines, is “uniquely accessible to
children.”
While the FCC still restricts over-the-air broadcasts of indecent speech to
between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., the number of special regulations for broadcasters
has decreased. This decrease is attributable in large part to the collapse of
the spectrum-scarcity rationale. As even the FCC has recognized, advances in
technology have made the number of frequencies now almost limitless. Moreover,
as the Court noted in Turner
Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, the spectrum-scarcity rationale is
irrelevant in the cable industry. The FCC’s regulation of indecency thus does
not apply to programming aired on cable-only channels.
One broadcasting regulation that no longer exists is the fairness doctrine.
Unsupported by the spectrum-scarcity rationale and politically unpopular in the
anti-regulation era of President Ronald Reagan, the fairness doctrine was
dissolved by the FCC in August 1987. Congressional attempts to legislate the
doctrine were vetoed by both Presidents Reagan and George H. Bush, in 1987 and
1991, respectively.
Corollaries to the fairness doctrine — the “personal attack” and “political
editorializing” rules — were thrown out in October 2000 by the U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Under the “personal attack” rule,
broadcasters were required to notify persons whose character was attacked on the
air and to give them an opportunity to respond. Under the “political
editorializing” rule, stations that endorsed a candidate for office were
required to give the candidate’s opponents free rebuttal time. The court issued
its decision after the FCC failed to comply with the court’s request to justify
the rules.
Still in place, though considerably watered down, is the FCC’s “equal time”
rule. As originally adopted, the rule required broadcast stations that allowed
one candidate to use the airwaves to offer all other candidates for that office
comparable airtime. In 1959, Congress amended the rule to exempt coverage of
candidates in newscasts, news interviews and documentaries in which the
candidate’s inclusion is incidental to the subject of the documentary. In 1983,
the FCC exempted broadcaster-sponsored debates from the rule. Five years later,
the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed in Arkansas
Educational Television Commission v. Forbes, that public television
stations enjoy the same right to limit participation in candidate debates.
Even with these victories for broadcasters, the electoral process remains fertile ground for legislative and agency efforts to impose special rules on broadcasters.
Part of the fallout from the 2000 presidential election, for example, were ultimately unsuccessful bills to prohibit broadcasters from announcing election projections before all polls had closed. Efforts also have been made to regulate exit polling, but most of those have been overturned by courts.
Special rules in campaign-finance reform legislation, however, have proven harder to avoid, though broadcasters and interest groups continue to challenge them. Until the U.S. Supreme Court comprehensively resolves these issues, the legal landscape for broadcasters will remain somewhat unsettled.
Revised March 2007
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