FCC chair used licensing rules to pressure broadcast networks, New York Times reports

Under President Trump, Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr has used long-unused public-interest licensing rules to press major broadcast networks, the New York Times reported, including publicly demanding that ABC suspend Jimmy Kimmel and reinstating complaints against network-owned local stations.

The paper describes a December Senate Commerce Committee hearing in which Senator Ted Cruz warned that government threats about content could be unconstitutional and asked whether the public-interest standard should be understood to protect robust First Amendment rights; Carr agreed broadly that the F.C.C.

should not be weaponized. The Times recounts that the complaints Carr revived were developed by Daniel R. Suhr of the Center for American Rights and argued that network late-night shows and other programming displayed anti-Trump bias. Those revived complaints and other actions described in the article ranged from letters to local stations about reporting on immigration raids to keeping a review of a "60 Minutes" interview alive during the proposed Skydance-Paramount deal.

The Times reports that Skydance agreed as part of the deal to end D.E.I. programs and to install an ombudsman to review complaints of bias, and that CBS later paid $16 million to settle a separate suit by Mr.

Key Topics

Politics, Brendan Carr, Federal Communications Commission, Public Interest Standard, Jimmy Kimmel, Daniel Suhr