Channel 5 Rejects
Anti-Bush Ad
of Borough President
Candidate
By JIM RUTENBERG,
from NYTimes on the web, September 6, 2005
A local television station, WNYW/Channel
5, is refusing to run a provocative advertisement promoting a Democratic
candidate for Manhattan borough president. And the campaign of the
candidate, Brian Ellner, is charging that the station is doing so because the
spot takes a swipe at President Bush.
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Brian
Ellner, right, a candidate for Manhattan borough president,
introduced his partner at the end of his commercial. |
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The 30-second ad features Mr. Bush's
face superimposed upon a middle-aged man's naked torso as Mr. Ellner says of the
president that "the emperor has no clothes." Mr. Ellner also introduces
his partner, Simon Holloway, in the spot -- which the campaign says is the first
time in city history that a gay candidate has introduced his or her partner in a
campaign commercial.
Mr. Ellner said in an interview yesterday that representatives of Channel 5, a
Fox affiliate, had told his campaign that they would not show the advertisement
because it was "in poor taste."
"It's pretty clear it's an anti-free speech decision because of our criticism of
the president," Mr. Ellner said.
"It's untenable and in my view it's anti-American." He added that the
rejection of the ad was "disrespectful to voters."
Brandii Toby, a spokeswoman for Channel 5, said the station was indeed refusing
to run Mr. Ellner's advertisement, but she said the station would provide no
explanation.
Tim Arnold, a media adviser to Mr. Ellner, said the station had at first agreed
to sell the campaign advertising time but then rejected the advertisement after
seeing it. The campaign has already spent about $250,000 to put the ad on
the air.
Mr. Arnold said that when he pushed for a more detailed explanation of the
rejection, a station representative told him that the station believed the
advertisement was "disrespectful of the office of the president."
Mr. Arnold said Channel 5 was the only local station to reject the advertisement
out of roughly 15 network or cable affiliates -- including NY1 News, WABC and
WNBC -- that the campaign said it approached. The campaign said it did not
try to place the ad on WWOR, which like Channel 5 is part the Fox Television
Stations group, a unit of News Corporation.
"They accepted the media plan without knowing what was coming," said Mr. Arnold,
the managing partner of an advertising firm called the Ad Store, which produced
Mr. Ellner's commercial. "I don't know what's in operation here."
If the station rejected the ad because of its content, it would appear to be
skirting the line of broadcast regulations and communication law covering the
showing of political commercials by local stations.
Broadcast channels, which are regulated by the Federal Communications
Commission, are allowed to reject so-called issue advertisements from interest
groups based on their content. But they are prohibited from doing so with
ads from candidates.
"There is part of the statute that says the station cannot censor the content of
a political ad," said a communications commission official who spoke on
condition of anonymity, following the commission's general practice of avoiding
public comment upon matters in which it is not involved. (The F.C.C.
generally only acts on complaints; Mr. Ellner said he would probably file one
but had not done so.)
The commission official said that after a station agrees to sell time for a
campaign commercial, "the station is required to put it on the air -- they have
no option."
Still, the official said there was a way around the rules. While stations
are required to accept all commercials for federal candidates, they can pick and
choose the local races for which they will run commercials.
And stations in the past have cited that loophole after being accused of
rejecting candidate spots based on their content.
Channel 5 could find some wiggle room on those grounds because none of the other
Manhattan borough president candidates who are advertising on television are
doing so on broadcast stations. They are so sticking instead to less
expensive cable outlets.
Ms. Toby, the Fox 5 spokeswoman, declined to discuss the nuances of federal
communication law during an interview on Friday.
Mr. Ellner, 35, a lawyer who advised Mark Green's mayoral campaign in 2001, is
not considered a favorite to win the borough president's race and his
advertisement was devised in part to jar voters into paying attention to his
candidacy in a field of nine Democrats running for Manhattan borough president
in next Tuesday's primary. Mr. Ellner's team devised the spot in large
part to appeal to gays and lesbians, and the borough's more liberal voters in
general. Fox's refusal to run the ad is likely to help Mr. Ellner's aims.
Channel 5 has the same corporate ownership as the Fox News Channel, the 24-hour
cable news network. The Fox News Channel has come under frequent criticism
from liberals, many of whom who have charged that it has a conservative,
pro-Bush slant.
In August the Fox television stations unit came under the control of Roger E.
Ailes, the Fox News Channel chairman. Brian Lewis, a spokesman for Mr. Ailes,
said the decision about the Ellner ad was "made at the station level."
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