Radio Station Drops ‘Misleading’ Ad Attacking Navarro

A San Diego radio station pulled a Republican political group’s attack ad from its airwaves Thursday, and two others agreed not to play it after complaints from the campaign of mayoral candidate Peter Navarro.

KSDO-AM (1130), the only radio station that had actually aired it, withdrew the ad sponsored by the Golden Eagle Club of San Diego after concluding that it was “misleading,” said Kelly Wheeler, the station’s director of operations.

“We have a responsibility, per our license granted by the (Federal Communications Commission) to put things on the air that are true and not misleading,” Wheeler said after he and the station’s local sales manager reviewed the commercial again Thursday.

Just a day earlier, in response to complaints by Navarro’s campaign, Wheeler had listened to the ad and concluded that it met FCC requirements.

KCBQ-FM (105.3) and KJQY-FM (103.7) had not yet broadcast the ad, though both have been airing a second Golden Eagle ad featuring a female speaker’s disillusionment with Navarro. Both will continue to run the second ad through Monday, officials at the stations said.

KSDO is also broadcasting the second ad.

In the 60-second commercial that Navarro protested, the voice of an unidentified professor is heard lecturing in what is apparently a classroom setting. The voice of the professor is interspersed with comments critical of Navarro.

The professor tells his class that “our model of economic theory predicts that, if fewer people have jobs, the environment will benefit” and “you can see that creating jobs and a healthy economy are really not my concern.”

The Navarro campaign complained that, without a disclaimer, listeners had no way of knowing that the impersonator was not actually Navarro, who teaches economics at UC Irvine, or that the views expressed were not his.

Steven Haskins, a Navarro campaign attorney who wrote a letter of complaint to the three radio stations, said that, once they were notified that the voice and opinions were not Navarro’s, broadcasters had to examine whether the spot was “deceitful.”

“I guess they just reconsidered,” Haskins said. “I don’t know if they just called their attorney and said ‘are we on the line here and should we cover ourselves?’ ”

Tim Haidinger, president of the 150-member Golden Eagle Club, said that “Peter Navarro has a very thin skin, and the ad was not intended to mislead anyone, nor do I feel that it did. But I believe that our message has gotten across.”

The group spent $6,500 to prepare and air the two ads.