WobblyReport

Section 315 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 is intended to give equal time to candidates on media broadcast channels. If a media broadcaster gives air time to a candidate, they must also give an equal amount of time to an opponent of that candidate, upon request. Except. Bona fide news coverage is exempt. On one hand, this would seem to protect freedom of the press. After all, if one candidate shows up in a public place and a media outlet captures the event, this should not oblige the media outlet to give time to an opponent with a campaign advertisement. But a real consequence of this policy has been a distinct narrowing of our political discourse throughout the nation. To understand how, we can look at a few case studies in one particular realm of media broadcast programming: televised political debates. Without attempting any exhaustive analysis of how the rules have evolved, let’s just look at fairly recent history. In 2008, for example, then-presidential candidate Denni