We are in the middle of a war being conducted by biased and abusive big-media outlets and waged against American values and ordinary Americans.
In view of this, Congress must act to restore balance and integrity to the national political debate process. This act, once properly implemented by our Congress and signed by the president, will accomplish that.
1. The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech not just to those who can afford to pay for political ads in big-media publications, but to every American.
2. To achieve this freedom of speech, Congress needs to change the laws governing political advertising. Currently, big-money bids up the price for political advertising so that it is beyond the reach of ordinary Americans who might want to run for political office.
3. To right this egregious display of greed by big-media, Congress must:
a) Pass the Media Fairness and Accountability Act of 2017, which will encourage more Americans to become involved in the electoral process as candidates. Specifically,
b) Anyone, anywhere, at any time can self-identify as a candidate for any political position, anywhere;
c) This position does not need to be advertised, have previously existed, or currently exist. If the self-identified-candidate believes it should exist, then it must be treated as if it does exist, for the purposes of this legislation;
d) Any media outlet that receives notification that such a self-identified candidate intends to run for a self-identified position in government at any level must:
i. Immediately set aside three months of advertising space in their publication and on their websites for the candidate,
ii. This space must be equal in dollar value to the median advertising receipts the media company sells to paid political advertisers,
iii. This space must be available to the candidate prior to the scheduled or self-identified election, without cost, and
iv. These free ads must run intermingled with paid ads for the same or a similar position (free ads cannot be discriminated against);
e) Failure to run the required number of ads in a timely manner shall trigger the reverse-payment-enforcement clause, which:
i. Requires diversion of all paid advertising revenue received by the publication for political ads to be forwarded to the free-ads-entitled advertiser who was denied space by the media company,
f) This legislation shall be made retroactive to January 1, 2016.
4. Any write-in candidates on any ballot for any office shall be considered as self-identified-candidates for the purposes of this legislation.
5. Media organizations that did not treat write-in-candidates as though they were self-selected-candidates are responsible for compensating these candidates with the amount of free-advertising coverage they would have received, had this act been passed earlier.
6. Because the media outlet did not act in a timely manner to serve such self-identified-candidates, they shall be fined an amount not less than triple their receipts from political advertising during the 2016 election.
We look forward to Congress passing this legislation before summer recess, so the bias in big-media reporting and opining can have its toxic fingers pried from the nation’s throat, before the next election cycle begins.
Thank you.
Coming in August: “Reconnaissance, 2017 Solar Eclipse” edition.
Media wishing to interview Craige McMillan, please contact [email protected].
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