Should TV Stations Refuse To Air Political Ads That Make False Claims?

If a television or radio station determines that a political ad is false, should it refuse to run the ad?

That's exactly what the nonpartisan group Free Press is calling on stations to do. "They certainly could reject some of them," said Matt Wood, the group's policy director. At the very least, they could do more fact checking, he said. Free Press's new report, Left in the Dark, analyzes political ads in several swing-state markets: Charlotte (NC); Cleveland; Las Vegas; Milwaukee; and Tampa (FL). It says viewers are seeing more political ads than ever before, but television stations only rarely fact check any of the ads. And even when television stations conduct fact checks, that story is overwhelmed by a flood of TV ads. In Denver, there was one minute of fact checking for every 162 minutes of campaign ads.