Public File Political Requirements Clarified as Wheeler Administration Sunsets

On Jan 7, after the sun had set and the Federal Communications Commission’s doors were locked for the night, the agency released two decisions addressing complaints that a dozen TV stations did not provide sufficiently complete information about political advertising in their public inspection files during the 2016 Presidential campaign. That sounds kind of like a “controversial” FCC decision, and we thought that the FCC was going to hold off on controversial decisions until after next week’s Presidential Inauguration. To get around that unofficial moratorium, the Media Bureau Staff, rather than the full Commission, issued the two Orders, an approach used in a few other situations where the Wheeler FCC has wanted to get decisions out before the Chairman departs next week. The political public file requirements are pretty detailed, and it’s not always easy to pry some of the required information out of political sponsors, let alone get it all uploaded immediately into a station’s online political public file. Complaints were filed during the campaign, often by public interest groups, attempting to expose the sources of money behind political advertising where the sponsor preferred to remain in the shadows.