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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the July 4, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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WWP Crashes FCC Hearing On Media Access

Campaign volunteers for Monica Moorehead and Gloria La Riva crashed a Federal Communications Commission hearing in Washington June 25. They demanded free air time for Moorehead, who is running for president on the Workers World Party ticket, and other progressive third-party candidates.

The hearing followed a request by the Fox television network for exemption from the equal opportunities laws governing public broadcasts. Fox and other networks plan to give free air time to Bill Clinton and Bob Dole--but only if they're free to exclude other presidential candidates.

FCC chair Reed Hundt convened an all-white panel of CEOs, politicians and academics to rubber-stamp the measure. Billionaire Rupert Murdoch, the union-busting head of Fox, was treated as an honored guest. Moorehead, a Black woman running for president, was kept off the agenda.

Just as Murdoch finished testifying, Workers World Party campaign workers got up in the audience, forcing the panel to hear a working-class view.

Campaign staffer Greg Butterfield told the startled group of officials and media executives: "There is a conspiracy between the FCC and the networks to keep progressive candidates off the air. The networks promote candidates who represent their monopoly corporate interests--Democrats and Republicans.

"The Black and Latino communities, women and the working class are excluded. They aren't represented here. Moorehead and La Riva demand that the FCC enforce the equal opportunities law."

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