“The variety of reported choices drops off dramatically after 1976, and there is just one discovering of distortion after 1982, when the Reagan-era FCC started to take away content material rules on broadcast information,” Raphael wrote. The one post-1982 discovering of distortion was issued in a letter of admonishment to NBC in 1993 “for staging a section of a Dateline NBC report on unsafe fuel tanks in Common Motors vans,” Raphael wrote.

GM investigated the incident and NBC “admitted to staging the explosion, made an on-air apology to GM, fired three producers who contributed to the section, and finally dismissed its information president,” he wrote. The FCC itself despatched the letter quietly, with “the primary point out of this motion showing in a 1999 choice rejecting a problem to NBC’s license renewals.”

Investigations uncommon, penalties even rarer

The uncommon findings of stories distortion have been often accompanied by different infractions. “Most penalties consisted of issuing letters of admonishment or censure that didn’t determine closely in subsequent license renewals, all of which have been profitable,” Raphael wrote.

Regardless of Raphael’s paper being practically a quarter-century outdated, it is virtually updated. “Because the time of Raphael’s research, it seems that the Fee has solely thought of allegations of stories distortion in a really small variety of circumstances,” mentioned a 2019 paper by Joel Timmer, a professor of movie, tv, and digital media at Texas Christian College.

Timmer discovered eight post-1999 circumstances during which information distortion allegations have been thought of. A lot of the allegations did not get very far, and none of them resulted in a discovering of stories distortion.

The FCC technically has no rule or regulation towards information distortion. “As a substitute, it has a information distortion coverage, developed ‘by the adjudicatory course of in choices resolving challenges to broadcasters’ licenses,'” Timmer wrote.

The FCC dismissed an allegation of stories distortion over broadcast networks incorrectly projecting that Al Gore would win Florida within the 2000 presidential election, he wrote. The FCC mentioned the inaccurate projections have been “not a ample foundation to provoke such an investigation.”