Abstract
This Note offers a new conception of news distortion in mass media. It explores the intentions behind the FCC’s News Distortion Doctrine and analyzes its primarily dormant status throughout its existence. This Note then examines televised media coverage of U.S. military actions and identifies undisclosed financial conflicts of interests throughout this coverage. In examining these undisclosed conflicts and the reasons behind them, this Note explains why they constitute news distortion under the FCC’s definition, and why the principles behind the Doctrine are implicated. This Note then proposes the FCC promulgate a disclosure rule to remedy the undisclosed financial conflicts of interest. It also proposes that Congress amend the Communications Act of 1934 to authorize this rule promulgation.
Recommended Citation
Charles L. Bonani,
Weapons of Mass Distortion: Applying the Principles of the FCC’s News Distortion Doctrine to Undisclosed Financial Conflicts of Interest in Corporate News Media’s Military Coverage,
27 Wash. & Lee J. Civ. Rts. & Soc. Just. 231
(2020).
Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/crsj/vol27/iss1/7
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