672
Opinion of the Court
clude Forbes had not been influenced by political pressure or disagreement with his views. The District Court entered judgment for AETC.
The Court of Appeals again reversed. The court acknowledged that AETC's decision to exclude Forbes "was made in good faith" and was "exactly the kind of journalistic judgment routinely made by newspeople." 93 F. 3d 497, 505 (CA8 1996). The court asserted, nevertheless, that AETC had "opened its facilities to a particular group—candidates running for the Third District Congressional seat." Id., at 504. AETC's action, the court held, made the debate a public forum, to which all candidates "legally qualified to appear on the ballot" had a presumptive right of access. Ibid. Applying strict scrutiny, the court determined that AETC's assessment of Forbes' "political viability" was neither a "compelling nor [a] narrowly tailored" reason for excluding him from the debate. Id., at 504-505.
A conflict with the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Chandler v. Georgia Public Telecommunications Comm'n, 917 F. 2d 486 (1990), cert. denied, 502 U. S. 816 (1991), together with the manifest importance of the case, led us to grant certiorari. 520 U. S. 1114 (1997). We now reverse.
II
Forbes has long since abandoned his statutory claims under 47 U. S. C. § 315, and so the issue is whether his exclusion from the debate was consistent with the First Amendment. The Court of Appeals held it was not, applying our public forum precedents. Appearing as amicus curiae in support of petitioner, the United States argues that our forum precedents should be of little relevance in the context of television broadcasting. At the outset, then, it is instructive to ask whether public forum principles apply to the case at all.
Having first arisen in the context of streets and parks, the public forum doctrine should not be extended in a mechanical
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