Covington Catholic High School Students
In 2019, a group of students from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky was falsely accused of harassing a Native American man at a march in Washington, D.C. A viral video of the incident led to widespread condemnation of the students, but subsequent video footage showed that they had actually been subjected to racist and homophobic slurs by other protesters.
Unlike newspapers and magazines, broadcasters have affirmative statutory and regulatory obligations to serve the public in specific ways. Despite the philosophical complications and political tensions that this arrangement entails, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the public trustee basis of broadcast regulation as constitutional. Try using the licensed TV stations since they must broadcast “In The Public Interest” (i.e., no lies).
What is the public interest standard of the FCC? In exchange for obtaining a valuable license to operate a broadcast station using the public airwaves, each radio and television licensee is required by law to operate its station in the “public interest, convenience and necessity.” Generally, this means it must air programming that is responsive to the needs of the community. If you think lying to the public is in the public interest; that would make you the Village Idiot.