Outgoing FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, has spoken out against four petitions seeking to punish television networks for the way they cover and satirize presidential politics. The FCC “should not be weaponized in a way that fundamentally conflicts with the First Amendment,” she said.
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In one of her final acts before leaving office, the Democratic chair of the Federal Communications Commission spoke out against four petitions seeking to punish television networks for their coverage and satirization of presidential politics.
Jessica Rosenworcel told NPR she wanted to draw a clear line against ideological interference from President-elect Donald Trump, whose rhetorical attacks on the networks intensified last fall.
Three of the complaints come from a Trump-aligned group. The fourth sought to block the renewal by Fox Corp.’s local television division. of the license of his Philadelphia station to the detriment of his sister. Fox News Promotes Lies About 2020 Election Fraud.
“We don’t have the luxury of doing anything other than making it very, very clear that this agency and its licensing authority should not be weaponized in a way that would be fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment,” Rosenworcel said.
“This agency should not be the president’s speech police and this agency should not be the censor-in-chief of journalism,” she adds. “By acting on these four petitions – from the right and the left – we are clarifying these principles.”
A former top Democratic FCC official broke with Rosenworcel on social media. Gigi Sohn, who was unsuccessfully nominated by President Biden to become commissioner, called the dismissal of the petition against Fox a “failure to lead“.
New president signaled increased scrutiny of TV networks
Brendan Carr, the FCC commissioner who will assume the role of chairman Monday with Trump’s inauguration, said expressed clearly on social networks that he intends to use his new position as a bully pulpit against the big three traditional broadcast networks that he views as unfair to Trump: ABC, CBS and NBC. (Carr did not respond to a request for comment.)
The FCC does not directly regulate what networks broadcast. But it licenses local stations — many of which are owned or affiliated with the networks — that broadcast programs created by the networks. And that has proven to be a pressure point at the moment.
The Center for American Rights, a conservative public interest law firm, sought to have the FCC punish Philadelphia’s ABC station over the network’s handling of the September 2024 debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris . Trump harshly attacked ABC moderators for fact check many of his claims. The petition claimed that ABC had failed to present an impartial news programme.
The center also sought to force WCBS in New York, which is owned by CBS and is its largest station, to release the full transcripts of the network’s Oct. 7 interview with Harris.. The network used a different excerpt from its response to a question about 60 minutes that on Face the nation. The law firm’s complaint argued that releasing the transcript would redress a breach of public trust. Trump, who pulled out of his own scheduled interview with CBS, had alleged that CBS distorted the interview to help Harris.
A Matter of Equal Time at NBC
In a third case, the center alleged that NBC unfairly gave Harris an advantage by featuring her for a brief period on Saturday evening live just before the elections. The center’s lawyers pointed to the broadcast on NBC’s flagship New York station, WNBC, to allege a blatant violation of the FCC’s equal time provisions during an election, and called it electoral interference.
Granting equal time requires a complaint from the opposing party. In this case, however, NBC and the Trump campaign separately told NPR that the network contacted campaign officials before concerns were raised. NBC aired video recorded by Trump the next day during an NBC broadcast of NASCAR and an NFL postgame show. A campaign spokesperson told NPR he was happy with the arrangement.
Similarly, Hung Cao, a Republican who ran in Virginia for a U.S. Senate seat, struck a deal to air ads on NBC channels serving the state at key time slots after Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine also appeared in the episode of Saturday Night Live.
Rosenworcel says these actions more than met legal requirements. The Center for American Rights did not respond to a request for comment.
Harm claimed following false statements on Fox News during 2020 race
The remaining complaint filed with the FCC came from a liberal advocacy group highly critical of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News. He sought to prevent Fox Corp. to obtain the renewal of the license of a local Fox station in Philadelphia. Fox paid $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems over false claims that the company rigged the 2020 election for President Biden. The evidence emerged in The case showed that Murdoch knew Biden won fairly.
Another defamation suit against Fox News filed by a second-vote tech company, Smartmatic, is planned to go to trial later this year.
The petition also cites the failure of Rupert Murdoch’s legal efforts to wrest shared control of the company through a family trust from three of his children after his death in favor of his son Lachlan.
The petition depended on the FCC’s ability to assess the character of station owners. Among the plaintiffs: William Kristol, founding editor of the Murdoch-owned magazine The weekly norm (now defunct) and was a Fox News contributor, and Preston Padden, a network television veteran who helped Murdoch launch the Fox broadcast network, became his chief lobbyist in Washington and remained a confidant and an advisor even after leaving the company.
Fox Corp. declined to comment.
In a joint statement, Padden and the Media and Democracy Project said their petition did not violate First Amendment concerns and that they intended to appeal to the full commission after Carr took office of president.
“Our petition to deny (Fox Corp.’s renewal of the Philadelphia station’s license) is based on legal findings that Fox (News) repeatedly made false statements that undermined the election process and led to property damage, injury and death; that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch engaged in a “carefully crafted plan” in “bad faith” to deprive Lachlan’s siblings of the control to which they are entitled under a trust irrevocable and “Murdoch knowingly caused the company to violate the law,” Padden and the Media and Democracy Project said in a joint statement. “It would simply be wrong for the Murdochs and Fox to escape accountability for their leading roles in the January 6 (2021) Capitol riot and efforts to overturn the results of a presidential election.”
Rosenworcel says she thinks the FCC was not an appropriate forum to wage this battle — nor the one being waged by the Center for American Rights.
“The First Amendment is the cornerstone of our democracy and we must ensure that our government institutions protect and preserve it,” Rosenworcel says.
