• by October 29, 2004

PUBLIC TRUST - Harry Pappas is a smart man and, from what we can tell, has always been a conscientious broadcaster operating in the best interest of the communities his Pappas Telecasting group has been licensed to serve. But we're beginning to wonder whether two of those words - "licensed" and "serve" - have slipped from his vocabulary. He now seems to believe he actually owns the broadcast spectrum the American public has licensed - conditionally - to him and that his TV stations are exempt from rules requiring broadcasters to operate in the best interest of the public.

That was evident in the response Pappas made Thursday to Congressional and California state legislators and to the Federal Communications Commission defending Pappas Telecasting's right to give political advertising time to candidates of his choice.

He seems to think it is his right to do so, that Pappas Telecasting actually owns the airtime he's so freely giving away and not that it is a public trust licensed to him on the condition that he operate in the best interest of the American public, which actually owns that spectrum.

You can hear it in his statement when he asserts: "The central truth is that Pappas Telecasting is exercising free speech rights and our right to make contributions. This is still a free country." Free speech? Yes. Free country? Yes. Right to give free ad time to candidates of your choice? Not really.

Mr. Pappas, the truth is you were not given a piece of the broadcast spectrum for free. You don't own it. You're just borrowing it. And it comes with certain obligations. From what we understand, if you don't oblige, that spectrum can be taken away from you. One of those obligations, we understand, is to make political advertising time equally available to any qualified candidate, not just to the ones a particular broadcaster might favor.

As such, Pappas' attempt to circumvent those rules is a dangerous precedent. He claims his lawyers have researched the issue and found that California laws and the FCC's policies give Pappas the right to make such "non-monetary contributions" to candidates on a partisan basis with no obligations to others.

"Thus, opposing candidates are not entitled to free time, but are entitled to an equal opportunity to advertise at the same value -- the lowest unit rate. And, simply put, we welcome all candidates to use our facilities," he proclaimed. We're not exactly experts on the topic, but that just doesn't seem right to us. We see nothing wrong with Pappas Telecasting exercising its free speech rights in other ways, say endorsing a candidate, or even giving a politically biased slant to the news coverage his stations air about political candidates.

As detestable as that may seem, that clearly is covered under the First Amendment. And in an ironic way, what Sinclair Broadcasting did when it aired an anti-Kerry documentary last week was far more consistent with the First Amendment than the commercial airtime giveaway Pappas is claiming rights to.

We may not have agreed with Sinclair's choice to use its stations' public affairs or news time to - actually it was in primetime - to spin a partisan point of view, but we agree it has the right to do so. Just like advertisers like Burger King had the right to pull their budgets off the stations in response to Sinclair's move.

So Mr. Pappas, please don't mess around with your obligation to make political advertising time available equally and impartially to candidates. It's a slippery slope for you, for the political system, for the broadcast system, and for the public trust that gives you the right to broadcast in the first place.

If you want to support the campaigns of specific candidates, do it the way everyone else does and make direct cash contributions, within the appropriate limits, and allow them to buy time on Pappas' or other broadcasters' stations if they want to.