Opinion ID: 494575
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the communications act and the first amendment

Text: 7 In Columbia Broadcasting System v. Democratic National Committee, 13 the Supreme Court upheld a ban on editorial advertising imposed by broadcast licensees, rejecting fairness doctrine and First Amendment challenges. The Court held that claims of First Amendment rights to broadcast access must be examined in light of the regulatory scheme evolved from the Communications Act: 8 Balancing the various First Amendment interests involved in the broadcast media and determining what best serves the public's right to be informed is a task of great delicacy and difficulty. The process must necessarily be undertaken within the framework of the regulatory scheme that has evolved over the course of the past half century. For, during that time, Congress and its chosen regulatory agency have established a delicately balanced system of regulation intended to serve the interests of all concerned. 14 9 The Court thus recognized that both broadcasters and the public have important First Amendment interests at stake in controversies over broadcast access. The Court concluded that Congress, by denying the public an unlimited right of access in the Communications Act, and the Commission, in developing the fairness doctrine, had attempted to strike a balance that would satisfy the First Amendment interests of all concerned. 15 While the Court acknowledged that it could not defer to the judgment of Congress or the Commission on a constitutional question, 16 it realized that contests over access oftimes present complex problems and few known answers, and that courts ought to pay careful attention to how the other branches of government have treated the same problem. 17 10 We face a far more pervasive scheme of regulation, and a significantly greater congressional sensitivity when, as here, the First Amendment rights of candidates for public office and their supporters are involved. There is, accordingly, a particularly strong obligation to consider petitioners' claim of a right of access to the broadcast media against the backdrop of the balance of First Amendment interests embodied in the Communications Act, the policies of the Commission, and the caselaw. Candidates are accorded greater access to the broadcast media than other citizens; they are afforded not only a limited privilege of reasonable access 18 but also the right to match any nonexempt use of a broadcasting station by their opponents, 19 and freedom to purchase advertising space at the lowest available rate. 20 These statutory rights of access make clear that Congress intended a wide variety of political views to reach the general public during the course of an election campaign. 11 In a case not involving the broadcast media, the Supreme Court declared that the primary values of the First Amendment ... are served when election campaigns are not monopolized by the existing political parties. 21 Petitioners' claims rest in part upon fear that the voices of minor party candidates may be drowned out by the superior financial resources of the major parties, or encounter discrimination from conscious or unconscious biases of large broadcasters. However, the several access provisions of the Communications Act ensure that political debate will not be monopolized by one or a very few candiates, but that candidates from all points of the political spectrum will be able to utilize the media. 22 12 While the Communications Act thus affords candidates several avenues by which to gain television exposure, the televising of a debate sponsored by a non-network third party does not itself trigger access for competing candidates under the provisions of the Act. This is because the Commission, in a decision upheld by this court in Chisholm v. FCC, 23 has determined that debates between qualified political candidates initiated by nonbroadcast entities are exempt from the equal-time requirements of Section 315(a) of the Act. 24 In that case, we found nothing in the Commission's decision inconsistent with the basic philosophy of Section 315(a) as amended by Congress. 25 We concluded that Congress, in crafting the exceptions to the equal-time rule of Section 315(a), intended that the Commission play a large role in fine-tuning the Section 315(a) exemptions. 26 By casting the exemptions in terms of broad categories, Congress knowingly accepted the risk of broadcaster favoritism in order to promote wider coverage of political news. 27 13 The Chisholm petitioners did not attack the Commission's Section 315(a) policy on First Amendment grounds. That challenge was made in this court in Kennedy I. 28 The question there was whether the legislative scheme embodied in Section 315(a) transgress[ed] the First Amendment interest of a candidate demanding an opportunity to respond to another candidate's statements on an excepted occasion. 29 We felt then, as we do now, that the answer was evident. We read the Supreme Court's decision in Columbia Broadcasting System v. Democratic National Committee as a holding that  'no individual member of the public [has a right] to broadcast his own particular views on any matter.'  30 Congress, we noted, has chosen to protect the public's First Amendment rights in broadcasting by relying on broadcasters as public trustees, periodically accountable for their stewardship, to use their discretion in ensuring the public's access to conflicting ideas. 31 The Supreme Court had found in Columbia Broadcasting System, we said, that the congressional choice of a public trustee system over a system in which everyone had access to the media was reasonable in view of the scarcity of broadcast frequencies. 14 We can perceive no basis upon which to distinguish the case at bar from Columbia Broadcasting System and Kennedy I. Indeed, petitioners present a far weaker constitutional thesis than the ones those cases rejected. They seek, not general access, as in the former, nor an opportunity to respond to a particular broadcast, as in the latter, but rather the specific right to appear on a specific program--a program not organized by the broadcasters, but by a third party. Thus, viewed in light of the First Amendment balance struck in the statutory scheme, as delineated in the governing caselaw, petitioners have stated no legally cognizable claim to participate in the broadcast debates. 15 In addition, petitioners' demand for inclusion in a particular program raises the risk of an enlargement of Government control over the content of broadcast discussion of public issues. 32 Petitioners would have the Commission forbid the networks from broadcasting a debate that excluded them. 33 While broadcasters do not have the same First Amendment journalistic freedom as newspapers, Congress and the courts have been reluctant to recognize an unlimited right of governmental interference in the affairs of broadcasters. 16 In rejecting First Amendment challenges by broadcasters to the statutory access scheme, the Supreme Court has consistently emphasized the narrow scope of the restrictions contested. 34 In Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 35 the Supreme Court rejected a broadcaster challenge to Section 312(a)(7), 36 which creates for candidates a limited right of reasonable access. The Court held that the statutory right of access ... properly balances the First Amendment rights of federal candidates, the public, and broadcasters. 37 While it emphasized that the First Amendment 'has its fullest and most urgent application precisely to the conduct of campaigns for political office,'  38 it underscored the restricted nature of the statutory right: 17 Petitioners are correct that the court has never approved a general right of access to the media.... Nor do we do so today. Section 312(a)(7) creates a limited right to reasonable access that pertains only to legally qualified federal candidates and may be invoked by them only for the purpose of advancing their candidacies once the campaign has commenced. The Commission has stated that, in enforcing the statute, it will provide leeway to broadcasters and not merely attempt de novo to determine the reasonableness of their judgments.... [I]f the broadcasters have considered the relevant factors in good faith, the Commission will uphold their decisions. ... Further, Sec. 312(a)(7) does not impair the discretion of broadcasters to present their views on any issue or to carry any particular type of programming. 39 18 The access demanded by petitioners in this case, however, would constitute a far greater intrusion on broadcasting discretion than the carefully limited statutory access upheld by the Supreme Court in that case. 19 Similarly, in the seminal case upholding the constitutionality of the fairness doctrine, Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 40 the Supreme Court, while emphasizing that it is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount, 41 also reiterated that broadcasting is clearly a medium affected by a First Amendment interest, 42 and outlined the narrowness of its holding: 20 We need not and do not now ratify every past and future decision by the FCC with regard to programming. There is no question here of the Commission's refusal to permit the broadcaster to carry a particular program or to publish his own view; of a discriminatory refusal to require the licensee to broadcast certain views which have been denied access to the airwaves; of government censorship of a particular program contrary to Sec. 326; or of the official government view dominating public broadcasting. Such questions would raise more serious First Amendment issues. But we do hold that the Congress and the Commission do not violate the First Amendment when they require a radio or television station to give reply time to answer personal attacks in political editorials. 43 21 We recognize the importance of preserving a large measure of journalistic discretion for broadcasters as a serious First Amendment issue, and this provides additional support for our holding that the Communications Act and the broadcast access cases decided under the First Amendment do not support petitioners' claims to be included in the televised debates. 22