INCLUSION
OF POLITICAL CANDIDATES
PBS 39
presents political coverage and analysis as part of its overall public service
and educational mission. During election years, PBS 39 offers programs
specifically related to local, state and national elections.
Below is
a review of PBS 39’s working policies regarding candidate inclusion in such
programming.
Our
overarching goal is to help citizens be better informed, so they may choose to
be involved in their government and the political process. Given our limited
resources — financial, managerial, technical, and available air-time — we have
created criteria for evaluating candidates. We are guided by a mix of research
(such as polls), professional judgment, legal criteria and citizen input. It should be noted that there are sometimes
competing interests regarding election issues: on the one hand, to provide the
broadest possible range of ideas, issues and exposure to candidates; on the
other hand, to provide the most useful and meaningful information, which may
sometimes require selecting among ideas, issues and candidates. Our purpose is
to give service to citizens, not candidates.
PBS 39
is frequently contacted by candidates requesting air-time or inclusion in a
debate or other program. There is sometimes a presumption that the
non-commercial nature of public television means that any person, by declaring
his or her candidacy, should have open access to voters via PBS 39. This is not
the case. The management of PBS 39 has responsibility for programming in
political areas, as in all areas, within the policies established by the
Federal Communications Commission.
During each election cycle, PBS 39 programming staff will
develop specific plans based on the principles contained in this document. We
will be consistent in the application of set forth criteria.
POLITICAL
FORUMS/ DEBATES
PBS 39 uses commonly accepted criteria for determining
whether or not a candidate is included in a debate. No single criterion is
paramount. Collectively, they allow PBS 39 to make an informed judgment about a
given candidate’s eligibility to participate.
WLVT
reserves the right to limit the number of candidates participating in a
political broadcast based on the below criteria:
- Must be a legally qualified
candidate and be on the ballot as determined by the Pennsylvania State Board of
Elections.
- Must have at least 5% support in recent voter surveys that are deemed a
credible source by PBS 39.
- Is there an active campaign?
- Is there a campaign office,
a staff, a phone number?
- In a major race, is there an
office outside of the candidate’s home?
- Is there funding apart from the candidate’s own
resources?
- Is there a discernible way
of raising money?
- Is there
campaign literature?
Before
primaries have been held, there may be a number of active candidates, any one
of whom could be a candidate in the general election. At this stage, a debate
may well include some or all of these candidates in order to give citizens the broadest
possible access as they form their views. However, later in the campaign,
it may make sense to limit the number of candidates in a debate to those who
will realistically determine the outcome of the election. At this later point,
the greater service is giving citizens the most in-depth information
possible.
WLVT will have content control
of any political program that we produce for our broadcast. Sometimes we
do collaborate with other media on political programming. However, those
details are handled on a case-by-case basis.
PBS
39 reserves the right to decide which political races and campaigns will be
given a broadcast or webcast program.