Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr on March 14 threatened to revoke licenses of U.S. broadcasters, accusing them of publishing “fake news” amid the ongoing war with Iran.
Broadcasters that are running what Carr referred to as “news distortions” must now “correct course before their license renewals come up,” the FCC chairman wrote on social media.
“The law is clear,” he said. “Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”
Carr’s remarks included a screenshot of a post President Donald Trump made on Truth Social earlier in the day, in which he accused U.S. media of misleading coverage of the Iran war.
“The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal (in particular), and other Lowlife ‘Papers’ and Media actually want us to lose the War,” Trump said. “Their terrible reporting is the exact opposite of the actual facts!”
The FCC has regulatory authority over television and radio broadcasters and their licenses. The agency does not regulate cable or satellite TV networks, nor does it have authority over online content. News outlets that only publish online or through print distribution, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, are not subject to FCC authority.
Although the agency has a policy against “news distortion” in local TV and radio broadcasts going back more than 50 years, for coverage to be deemed a distortion, it “must involve a significant event and not merely a minor or incidental aspect of the news report.” Broadcasters are only subject to this kind of enforcement when the FCC can prove that an outlet has reported a deliberate distortion of the news rather than a “mere inaccuracy or difference of opinion.”
In the president’s post on March 14, he accused the Journal of reporting that five U.S. tanker planes were struck and “destroyed” at an air base in Saudi Arabia.
The Journal had stated that the tankers were “damaged but not fully destroyed” and were in the process of being repaired.
Trump wrote that four of the five tankers had “virtually no damage, and are already back in service.”
“One had slightly more damage, but will be in the air shortly,” he said. “None were destroyed, or close to that, as the Fake News said in headlines.”
FCC Criticism
The president has routinely accused media outlets of being intentionally misleading and is actively suing several news organizations, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the BBC, the Des Moines Register, and CNN.
Carr has faced criticism during his time at the helm of the FCC, particularly after ABC and affiliate stations temporarily removed late-night host Jimmy Kimmel from the air over comments the host made about conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.
Recently, Carr’s FCC pushed back against allegations of censorship after CBS declined to air an interview on late-night host Stephen Colbert’s show with a Democratic Texas Senate candidate over concerns about providing equal time to other political candidates.
“There was no censorship here at all,” Carr told reporters at the time. “Every single broadcaster in this country has an obligation to be responsible for the programming that they choose to air, and they’re responsible whether it complies with FCC rules or not, and it doesn’t, and those individual broadcasters are also going to have a potential liability.”
Multiple Democratic lawmakers criticized Carr’s post on March 14.
“Dear [Brendan Carr]: If you implement your flagrantly anti-First Amendment actions, you will be sued, and you will lose,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) wrote on social media.
Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) accused the FCC of “threatening government censorship” with Carr’s post.
“A free press isn’t a privilege; it’s a constitutional right,” Stanton wrote on social media. “We’ve already seen Carr try to intimidate late-night hosts and commentators. But trying to hide the realities of war from the people is far more sinister & dangerous.”
