Friday, January 25, 2008

Who Decides Who’ll Be Allowed on TV Debates?

Yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle highlights the significance of the Nevada Supreme Court's very troubling ruling allowing a cable network to exclude Dennis Kucinich from a Democratic presidential debate, Who Decides Who’ll Be Allowed on TV Debates? by Bob Egelko.

The article notes that the ruling "constituted the strongest judicial statement yet of news organizations’ near-absolute power to control participation in pre-election forums - including the debates scheduled in California next week in advance of the state’s Feb. 5 primary. Broadcasters’ right to exclude candidates they consider marginal has been established at least since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a 1998 case involving a state-owned television station in Arkansas that had excluded a congressional candidate from a debate." Click here for the rest of the article.

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