On March 22, 2021, students from the Spring 2021 Washington, DC, Externship Program (DCEx) heard from Joseph Di Scipio L’95, who offered a seminar discussing FCC compliance issues for broadcasting stations.
Di Scipio is an accomplished legal expert in FCC regulatory compliance who currently serves as Senior Vice President, FCC Legal & Business Affairs and Assistant General Counsel at Fox Corporation. He is responsible for all FCC regulatory matters relating to Fox Corporation’s television stations, including negotiating retransmission consent and other distribution agreements, spectrum issues, M&A activity, and other special projects.
Also holding an M.P.A .from Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Di Scipio serves on the National Association of Broadcasters Board of Directors and has previously served as the President of the Syracuse University Law Alumni Association. Di Scipio continues to provide support to Syracuse Law students and alums.
In preparation for the seminar, students viewed various political candidate and issue-related advertisements along with substantiation documents which compared claims made in the advertisements to the facts collected from the public record.
After presenting these recent case studies, Di Scipio led an in-depth analysis and discussion surrounding FCC compliance with respect to political and issue-related advertisements. Di Scipio discussed with students his decision-making process, which includes a step-by-step analysis and risk-balancing test that takes into account the brand’s reputation, candidate rights to air advertisements, and sustaining ad revenues.