Davis Dwight & Tremaine LLP
Oregon business law firm
By David Oxenford on October 7, 2014
What’s a Broadcaster to Do When a Candidate Complains About the Truth of an Attack Ad? – Dealing with Ads from Non-Candidate, Third-Party Organizations
As we move into the final weeks of the election season, and races heat up, there are always issues about attack ads and what a station needs to do when they receive a “take-down” notice from a candidate who is being attacked. We recently wrote about candidate ads, and the “no censorship” provision of Section 315 of the Communications Act. Broadcasters can’t censor a “use” by a political candidate (a candidate ad that features his or her recognizable voice or image and is purchased by his or her authorized campaign committee), and thus the broadcaster is not liable for the content of the candidate’s ad. So no matter what the candidate may say – the broadcaster runs the ad as is. However, ads from third parties (PACs, SuperPACs, labor unions, right to life groups and other advocacy organizations) are different. The “no censorship” provisions of the political rules don’t apply, so broadcasters are free to accept or reject third party ads based on the content of the ads.
This question arises all the time. A station runs a third-party ad, and the politician who is being attacked by the ad will contact the station – or have their lawyer contact the station – demanding that the station pull the ad for its alleged untruthfulness. Sometimes that request has some vague (or sometimes not so vague) threat of a legal action against the station if it continues to run the ad. Unlike candidate ads (where the station cannot censor the ad and thus the station must reject all requests to pull a candidate ad, and can continue to run the ad without liability), the station makes a choice when it runs a third-party ad. Ads that are not run by the candidate’s official campaign committee (or by a political party with explicit authority and coordinated with the candidate), can be rejected based on their content – or for any other reason that the station may have – or for no reason at all. Because stations make a decision as to whether or not they are going to run a third-party ad, they theoretically have liability if the ad is untrue and the station continues to run the ad when it has been challenged by a candidate or another party attacked in the ad.
If faced with one of these challenges to an attack ad, what is a station to do? The first thing is to request substantiation from the sponsor of the ad. Usually, the sponsor will have documents including legislation or news articles to back up the assertions that they have made. The station needs to look at that information, and determine if it is likely that the ad is false and in fact defamatory or otherwise actionable, and then make a determination as to whether to continue to run the ad. These decisions are case-by-case determinations, dictated by the strength of the support, the nature of the attack contained in the ad, and the risk tolerance of the broadcaster involved. But they do need to be considered carefully.
In most cases, the risk of liability for a station running a political ad is relatively low. The most likely source of liability is for some sort of defamation contained in an ad. But candidates for office are “public figures” under the NY Times v. Sullivan standard, the standard set by a Supreme Court decision finding that a public figure must meet a much higher standard of proof to justify any claim. For there to be liability, not only must a plaintiff show that the statement that he or she is complaining about is untrue, but also that the station ran the ad either knowing that it was untrue or that the station otherwise acted with “malice” – e.g. they should have known that the statements made in the ad were untrue. In most cases, a station will only have reason to believe a political ad is untrue if they were put on notice of the untruth, and they will face liability only if they continued to run the ad once they knew or should have known that it was untrue and legally damaging to the person being attacked. For there to be any sort of liability, the false claims made in the ad must be factual, not opinion. In most cases, minor inaccuracies in a statement will not lead to liability if the gist of the statement is accurate.
Most routine campaign claims are unlikely to lead to liability – e.g. “he’s a big spending liberal,” “he doesn’t care about our children’s education,” “he voted X times for higher taxes,” – unless they make specific claims about the character or integrity of the candidate. If a candidate is accused of some sort of personal indiscretion, a crime or specific instances of dishonesty, the station needs to be especially careful running the ad without some demonstration that the ad is true. This kind of allegation is the type that can, if false, lead to liability. But for most of the typical campaign claims about what a candidate’s election will mean for the public in the future, or some interpretation of what his or her voting record means, liability is very difficult to prove. Nevertheless, the station should ask for substantiation of any claim made in a third-party ad either when the station believes it to be untrue or when it receives a claim that statements in the ad are untrue.
Once the information supporting the ad is provided, the station must evaluate whether there is any basis for the claim. The station needs to determine whether the ad is demonstrably untrue. What is then done with the ad may call for a nuanced determination as to whether there is any real likelihood of liability, or whether the station simply is uncomfortable with the ad as prepared. In some cases, the station may just not like the ad – and it is justified in pulling the ad for those reasons alone (see, for instance, when one station two years ago in Iowa decided to refuse to run the Colbert SuperPAC ads). Other stations may have more tolerance for risk. On close questions, where there are statements that seem to be false, and where they attack a candidate for some personal characteristics, be sure that you call counsel to see whether or not you should pull the ad. While liability for a broadcast station for the content of a third-party political ad is not common, it is also not unheard of – so stations need to approach this area with care.
For more information about political broadcasting topics, see our Political Broadcasting Guide, here. Also, check out our article here about the issue of identifying the true sponsor of a PAC ad, an issue that may come up during the remainder of this political season.
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