The Federal Communications Commission has rejected petitions filed by the Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI) which had sought to deny the renewal of the broadcast licenses of seven NBC network affiliate stations in New England on the grounds that they “participated” in the distortion of media coverage of the war in Lebanon when broadcasting the NBC-TV “Nightly News” program.
While rejecting the petitions to deny license renewal the FCC indicated that it would consider a review by its fairness/political broadcast branch of the AFSI’s petitions’ charge that the affiliates violated the Fairness Doctrine in its presentation of the war from June 1, 1982 through August 31, 1982, according to AFSI officials.
Current FCC regulations stipulate that a station’s license must be challenged on its “overall programming” content and not specifically its broadcast of any one program, in this case the NBC-TV “Nightly News” program, the focus of the AFSI petitions. The network’s license cannot be challenged. Only that of its owned and operated stations can be. Affiliate stations are privately owned and purchase NBC programs, including the NBC News programs.
CHARGES BY THE JEWISH GROUP
The AFSI, a New York-based activist group founded in 1971, has focused its claims of media distortion of the coverage of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon on NBC News. It has charged the network with, among other things, “deliberate” falsification of facts, biased reporting and editorializing, and “tendentious and selective interviewing techniques.”
AFSI director Peter Goldman said that what caused AFSI to focus on NBC News and not ABC or CBS News broadcasts was that it viewed NBC as the worst of the three networks in what he termed the “misrepresentation” of the events surrounding the war in Lebanon. AFSI officials said NBC News president Reuven Frank has declined to speak with AFSI leaders about the allegations. An NBC spokesperson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the network would have no comment on the AFSI charges or the petitions it filed.
In each of the seven 43-page briefs filed aginst the network affiliates, the AFSI contended that during 600 minutes of reporting on the Lebanese conflict in the summer of 1982, less than 30 minutes were devoted to airing Israeli or objective points of view, while most of the rest of the war was presented from the Arab perspective.
Upon filing the petitions, Goldman said: “We are asking the FCC to deny broadcast licenses to the stations because they failed to fulfill–under law–the Fairness Doctrine, and participated in NBC’s deliberate distortion of news. NBC misled and deceived the American public, and we believe it is the duty of the FCC to protect the public’s right to be correctly informed.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
