Ohio TV stations ignore legal threat from Max Miller, air

You’d think a cease-and-desist letter from a sitting congressman’s attorney would give a news director pause. Not in Ohio, apparently. WKYC and its peers looked at the legal threat from Max Miller’s camp, weighed the “false and defamatory” language in Brian Poindexter’s ad, and decided to run it anyway. That’s not a commitment to the First Amendment. That’s a commitment to a narrative.

The stations are betting the public won’t care about the facts. They’re also betting Miller won’t actually sue. That’s a reasonable wager, because the law is slow and an election is fast. By the time any of this gets sorted out, the damage is done and the ad has served its purpose. The local newsrooms get to claim they were just airing a legally permissible political spot, hiding behind the FCC’s rules while ignoring the substance of the accusation. It’s a coward’s play.

Miller’s team did what any of us would do: they put the stations on notice, pointed to the specific falsehoods, and asked for a correction. The response wasn’t a rebuttal. It was silence followed by a commercial break. If the roles were reversed and a Republican group was running ads a Democrat called defamatory, we all know how this story would be covered. The headlines would write themselves, and the calls for accountability would be deafening.

Maybe the stations believe the accusation, or maybe they just like the politics of it. Either way, they’ve made their position clear: they’re willing to air a lie if it helps the right team. Voters in Ohio’s 7th District should remember that in November. Choosing not to fact-check a hit piece is a choice. And it tells you everything you need to know about who these outlets are really working for.