Dem
47
GOP
53
This was actually supposed to run yesterday, but we ran out of time. If it had run, we think the theme of "their only tool available is hot air" would have been more obvious, and the propriety of the headline would have been more evident.
Over the past few days, FCC Chair Brendan Carr has resumed his crusade to turn all television broadcast stations into state-run media. He warned that if TV stations broadcast news that is critical of the Iran War, which he views as "distortions," they are at risk of losing their broadcast licenses.
This is not only an obvious and frightening assault on the First Amendment, it's also complete and total nonsense. The bar for yanking a license is very, very high, such that the last time it happened was decades ago. If Carr was to try it, the matter would be tied up in court for years, since saying mean things about the Iran war does not constitute a violation. And it wouldn't just be one lawsuit, it would be hundreds or thousands, since the broadcast license does not belong to "ABC" or "CBS," it belongs to the local broadcasters. So, if Carr gets his knickers in a twist because CBS News Tonight gave Donald Trump the sads, he'd have to take action in Fort Wayne, and Tallahassee, and Altoona, and Peoria, and Springfield (all 34 of them), and hundreds and hundreds of other broadcast markets.
Oh, and if there is any doubt the real concern here is adhering to the party line, and not something else, Carr also noted that he's not concerned about talk radio, and he's not considering any actions against those users of the public broadcast spectrum. Hmmm... wonder why?
We're not sure what is going on in Carr's head. Has he become so impressed with the enormity of his influence and power that he really thinks he can bend broadcasters to his will? The only circumstance where he has any real ability to do that is with mergers, like the Viacom merger, where the FCC has to sign off. In those cases, Carr can effectively use the FCC approval to blackmail the would-be mergees into honoring (or, at least, paying lip service to) his ideas about "fairness."
Or maybe, as is the case with so many people in government these days, Carr is just performing for an audience of one. If so, well, that audience of one is loving the show. We do wonder if Trump even understands that the FCC has zero control over the Internet, cable news, podcasts, social media, or the myriad other ways in which people get information today. We also suspect that both Trump and Carr think that broadcast news has far more reach today than it actually does, and don't appreciate that these days, there are no more Walter Cronkites. (Z)