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FCC Chair Pressures Broadcasters

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https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/trumps-fcc-chair-invokes-rarely-enforced-news-distortion-policy-to-punish-media/

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is taking a hard
line against broadcast TV stations accused of bias against Republicans
and President Trump. To pressure broadcasters, Carr is invoking the
rarely enforced news distortion policy that was developed starting in
the late 1960s and says the FCC should consider revoking broadcast
licenses.

The FCC has regulatory authority over broadcasters with licenses to use
the public airwaves. But Carr's two immediate predecessors—Democrat
Jessica Rosenworcel and Republican Ajit Pai—both said that punishing
stations based on the content of news programs would violate the First
Amendment right to free speech.

Rosenworcel and Pai's agreement continued a decades-long trend of the
FCC easing itself out of the news-regulation business. Two other former
FCC chairs—Republican Alfred Sikes and Democrat Tom Wheeler—have urged
Carr to change course.

Carr has multiple probes in progress, and his investigation into CBS
over the editing of an interview with Kamala Harris has drawn
condemnations from both liberal and conservative advocacy groups that
describe it as a threat to the Constitutional right to free speech. One
plea to drop the investigation came in a March 19 letter from
conservative groups including the Center for Individual Freedom, Grover
Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, and the Taxpayers Protection
Alliance.
...

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FCC Chair Pressures Broadcasters Telecom Digest Moderator <digest-replies@telecom-digest.org> - 2025-04-07 18:18 -0400

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