Boucher 1, Free Speech 0: WSET pulls AJS ad at Bouchers request

By Alan Moore | Thursday, September 23rd, 2010 | Politics

Yesterday I blogged that Rep. Rick Boucher formally requested local TV stations to pull an ad critical of his voting record. As it turns out this tactic worked. WSET, the ABC affiliate has agreed to pull the ad.

This just in from WSET President and General Manager Randy Smith:

We at WSET take our obligations seriously to provide programming and ads
that accurately represent issues, policy and facts critical to our
democracy. Although we are not the “arbiters of truth,” when we receive
complaints about the accuracy of political attack ads, we give special
attention to make sure that we fulfill our mandate. We reviewed the ad from
Americans for Job Security in light of the complaint received about it. The
legal determination was made that it was somewhat misleading and we asked
the advertiser to clarify the spot. I specifically told the advertiser that
we will be happy to continue airing the corrected spot or any others from
AJS that accurately reflect the issues, as is evident in our airing of a
similar ad from the NRC that also attacks Rep Boucher. We scrupulously
attempt to be non-partisan and un-biased in our analysis and will continue
that practice especially when involving critical public interest issues
including the elections of our representatives.

Randy Smith

You can send feedback to WSET by clicking here.

Here is the ad again:

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