I have news for you: professionals of all sorts refuse the business of all sorts of potential buyers.
- Contractors refuse to bid on certain engagements.
- Consultants decline to take on engagements from certain potential or existing clients.
- Doctors close their practice to additional patients.
- Lawyers refuse to represent certain individuals or take on certain cases
Trump's favorite news network is reported to be Fox. Have they aired the ad? Did Trump try to place the ad on Fox's network?
Accepting paid political advertising is not the same thing as “a duty to report to the public the facts.” In fact, researching, checking and reporting on facts is the reason the advertisement was rejected by every major network. Moreover, Trump doesn’t seem to have an understanding of broadcast regulations and what qualifies as censorship.
The Washington Post touched on this noting:
In this case, the free-speech argument is not a winning one. TV stations — even over-the-air broadcasters, which are subject to tighter regulation by the Federal Communications Commission than their cable counterparts — do not have to allow the president to buy airtime for his ad.
Here is the relevant FCC rule:
No station licensee is required to permit the use of its facilities by any legally qualified candidate for public office, but if any licensee shall permit any such candidate to use its facilities, it shall afford equal opportunities to all other candidates for that office to use such facilities. Such licensee shall have no power of censorship over the material broadcast by any such candidate.
Remember: We’re talking about candidates for president in 2020. Trump doesn’t have opponents yet --
not any serious ones, anyway, and certainly none buying ad time. If, for example, Martin O’Malley were already in the race and if ABC, CBS and NBC affiliates had been airing his commercials, those stations would have no choice but to show Trump’s, too. And they would have “no power of censorship.” But the networks, which are not licensed by the FCC, do not have to show Trump’s ad, and their affiliates can turn down Trump, so long as they have not said yes to any other 2020 presidential candidate.
Trump chose willfully to declare his 2020 candidacy. Now, he doesn't like one of the consequences of having done so and he's being a crybaby about it.
As an aside, for it's, at best, tangentially related to the matter of Trump's ad not being accepted:
Believe it or not,
Donald Trump's is not the first advertisement revenue that media outlets have rejected. It won't won't be the last.
