FCC STAFF REJECTS CIA COMPLAINT AGAINST ABC

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201330013-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: January 11, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201330013-2
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FCC Staff Rejects CIA Complaint Against ABC
LuS AJNGELES TIMES
1? January 1985
But Way Is Left Open to Challenge Broadcast Licenses
Leaving the way clear for gov-
ernment agencies to challenge the
news media's fitness to hold broad-
cast licenses, the staff of the Fed-
eral Communications Commission
Thursday dismissed a controversial
CIA fairness doctrine complaint
against ABC News.
The FCC staff ruled in Washing-
ton that the Central Intelligence
Agency had failed to establish its
claim that ABC had engaged in
deliberate news distortion with its
story of illegal CIA activities in-
volving a now-bankrupt Honolulu'
investment firm. The staff found no
ABC violations of either the FCC's
fairness doctrine or its. personal
attack rule.
he CIA's complaint provides
no basis for commission action,"
wrote James McKinney, chief of
the FCC's mass media bureau, in
the nine-page decision.
The CIA's "allegations fail to
establish prima facie complaints
sufficient to initiate a commission
inquiry or sanctions," McKinney
continued.
In Sept.. 19 and 20 "World News
Tonight" broadcasts, ABC charged
that the CIA had engaged in illegal
arms shipments, attempts to desta-
bilize the economies of a number of
foreign countries and a plot to-
murder an American citizen.
ABC retracted the murder
charge on Nov. 21, the day that the
CIA filed the first fairness doctrine
complaint ever against a network
by a federal agency.
McKinney ruled- that the CIA Federal Communications Act:~-
. had no case because newscasts are. CIA lawyers were studying the -
exempt from the FCC's personal FCC ruling Thursday, and the
attack rule and that the intelli- agency had no comment. A spokes-
gence agency had failed to show man said that the CIA had not
that the disputed broadcasts "in- determined whether it would ap-
volved discussion of a controversial peal the staff ruling. It has 30 days
issue," a prerequisite for a fairness to take its case to the full five-
doctrine complaint. . member panel.
Significantly, however, the FCC The CIA had complained that
ruling left open the door for other ABC aired the disputed reports
government agencies to file similar without attempting to verify them.
complaints challenging broadcast- The agency was disturbed espe-
ers' licenses. In a footnote to the cially by the claim of former prison
decision, the staff concluded that guard Scott T. Barnes that he was
.FCC rules do not preclude govern - made privy to an agency plot to kill
ment agencies from standing be- Honolulu investment counselor
fore the commission. Ronald R. Rewald. Two months
Bob Gurss, an attorney with the after the initial broadcasts, ABC
Washington-based Media Access management concluded that
Project, which filed comments op- Barnes' story could not be substan-
posing the CIA complaint, said that tiated and retracted it
the ruling has a "precedential val- The FCC staff did not address the
ue . . . that leaves the door open issue of ABC's accuracy of report-.
for agencies to do in the future ing.
exactly what the CIA has done."
New York libel attorney Floyd
Abrams said the FCC action con-
firmed that the CIA's complaint -
was "frivolous and wholly unsup
ported in law. If anything, the FCC
could have gone further. in rebuk-
ing the CIA for instituting an action
so constitutionally infirm as:well as.
so plainly inconsistent with -the.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201330013-2