FCC Rejects Kucinich's Attempt to Appear on CNN Democratic Debate
Federal Communications Commission: CNN Criteria Not Unreasonable, Ohio Rep. Not Major Candidate
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/22/2008 9:40:00 AM
The Federal Communications Commission wound up denying Democratic candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich's (Ohio) last-ditch attempt to participate in CNN's debate Monday night between the three leading Democratic candidates.
Kucinich filed a complaint with the FCC late last week arguing that he was being excluded from the debate in violation of the equal-time provision of the law, which requires FCC licensees to afford equal opportunities for airtime to all candidates for an office if it allows any candidate to use its airwaves.
Kucinich said the debate -- among Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) -- was not a bona fide news event unless it covered all credible candidates; that his exclusion was not based on good-faith news judgment; and that CNN would not be acting in the public interest by excluding his “strong anti-war and national-health-care messages” from the debate.
The commission denied the complaint for a number of reasons. The FCC found that CNN's criteria for who could participate in the debate were not unreasonable -- that a candidate have finished in the top four in any of the early primaries or caucuses and that he or she be polling at least 5% in any of the major national polls. The commission also concluded that the debate met the criteria -- between at least two legally qualified candidates -- for a bona fide news event, which is exempt from the equal-time requirement.
The agency added that while it has expressed some concern that a "major presidential candidate" not be excluded from a debate, it said Kucinich had not provided sufficient evidence that he was a "major presidential candidate."
The FCC also said that even if it had triggered equal time, that time does not have to be on the same broadcast.
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I think it is self-evident that Dennis's showing in Iowa and New Hampshire was directly related to the fact that he was barred from those preliminary debates as well. There is a step by step strategy going on to obscure his message to Americans because he speaks truths that the corporate media do not want conveyed. To bar the anti-war candidate from debating on MLKing's actual birthday (Jan. 15th) borders upon the obscene. I am boycotting NBC channels, ABC channels, CNN, and in Iowa I would be boycotting even PBS. I believe Dennis's is the voice of the majority in America, and we should be free to hear him.
Suzanne Sparks - 1/22/2008 8:20:00 PM EST -
We live in a dictatorship. No democracy here. Im moving to Australia.
Jay Spink - 1/22/2008 8:19:00 PM EST -
These fascist pigs have already decided the election for us. Kucinich is the far superior candidate who is actually for the people and injects fresh Democratic ideas into the most important job in the world. NBC and Fox have made him invisible in the media by excluding him from earlier debates, therefore making him a non-candidate. The Supreme court colluded with them by overturning the Nevada judge who declared that he MUST be included. Now the FCC is joining the conspiracy to destroy Kucinich and deprive the American People of their best option. All of these bogus decisions build on and support one another so that they can pretend that the house of cards they've created is precedent for themselves to steal the election and direct it for their own interests. Remember how one bogus memo about "weapons of mass destruction" got bounced around the White House enough to magically become national policy and fodder for war? Kucinich challenges the big business corporate interests which control our "democracy." A major plank of his campaign is campaign finance reform, which might manage to return the government to the people. That is why they are fighting so hard to erase him.
The people should mobilize quickly to demand Kucinich get equal time before this election is decided for them. Boycott NBC and FOX sponsors, file a national class action suit, march on Washington dammit and demand that the Fascists relent.
"Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism as it is the merger of state and corporate power."
Benito Mussolini
Big Daddy - 1/22/2008 5:30:00 PM EST
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