Gee, what a surprise. Democrats don’t like the Federal Communications Commission “Equal Time” rule applying to non-news shows when hey try to influence elections.
The Communications Act of 1934, once aimed at radio, now mostly applied to television, includes a provision regarding coverage of political candidates. If a station gives airtime to one candidate, then the same station must offer comparable time to other candidates competing in an approaching primary or election. Regarding campaign ads, a station selling airtime to one candidate also has to offer to sell the same amount of time to other candidates for the same office. Exceptions to this rule include newscasts, “bona fide” interview programs, and coverage of live events or documentaries. Candidates appearing in non-news, entertainment programming near to elections now trigger the provision.
As they should.
CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert, on the way out already from his all-Democratic-cheer-leading-all-the-time show, attacked his own network this week after he was stopped from airing an interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D), a U.S. Senate candidate, because of the FCC ’s equal-time rule.
“You know who is not one of my guests tonight?” Colbert asked his audience. “That’s Texas state representative James Talarico. He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast.” On cue, his partisan studio audience booed.
“Then I was told, in some uncertain terms, that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on,” Colbert continued. “And because my network clearly does not want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”
Boy, isn’t he funny? My sides ache from laughing! No wonder Colbert is regarded as a comic genius. Admit it, the guy is hilarious.
Ethics Alarms 
Boy, am I behind the times. I assumed the equal time rule was dead forty years ago. It’s been ignored and buried for a long time.
And didn’t Colbert get his start doing a non-stop impersonation of an angry, strident blowhard politician? Now he is an angry, strident, blowhard politician? Whew. Talk about clown nose on and clown nose off.
Exactly. This isn’t parody anymore; it’s advocacy. These guys relied on the Jester’s Excuse far too many times and got away with it. Now, like spoiled kids who are being “no” for the first time in their lives, they’re throwing a fit and claiming it’s not fair.
Wanna see how an extreme progressive (aka regressive) leftist is portraying (aka spining) this particular story?
Behold, here’s what I have to call an unhinged hate filled tirade…
The First Amendment Doesn’t Need Donald Trump As A Babysitter
Yup folks, for that author this is all about the “fascist actions” of a hookers sexual deviant john, Donald Trump, and his racist “Brown-Shirts” suppressing free speech they don’t like. How’d you like how the author threw that little racism dig, “so, there is something Brown they love”? I knew there would be some Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) sufferers crawling out from under their rocks to spread their false narratives regarding this, but holy shit!
I saw Stelter’s post on X yesterday and thought, for a minute, if I’d stumbled across a Bizarro-World account for him.