FCC’s Knives Are Out for First Amendment

Ari Paul

Deadline (1/22/25) noted that the last FCC chair, Jessica Rosenworcel, dismissed the complaints Brendan Carr reinstated because "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.”

Brendan Carr, newly appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission, is waging a war on the news media, perhaps the most dangerous front in de jure President Donald Trump and de facto President Elon Musk’s quest to destroy freedom of the press and the First Amendment.

Trump’s FCC has revived right-wing requests to sanction TV stations over their election coverage—complaints that had previously been dismissed by the FCC as incompatible with the First Amendment's guarantee of a free press. The media industry news site Deadline (1/22/25) summarized:

The complaints include one against ABC’s Philadelphia affiliate, WPVI-TV, alleging bias in ABC’s hosting of the September presidential debate; one against WCBS-TV in New York that accuses CBS of “news distortion” in the way that 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris; and another against WNBC-TV in New York for alleged violations of the equal time rule when Saturday Night Live featured Harris in a cameo the weekend before the presidential election.

Deadline (2/17/25) followed up:

​​Carr announced an investigation into the diversity, equity and inclusion policies of Comcast and NBCUniversal, and vowed that other media companies would face the same scrutiny. He targeted PBS and NPR for their underwriting practices, while warning that their government funding would be in the crosshairs of congressional Republicans.

FCC vs. dissent

Despite his claim that ""I don't want to be the speech police," Ars Technica (12/17/24) reports that Carr has "embraced Trump's view that broadcasters should be punished for supposed anti-conservative bias."

Carr has also made it clear that will use the FCC to attack dissent. Ars Technica (12/17/24) reported:

Carr has instead embraced Trump's view that broadcasters should be punished for supposed anti-conservative bias. Carr has threatened to revoke licenses by wielding the FCC's authority to ensure that broadcast stations using public airwaves operate in the public interest, despite previous chairs saying the First Amendment prevents the FCC from revoking licenses based on content.

Revoking licenses or blocking license renewals is difficult legally, experts told Ars. But Carr could use his power as FCC chair to pressure broadcasters and force them to undergo costly legal proceedings, even if he never succeeds in taking a license away from a broadcast station.

The impulse to go after broadcast licenses for airing unsanctioned viewpoints is similar to the methods used by authoritarian regimes like Hungary, Russia and Turkey to crush the free press (Deutsche Welle, 2/9/21, 9/15/22; Reuters, 10/17/24).

And no Republican crusade would be complete without fearmongering about George Soros's alleged control of media and politics. Fox News (2/25/25) reported that Carr “is expected to brief GOP lawmakers on the FCC’s investigation into Soros, including an investment firm he’s linked to purchasing over 200 Audacy radio stations nationwide.”

Regulation to benefit the right

What Carr "wants to do is use his bully pulpit to bully companies that moderate content in a way he doesn’t like,” Fight for the Future's Evan Greer told Wired (11/20/24). “And if he continues to do that, he's very likely to run smack into the First Amendment."

Carr, one might remember, wrote the policy section on the FCC in Project 2025, a right-wing policy agenda that is guiding the second Trump administration. In it, Carr complained that the “FCC is a New Deal–era agency,” which has the “view that the federal government should impose heavy-handed regulation rather than relying on competition and market forces to produce optimal outcomes.” He vowed to eliminate “many of the heavy-handed FCC regulations that were adopted in an era when every technology operated in a silo.”

It all sounds like old school, free-market Reaganism, but Carr is actually very much inclined to use state power to interfere in the media marketplace when he has a chance to enforce the ideological limits of political discussion in the news media.

US conservatism likes to sell itself as a general resistance to federal regulation in the marketplace, allowing for capitalism to run wild without government interference. In reality, the struggle between American liberals and conservatives is more about what kind of regulation they want to see.

Just look at Carr’s record: He likes regulation when it benefits the right, and opposes it when it doesn’t. His reported use of his FCC power to investigate the Soros-linked fund buying Audacy stations contrast with his rejection of calls to block Musk’s takeover of Twitter (FCC, 4/27/22).

He has spoken out against social media content moderation (Wired, 11/20/24), but he has supported the move to ban TikTok (NPR, 12/23/22), a campaign based on anti-Chinese McCarthyist hysteria (FAIR.org, 3/14/24). And as the first Deadline piece notes, Carr revived FCC complaints about CBS and ABC, both Trump targets, but didn’t reintroduce a similarly dismissed complaint alleging

that the revelations from the Dominion Voting System defamation case against Fox News showed that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch lacked the "character" to hold a broadcast license.

While press freedom advocates fear Carr’s crusade against liberal speech, local television news giant Sinclair (11/18/24), known for its right-wing politics (On the Media, 5/12/17; New Yorker, 10/15/18), embraced Carr’s FCC leadership.

'To punish outlets Trump dislikes'

Media Matters' Matthew Gertz told the Guardian (2/24/25) that Trump plans to "use the power of the state to ensure that the media is compliant, that outlets are either curbed and become much less willing to be critical, or they are sold to owners who will make that happen."

The aggressive stance to go after places like CBS and ABC stem from Trump’s long-standing belief that these networks are conspiring with the Democrats against him. The Trump administration, as FAIR (11/14/24) had predicted, will use the state to cripple media it deems too critical to his regime.

The FCC’s tough approach is already having an impact. Trump sued CBS and its parent company Paramount for $20 billion on claims that 60 Minutes had deceptively edited an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris; Paramount is considering settling the suit, despite its baselessness, as the litigation could impede a lucrative potential merger that requires government approval (New York Post, 11/20/24; Wall Street Journal, 1/17/25).

ABC has already settled another bogus Trump lawsuit for $15 million (FAIR.org, 12/16/24)—which indicates that even giving Trump massive amounts of money will not protect media outlets from the wrath of MAGA.

Carr's ideological campaign will almost certainly have a chilling effect on any media outlet with an FCC license. News managers may veer away from too much criticism of the Trump administration out of fear that the FCC could strangle it with investigations and red tape. The Guardian (2/24/25) cited American University law professor Rebecca Hamilton on the danger that "the FCC investigations could affect journalists’ ability to report on the Trump administration":

Valid FCC investigations can have a positive impact on the information ecosystem. But the latest FCC investigations launched by Carr are aligned with a broader effort by the Trump administration to punish outlets that Trump dislikes. Such investigations risk creating a chilling effect on the ability of journalists to report without fear of retaliation.

'No regard for the First Amendment'

More than a year ago, CNN's Oliver Darcy (12/7/23) warned that "the American press is facing, arguably, the gravest potential threat to its freedom in a generation."

Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, told FAIR that "rather than guessing precisely what  line of attack might come next, broadcasters will be incentivized to tone down their coverage overall, and make it more friendly to the Trump administration." Worse, he added, the viewers won't know that such self-censorship is happening. "We only know what gets aired," he said. "We don't know what gets pulled."

Before Trump’s election, CNN's Oliver Darcy (12/7/23) fretted that Trump was “overtly vowing to weaponize government and seek retribution against the news media, showing no regard for the First Amendment protections afforded to the Fourth Estate.”

We’re seeing those fears already beginning to materialize in the FCC. The only way to truly resist is for media outlets to simply not comply with the insane, authoritarian dictates of the Trump administration—as AP has done by refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico, despite having its White House correspondents blacklisted (FAIR.org, 2/18/25).

But now is the time to relentlessly and honestly report on the most powerful political figure on earth, and not to back down.

Stern said the press can continue to take legal action to defend the First Amendment under Trump. But also said journalists should advocate for free speech through their outlets. "Journalists are always hesitant to write about press freedom, for fear of making themselves the story, but the time for that is long gone," he said. "You're not making yourself the story, Trump is."