Missouri has a US Senate seat up for grabs this year, and Entercom’s KMBZ-AM in Kansas City is running ads from a legally-qualified candidate who is in the mix as a write-in candidate. The ads are seen racist and anti-Semetic, but the station says it is legally bound to run them. The ads have also been aired on other stations in other Missouri media markets.
The ads are coming from Glenn Miller, a man described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white supremacist, according to an article posted at KansasCity.com.
KMBZ is running a disclaimer with Miller’s material to distance itself from it – although according to the rules it can neither support nor denounce it in this manner.
Communications attorney David Oxenford noted that the ruling that allows Miller to get on the air is necessary to make sure that politically unpopular viewpoints are allowed on the air. He noted that in this case, it may seem like a “bad outcome” but that in the big picture, the rule is necessary to encourage ‘diverse political speech.”
