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Eshoo, Others Seek FCC Probe of WZHF ID of Russian Government Sponsors

Rep. Anna Eshoo of California and four other House Democrats urged the FCC to investigate whether WZHF (AM) Capitol Heights, Maryland, is providing sponsorship information that "sufficiently identifies the true identity of the sponsor of its broadcast programming.” Tuesday's push follows a May federal court ruling that RM Broadcasting, which owns WZHF's full airtime through 2020, must register as a foreign agent because it's broadcasting Radio Sputnik content from Russian government-controlled news agency Rossiya Segodnya (see 1905130035). RM argued it merely brokers the sale of airtime and had no part in content decisions. WZHF's “sponsorship identification of its programming is misleading and fails to identify that the Russian government funds all of the programming on its station,” which violates rules requiring announcement of sponsorship identification must “fully and fairly disclose the true identity” of the entity paying for the content's broadcast, Eshoo and the others wrote FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The station identifies Rossiya Segodnya and RM, but this “does not clearly convey that the true identity of the programming aired” on the station “is the government of the Russian Federation. A reasonable listener of AM radio cannot be expected to know that Rossiya Segodnya is a Russian government-funded propaganda outlet.” The lawmakers emphasized they're “not requesting any press censorship” but “asserting that the American people have a right to know when a foreign government -- especially an adversarial foreign government -- is behind programming aired on American airwaves.” The other signers were: Commerce Committee Vice Chair Yvette Clarke of New York, Jerry McNerney of California, Eleanor Holmes Norton of Washington, D.C., and Norma Torres of California. Eshoo repeatedly pressed the FCC on the broadcast of Russia-backed propaganda. Her Foreign Entities Reform Act (HR-3698) would require broadcasters, cable and satellite providers publish the same information on the source and funding of content originating from foreign agents as is required under Communications Act sponsorship ID rules (see 1907120050). The FCC didn't comment.