EQUAL TIME EQUALS UNEQUAL TREATMENT TO NEWSCASTER CANDIDATES

Congress enacted the "equal time" requirement to ensure that broadcasters provide equal treatment to all political candidates. Unfortunately, newscaster candidates are not treated equally. When a newscaster candidate reports the news on the air, the broadcaster must provide equivalent air time to the newscaster candidate's opponents. Since broadcasters are unwilling to afford newscaster candidates' opponents equal time, the newscaster must choose between abandoning his campaign or taking a leave of absence from his job. In "Branch v. Federal Communications Commission", a newscaster candidate challenged the "equal time" requirement, but the court enforced the requirement. In this casenote, the author discusses the evolution and application of the "equal time" requirement, and argues that under an alternate interpretation, a newscaster candidate's opponents should not receive equal time if the newscaster candidate is merely doing his job.