The grassroots effort will call on citizens to demand that the national networks and local stations air at least five minutes a night of candidate discourse in the month preceding the Nov. 7 election, as recommended by a White House advisory panel co-chaired by CBS President Leslie Moonves. It s time we took democracy off the auction block, said Fred Richardson, director of the Texas Alliance for Better Campaigns.
Broadcasters don t own the airwaves.
The public does. And we have every right to demand that broadcasters fulfill their public service obligation to cover elections, and not just get fat on high dollar attack ads. A similar sample of 15 local stations in the top 75 media markets found they aired an average of 28 seconds of candidate discourse. But so far fewer than 50 local stations and none of the national networks not even CBS have indicated they will try to meet the panel's recommendation. In Texas, no stations have signed on, despite the fact that stations in Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico and Arkansas have, said Richardson.