News
Liberal Groups Have Little Recourse To Challenge False Or Misleading Ads
NationalJournal.com
By Eliza Newlin Carney; Sept. 14, 2009 A wave of inflammatory ads bashing President Obama's health care plan has prompted liberal groups to push back with letters, petitions and calls for media outlets to pull the spots. But with Federal Communications Commission fairness rules inactive for more than two decades, progressives alleging blatant falsehoods have little legal recourse. This regulatory vacuum has left media executives to decide ad hoc whether to run or reject controversial ads, prompting complaints from activists on both sides of the debate. The dust-up over allegedly deceptive ads has shone the spotlight on a fresh crop of shadowy, right-leaning groups with ties to some of the GOP's most notorious operatives, most notably Dick Morris and Grover Norquist. A particularly nasty spat has erupted between the 90-year-old League of Women Voters of the United States and a conservative nonprofit launched less than two months ago under a very similar name, the League of American Voters. Media executives who make the call whether or not to run ads tend to give advocacy messages considerable leeway. Officials from the League of Women Voters have accused the conservative group in a letter of running a "misleading" TV ad and have called on it to "cease and desist from using a name" that is "so deceptively similar" to its own. The League of Women Voters, which endorses health care reform and a public insurance option, has been hearing from members who had confused the conservative group with the nonpartisan league. "We are still exploring what legal avenues we might have if they decide not to honor our request to cease and desist," said Mary Wilson, president of the League of Women Voters. Wilson's group hand-delivered its letter because it could learn virtually nothing about the new group from its Web site. Bob Adams, the executive director of the newly-formed League of American Voters, countered that his group's TV ad is "rock solid." The ad depicts a neurosurgeon in a white lab coat declaring that Obama's health care plan will "hurt our seniors and end Medicare as we know it, ration coverage and care, limit life-saving medicines, impose long delays on cancer treatment and other vital surgery." "There's nothing controversial about our ads," said Adams, a former communications strategist who ran for the West Virginia state Senate as a Republican last year without success. "What's controversial is socializing one-seventh of the U.S. economy." Adams said his group's "chief strategist" is Dick Morris, the former Clinton adviser and political operative who has recently penned a book, Catastrophe, warning of rationed health care. The League of American Voters shares the exact address and suite number on 12th Street in downtown Washington as Americans for Tax Reform, though Adams said there is "no affiliation" and that the league is only a tenant. Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax group that is aggressively lobbying to block health care changes, is headed by well-known conservative activist Grover Norquist. Even as the League of Women Voters assails Adams for his group's ad, Adams himself has gone on a PR offensive, including an appearance on Fox News, to complain that neither ABC nor NBC would air the commercial. News reports have quoted ABC spokeswoman Susan Sewell as saying that the network "has a long-standing policy that we do not sell time for advertising that presents a partisan position on a controversial public issue." Fox quoted an NBC executive stating that the network had concerns about "some factual claims that require additional substantiation." Adams called these decisions unfair, but added: "We're still able to reach the people that we want to reach," noting that the ad is running on network affiliates in Arkansas, Louisiana and Colorado. Williams said his group had raised about $1.6 million from 16,000 individual supporters since July. Another new conservative activist group under fire for its controversial ads is the U.S. Citizens Association. Like Adams' group, the U.S. Citizens Association also got into a dust-up over its name. The conservative startup had originally called itself the Better Government Association, but switched names after an 86-year-old nonpartisan Chicago group by that name took legal action. The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has set out to pressure media executives to pull an ad run by the conservative organization, citing FCC guidelines that call on broadcasters to act with "reasonable care" to ensure that ads are not "false or misleading." CREW initially sent letters to MSNBC and to Comcast, only to learn that neither provider had sold the ad time. CREW is still investigating which outlet -- probably a local affiliate -- sold the ad. The ad in question maintains that Democratic reforms will eliminate private health care, impose socialized medicine and force patients to wait years for treatment. Print ads by the U.S. Citizens Association in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Florida's Gainesville Sun and Georgia's Augusta Chronicle have also generated angry e-mails and letters from readers. Earlier this year, the Service Employees International Union sent a letter to Michael Jack, general manager of WRC-TV in Washington, calling on him to pull a "documentary" anti-health care ad by the activist group Conservatives for Patients' Rights. The SEIU generated more than 68,000 signatures on a petition calling for NBC not to air the program. Media executives who make the call whether or not to run ads tend to give advocacy messages considerable leeway. In a column responding to irate readers, Star-Telegram writer J.R. Labbe quoted Mike Winter, the paper's vice president of advertising, as saying: "If a pro-Obama group wanted to do a similar ad, we'd gladly take it." Still, the frustration of liberal groups over misleading messages -- and the media's role in disseminating them -- is palpable. "Part of the problem within this debate has been the mass spread of disinformation," said Jacki Schechner, communications director of Health Care for America Now. "And part of the reason for this is that these ads are not being pulled from the air. It's quite extraordinary what they can get away with." CLARIFICATION: In an e-mail, GOP strategist Ed Rollins clarified that, notwithstanding reports linking him to the U.S. Citizens Association, he has no affiliation with the group. This column has been updated to reflect that.