The lone Democratic Party voice on the Federal Communications Commission has again lashed out at the agency under the leadership of Chairman Brendan Carr for its proceeding in which ABC Owned Stations have been asked to participate in an early license renewal effort.
For Anna M. Gómez, what Carr has said is a look into likely “invidious” forms of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs at ABC is nothing but punishment for speech “this administration dislikes” and is a First Amendment violation.
“When given the chance to weigh in on whether to allow the FCC to continue its campaign of censorship and control, the American public showed up in a big way, and the vast majority who spoke up delivered the same message,” Gómez said, in reference to the more than 150,000 comments received by the Commission during its comment window, which has now closed. “They believe in the value of their local news, they trust those who cover their communities, and they understand that the FCC has no business deciding who is a journalist and what counts as real news.”
Gómez added that “a small number of partisan voices tried to hijack this process into a referendum on a network they dislike, but the public refuses to let local stations become collateral damage in the FCC’s political games. The FCC has no authority to police the ideological balance of the airwaves, and no matter what this Commission does next, the record now makes clear that this was never a genuine search for the public interest.”
The FCC’s early license renewal action, which could lead to the simultaneous license revocation of the broadcast licenses held by The Walt Disney Co., is the result of a process last invoked prior to 1976.
It involves WABC-7 in New York, WLS-7 in Chicago, WPVI-6 in Philadelphia, KTRK-13 in Houston, WTVD-11 in Raleigh-Durham, KFSN-30 in Fresno, KGO-7 in San Francisco and KABC-7 in Los Angeles.
Gómez’s comments come after a bipartisan group of former FCC officials filed comments earlier this week calling the proceeding against these stations unprecedented and warning that the agency is trying to send “a chilling message to all broadcasters” who carry speech this administration dislikes.
Days earlier, a coalition of conservative and free market organizations urged the FCC to abandon the proceeding, warning that turning license renewal into a political weapon could just as easily be used against conservative and religious broadcasters in the future.
Then on Wednesday (7/29), TechFreedom filed an opposition to petitions to deny renewal of ABC’s broadcast licenses.
In the think tank’s view, some petitions explicitly ask the FCC to punish ABC for its speech in the name of “balance” or “fairness,” echoing threats from Carr and President Trump. Other petitions, it says, ask the FCC to deprive ABC of its licenses because of an alleged violation of the FCC’s employment non-discrimination rules. TechFreedom explained in its opposition why the Constitution and the Communications Act bars both, and why the law and longstanding FCC practice do not allow the FCC to conduct this proceeding, or to terminate ABC’s licenses early without respecting key safeguards.
