Broadcast Groups Offer to Put Some Political File Info Online

A host of broadcast groups have proposed a compromise solution to the Federal Communications Commission's proposal that they put their entire political file into an FCC-managed national database of TV station public inspection file information.

According to a filing at the FCC, Barrington, Belo, Gannett, Hearst, Scripps, Meredith, Raycom, and Post-Newsweek, among others, have suggested that the stations could put some of that info either on their own Websites or an FCC Website, with the name of the media buyer, the candidate, and the entity that paid for the ads or programming time, as well as the aggregate amount paid for the spots. The file would be updated weekly during election seasons, as well as the day before the election, and once a month otherwise.

Free Press and other members of the Public Interest Public Airwaves Coalition (PIPCA), which has been pushing for greater online disclosure, says the compromise is inadequate and exempts information the public should have more readily available to it. For one thing, they said, allowing stations not to put the information in an FCC database defeats the FCC's goal of having an easily searchable repository of the information. Broadcasters argue converting the entirety of their political files to online would be a paperwork burden and pull resources from other areas. PIPAC says keeping written political files and a different online file would be more work. It also said the station group proposal could exclude expenditures by Super PACs.

[Editor’s note: The Benton Foundation is a PIPCA member]