Broadcasters Can Refuse to Air Third-Party Political Ads February 17, 2012, 1:42 pm Everyone knows that political candidates regularly distort the truth and misrepresent facts in their television spots. Actually they do it everywhere else, too, but this post is about ads. It's hard to check the flow of these lies, in part because, under the law, broadcast stations cannot censor, edit or refuse ads by candidates for federal office. Since Citizens United, an increasing number of ads - lying or otherwise - don't come from the candidates directly. They come from super PACs: Third-party groups that support a candidate but, at least in theory, don't coordinate with his campaign. In a previous post, I compared claiming that super PACs are truly independent to saying that Bulgaria didn't coordinate with the Soviet Union. But that's not fair. I think that exaggerates the connection between Bulgaria and the Kremlin. This is hardly a positive development for our republic. But the silver-lining is that, as the Annenberg Public Policy Center explains on their fact-check site, independent groups are not guaranteed the same access to airwaves as candidates for federal office. TV stations have every right to reject third-party ads. Broadcasters are not exactly printing money these days, so expecting them to turn down money from the super PACs is like expecting the politicians to turn it down. Instead of rejecting an ad outright, however, they can take a more modest step: They can insist on edits for the sake of accuracy. Shocking, right? The Annenberg Center explains this all in a short ad on their site, using two examples - a Mitt Romney super PAC spot that falsely attacks Newt Gingrich over abortion and another that lies about his record as Speaker of the House. (I'm puzzled why the Romney camp chooses to distort Mr. Gingrich's record. It's not like there is a lack of material there.) Several Ohio TV stations have aired these ads without alteration. I don't know if that's because the people who run those stations don't know they have the right to demand accuracy, or don't care. Let's hope it's the former; all the more reason to help get the word out about broadcasters" rights.