Carr Pushes Back on Blumenthal Complaints About FCC Broadcaster Probes
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr pushed back against a probe by Senate Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee ranking member Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., of eight investigations of broadcasters that the Enforcement and Media bureaus launched since Carr took over Jan. 20 (see 2503140055). The FCC probes thus far focus on broadcasters that have carried content critical of President Donald Trump or otherwise face claims of pro-Democratic Party bias. Carr has, in some cases, said the scrutiny is focused on other matters (see 2502110063). House Commerce Committee Democrats are also investigating Carr's broadcaster actions (see 2503310046).
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“During the Biden Administration, the FCC and Democrats across government repeatedly weaponized our country’s communications laws and processes,” Carr said in a letter to Blumenthal released Thursday. “In contrast, I am restoring the FCC’s commitment to basic fairness and even-handed treatment for all. In particular, I am working to ensure that everyone appearing before the agency gets a fair shake from their government.” Carr said his “commitment on this front represents a marked departure from the Biden years when people’s politics frequently determined the answers they would receive from the FCC.”
A party “aligned with” then-President Joe Biden could expect “favorable and special treatment on a streamlined basis” from the FCC, Carr said. He cited the commission's 3-2 decision in September that granted radio broadcaster Audacy’s request for a temporary waiver of foreign-ownership requirements to complete a bankruptcy restructuring that included George Soros-affiliated entities purchasing its stock (see 2409300046). "If they were not" aligned with Biden, "then they got the opposite treatment, including previous FCC awards revoked for purely political reasons,” like the decision to bar SpaceX from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund program (see 2312140048), Carr said.
Carr said Blumenthal based his concerns about the investigations on media reports that “mischaracterized the FCC’s recent work. Specifically, your letter suggests that the FCC is treating a petition involving a CBS TV station differently than one involving a Fox TV station.” That “is not the case at all,” he said. “The FCC on my watch has merely followed the agency’s precedent and put the CBS complaint on the same procedural footing that the Biden FCC determined it should apply to the Fox complaint.” The Media Bureau dismissed the Media and Democracy Project’s petition against Fox’s WTXF Philadelphia shortly before FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's resignation, in concert with rejecting since-resurrected complaints against ABC, CBS and NBC (see 2501160011).
“Even though” the WTXF “petition failed to satisfy basic pleading requirements and merited immediate dismissal, the Biden FCC chose to move it forward nonetheless,” Carr said. “Indeed, the Biden FCC specifically determined that it would serve the public interest to entertain the Fox petition” and “waited all through the run up to and through the 2024 election cycle to dismiss” it. “If the Biden FCC had acted earlier, the agency would not have been in a position to reverse that decision in January,” he said. “Unlike the Fox petition, the Biden FCC just summarily dismissed the CBS one,” in which the Center for American Rights complained that a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, violated the commission's news distortion rules (see 2410170051).
“The FCC 'censor-in-chief's' response to Senator Blumenthal is both misguided and dismissive of the facts,” said MAD co-founder Brian Hansbury in a statement. “The adjudicated factual findings in the Dominion case, undisputed by Fox, form the backbone of our petition and clearly distinguish it from the frivolous challenges against other networks. Chairman Carr's attempt to justify his hyper-partisan attempt to facilitate President Trump's terrifying attempts to censor and coerce speech with our petition is as disingenuous as his attempt to twist the Commission's 'public interest' and 'character' standards into partisan tools.”