If John McCain Doesn't Show Up, Would Equal Opportunites Issues Prevent the Debate from Going On?
Today's announcement from John McCain that he is suspending his Presidential campaign to work on issues dealing with the economic bailout, and that he will not participate in Friday's scheduled Presidential debate if the bailout package has not been enacted, raises an interesting question about the application of the FCC's equal opportunities rules. If Barack Obama were to appear at the debate and answer questions, and that appearance was televised, would the stations that carried the debates later be subject to a claim for equal opportunities by the McCain campaign? Under FCC precedent, the answer would be "yes." Debates are exempt from equal opportunities because they constitute on-the-spot coverage of a bona fide news event - one of the exemptions from equal opportunities specified in the Communications Act. However, as we've written before, debates were not always considered exempt and, at one time, if all candidates (including all minor party candidates) were not included in the debate, any excluded candidate could demand equal time. Thus, debates rarely occurred. In the 1970s, the FCC loosened the rules to permit debates to be covered as news events, even if minor party candidates were excluded, without triggering equal opportunities obligations - if there were reasonable, objective criteria used to determine which candidates could participate. However, in doing so, the FCC concluded that, if only one candidate showed up for a debate, it was not a true debate, and thus not exempt from the equal opportunities doctrine.
What would this mean if a station was to cover a debate where Obama showed and McCain did not? If the McCain campaign were to timely request equal opportunities, stations would have to provide to McCain time equal to the amount of time that Obama appeared on screen, and McCain could do anything with that time that he wanted - he would not have to answer questions from the debate moderator. Thus, traditionally, if only one candidate shows up for a scheduled debate that is supposed to be broadcast, the debate (or at least the broadcast) is canceled.
So how do cable news channels get away with coverage of significant portions of speeches by candidates? These are a couple of explanations. First, these speeches are events that are not planned specifically for television, and therefore can be considered news events, and they are covered as part of a regularly scheduled news or news interview program - also exempt from equal opportunities. Also, it has been unclear as to whether cable networks are even subject to equal opportunities. For all these reasons, no claim for equal opportunities for the coverage of a campaign speech has been decided in recent years by the FCC.
For more information about these and other Political Broadcasting issues, see our Political Broadcasting Guide.
very interesting article. i would not have imagined that this type of issue could have been raised. my question now is, can an equal opportunity argument be made for inviting minor party candidates to the debates. right now, i don't think nader was invited to the friday debate, and during the primaries various candidates were also excluded. could these candidates complain about this?
A debate sponsor can use reasonable criteria to decide who to invite to debate - so minor party candidates like Nader and Barr can be excluded if they don't meet the threshhold - usually something like a showing that they have a 10 or 15% standing in the preference polls. See the link above to our discussion of the history of Presidential debates, a discussion which came up during the primaries when Kucinich was denied access to certain debates. However, if McCain does not show up, and the debate goes on, the debate is probably no longer covered by the equal opportunity exemption, so minor party candidates could claim equal time rights.