FCC: About the Media Policy Program

Overview

The Media Policy Program of the Campaign Legal Center seeks to revitalize our democracy by helping shape political broadcasting policies and promoting effective enforcement of the public interest obligations of the media. Specifically, the Media Policy Program works to make our political process more open and vibrant by:

• advocating for reforms that provide voters with more and better information about candidates and issues, and that provide candidates with clean resources that don't leave them beholden to special interests;
  
• devising policy proposals and reforms that encourage political discourse in the media, reduce the cost and increase the flow of political communication in the United States, and open up the political process to more competition and greater voter participation;
  
• supporting efforts to put meaning back into broadcasters' statutory obligation to serve the public interest;
  
• educating federal candidates about their rights as they relate to media and serving as a resource during campaigns regarding federal communications law;
  
• representing the public interest in formal and informal actions against broadcasters for failure to adequately fulfill their statutory public interest obligations; and
  
• educating the public on issues at the confluence of media and politics.

We affect these policies through public education, as well as advocacy for federal rulemaking proceedings and congressional action. We also lead coalitions like the Our Democracy, Our Airwaves Campaign and the Public Interest, Public Airwaves Coalition. We seek to educate activists and the public at large about proposals that would require broadcasters to provide voters with better information about candidates and issues during election time, and would allow candidates who raise small-dollar contributions to earn broadcast ad time. We are mobilizing national and state coalitions to promote these ideas and work towards stronger public interest mandates for broadcasters.

Our honorary co-chairs are former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, and legendary anchorman Walter Cronkite.

In 2005, the Alliance for Better Campaigns merged with the Center's Media Policy Program. Click here to read more about the merger.

Click here to view the Campaign Legal Center's 2004 Media Guide.