The outgoing chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ordered it to reject four complaints and petitions against television stations, saying she believes the complaints “seek to curtail freedom of the press and undermine the First Amendment”.
In a statement on Thursday, just days before she is set to step down, Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, said all four complaints were essentially political in nature. She described them as attempts to “weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC”.
“Today, I have directed the FCC to take a stand on behalf of the First Amendment,” Rosenworcel wrote. “We draw a bright line at a moment when clarity about government interference with the free press is needed more than ever. The action we take makes clear two things. First, the FCC should not be the President’s speech police. Second, the FCC should not be journalism’s censor-in-chief.”
The dismissed complaints “come from all corners – right and left,” she said, “but what they have in common is they ask the FCC to penalize broadcast television stations because they dislike station behavior, content, or coverage”.
One of the now-dismissed complaints sought to have the FCC remove the license of a local Fox-owned television, alleging that the network’s promotion of falsehoods about the outcome of the 2020 election and the Dominion Voting Systems case showed “shortcomings of its corporate ownership”.
The other three were filed last fall by the conservative non-profit group Center for American Rights. One accused ABC News of bias toward the vice-president, Kamala Harris, during the presidential debate. Another accused CBS News of “news distortion” in its editing of an interview with Harris. The third was about NBC’s Saturday Night Live episode before the election, which featured Harris.
“The facts and legal circumstances in each of these cases are different,” Rosenworcel wrote. “But what they share is that they seek to weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC in a way that is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment. To do so would set a dangerous precedent. That is why we reject it here.”
Free press advocacy groups welcomed the decision on Thursday.
Bruce D Brown, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told CNN that “the FCC’s authority to police news content is rightfully narrow, precisely because the government should not be the arbiter of truth”.
“The alternative is nothing short of censorship on public airwaves that continue to be an indispensable source of news for millions of Americans,” he added.
“This is exactly the right decision by Chairwoman Rosenworcel and the FCC, even though there are legitimate differences between the facts in the Fox license challenge and the strictly political complaints lodged against the other networks,” said Matt Wood of the Free Press non-profit group.
The FCC, which grants eight-year license terms for TV and radio stations, has not denied any license renewal in decades, CNN reported.
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Rosenworcel also highlighted historical clashes between government leaders and news organizations, citing the second US president, John Adams, who she said championed a law “that made it illegal to print, utter, or publish malicious statements about the federal government”, and Richard Nixon, who she said “targeted the license renewals of two television stations that were owned by the newspaper investigating his involvement in Watergate”.
She noted that more recently, “this threat to the First Amendment has taken on new forms” as the “incoming President has called on the Federal Communications Commission to revoke licenses for broadcast television stations because he disagrees with their content and coverage”.
Over the years and recent months, President-elect Donald Trump has suggested punitive measures against several TV networks and has criticized broadcasters including ABC, NBC, and CBS and suggested that they could lose their FCC licenses.
Trump has also sued CBS over its interview with Vice-President Harris on the program 60 Minutes.
“It may seem quaint to draw attention like this to broadcast licenses, in an era when so many of us seek out information we want, when we want it, from where we want it, on any screen handy,” Rosenworcel wrote. “But these stations remain a vital source of local and national news. And there is nothing antiquated about the idea that the FCC has a duty to respect the Constitution.”
Trump’s pick for FCC chair, commissioner Brendan Carr, has been critical of the Biden administration’s telecommunications policies. He has also criticized NBC for allowing Harris to appear on Saturday Night Live, and has said that NBC could lose its license.
