In an interview with The Daily Cardinal, Republican candidate for Congress and Magnum Broadcasting owner Dave Magnum said he did not know whether or not he would keep his empire of radio stations if he won the election, but alluded to keeping some control over their operations.
\I can't answer yes or no ... I don't know if I can pull this all off, but if I can't do justice to this job you would hire me to do, to my boys and the people who have been with me I have run some of my stations aren't there then maybe I'll have to sell some of my stations. I don't know.""
Should Magnum keep the stations, he will be a congressional representative with substantial ownership of media outlets within his home state, with having radio stations within his district.
Many politicians in similar situations place their interests in blind trusts: managers who remain independent of the businesses owners. This helps avoid a perceived conflict of interest.
""Typically, elected officials need to divest themselves in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety, usually to put materials in a trust while in office, especially if that can benefit them,"" said Dhavan Shah, UW-Madison associate professor of journalism and mass communication. ""There is a long history of public officials benefiting from their media connections-take Dan Quayle, with his parents owning a lot of media firms and newspapers in Indiana, for example. It helped him win his Senate seat.
""We've seen this recently with Sinclair; you can use these connections to form a political climate that works to your advantage.""
The Sinclair television conglomerate reciently made headlines after management was reported to have forced each if its stations to play an alledgedly biased documentary.
James Hoyt, UW-Madison professor of journalism and mass communication, disagrees that media owners need to distance themselves to avoid appearing especially biased. ""I don't think they need to any more than owners who are involved in any other kind of businesses,"" he said. ""There's always the challenge that broadcasters inherently support the status quo because broadcasting is a profitable business, so it's in their best interest to support the status quo. And they don't want to rock the boat editorially because they are doing very well on the current media environment.""
However, Hoyt does believe there is another ethical issue involved in Magnum maintaining ownership of his stations.
""To me,"" he said, ""the ethical fine line [Magnum walks] is that the way broadcast station licenses are granted and transfered from one owner to another is the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is a governmental agency appointed by the president and the rules, regulations and policies by which the FCC operates are congressional legislation. He would essentially be voting on legislation which would affect the regulation of broadcast stations of which he would own a number.""
If Congress was faced with bolstering fines against indecency, and Magnum aired a popular shock-jock, he would be placed in a unique conflict of interest, according to Hoyt. In any vote affecting the industry, Magnum would have an ulterior motive to vote one way. But there is a way for Magnum to avoid any conflict of interest.
""If I was in that situation, or if I was advising him, I'd tell him when votes or hearings come up which deal with the regulation of broadcast media, I'd simply abstain,"" Hoyt said.
Likewise, Magnum is convinced he keeps his station independent of his politics. Through the body of the campaign, Magnum claims his policy has been for news directors to remain as close to the center as at all possible.
""I told my news directors, ""Forget that you even know me. Tammy has had just as much coverage as I have. I said I don't want to give Tammy any legitimate reason to say I used my stations to an unfair advantage,"" Magnum said.
And, even without the fear of political repercussion, Magnum claims to have owned stations for 12 and a half years without doing an editorial because he feels to do so would be using his stations ""as a megaphone to espouse my views upon to world.
Still, Magnum has left the future up in the air for his radio stations, and the appearance of impropriety.
""[His] ambiguous answers aren't surprising given that throughout this campaign Mr. Magnum has failed to articulate his position on most issues,"" said Jerilyn Goodman, spokesperson for the Baldwin campaign.
