President Donald Trump’s FCC commissioner said on Friday that he opened an investigation into the Walt Disney Co. and his TV network ABC to see if they “promoted prompt forms of discrimination from Dei”.
FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr, announced the probe in a letter Friday, at the CEO of Disney, Robert Iger. The company said that it was examining the letter and eagerly awaited to answer the questions from the Commission.
The new administration has Taken an aggressive posture towards the media on several fronts. This week, there were hearings in the court on the Stop the voice of America and the President’s line with the Associated Press On how the news agency refers to the Gulf of Mexico, which Trump ordered the Gulf of America renamed.
Carr pushed the Federal Communications Commission in a militant role since Trump appointed the chief. For example, the FCC currently has open surveys on ABC, CBS and NBC News.
“For decades, Disney focused on the unsubscribe of the box office and programming successes,” Carr wrote to Iger. “But then something has changed. Disney has now become involved in controversy cycles surrounding its dei policies.”
He said that he saw information that Disney has made some of his practices go back, “important concerns remain”.
Last month, Axios indicated that Disney had made political changes, in particular by eliminating a website designed to highlight the personalities and stories of under-represented communities.
Disney also softened the messages that appeared before film screenings like “Dumbo” and “Peter Pan”, said Axios. Instead of warnings that films include “negative representations and / or the ill -treatment of peoples or culture”, messages have changed into “this program is presented as created originally and can contain stereotypes or negative representations”.
Carr’s letter linked to an article by the conservative activist Christopher Rofo describing Disney as “the most soothing place on the earth”.
Certain examples of Carr have cited dates back to several years, such as a specific policy at ABC belonging to Disney that at least 50% of the characters in television drivers come from under-represented groups. The letter cites a declaration of a Disney executive in 2021 that he rejected certain television pilots because they did not meet inclusion standards.
Trump has targeted all kinds of Dei – defending diversity, equity and inclusion – efforts in public and private organizations.
“In my direction, the FCC has already taken measures to put an end to its own promotion of Dei,” wrote Carr. “I have been happy to see that certain regulated companies are already taking measures to eliminate discriminatory policies from the DEI.”
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David Bauder writes on the intersection of the media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him to http://x.com/dbauder And https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social
