Seventy years ago, William F. Buckley launched a magazine that considers itself as America’s “premier destination for conservative analysis,” with a particular focus on politics, policy, and culture.
On Friday morning, its editors published an opinion piece in response to the uproar and seemingly non-stop discussion over ABC’s decision to indefinitely suspend the late-night “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” program in response to false statements made by the host about the lead suspect in the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
What does the National Review editorial board want? “Abolish the FCC,” it declares.
The editorial begins by commenting on how Jimmy Kimmel, a radio host who first gained an audience in the early 1990s at KRQQ-FM in Tucson and in 1994 would become “Jimmy the Sports Guy” on KROQ in Los Angeles’ “Kevin & Bean” morning show, made a comment that “was not true, and he should have known it was not true.”
The National Review then asserts that Kimmel’s monologue commentary in which he said that, last week, “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
While the individual is aligned with anarchist and highly leftist groups, drawing the ire of Republicans and conservatives across the U.S., the Buckley-founded publication’s editors declare, “It also wasn’t worthy of vague threats of government sanction.”
But, the National Review added, “the laws governing the Federal Communications Commission are broad enough that the agency can police almost any content in broadcast media in the ‘public interest.'”
To that end, the editors declared, “If we believe that is not the sort of thing the government should be doing, then there is no reason for the FCC to exist.”
Elaborating on its contention that the Commission should be abolished, the National Review editors state:
“The FCC exerts power over broadcasters by threatening to revoke their licenses. These licenses exist based on the legal fiction that the federal government owns the airwaves because broadcast frequencies are scarce. This scarcity logic does not apply to other scarce resources (i.e., nearly all resources), and there’s no reason for it to apply to broadcast frequencies. And while it was true in 1934 when the FCC was founded that broadcast frequencies were scarce, modern technology such as cable TV, satellite radio, and online streaming now means that broadcasting is effectively unlimited — and the FCC doesn’t regulate those newer technologies, where free speech reigns.
“The laws have not caught up with the technology, and terrestrial radio and broadcast TV stations are still considered licensees of public property, overseen by the FCC. Because they are using public property, the government has the power to set rules about how that property is used, which it has done in various ways over the years.”
The National Review editors then refer to the now-out of vogue “Fairness Doctrine,” which was used “opportunistically by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations” to shut down conservative radio shows that opposed their agendas. The FCC in 1987 repealed that rule under President Reagan — a move the editors assert “allowed the nationally syndicated Rush Limbaugh Show to launch the next year.”
While one may easily argue that other factors led to the spread of Limbaugh’s show, namely talent and his ability to weave his past experience as a Top 40 air personality into a politically conservative conversation with the listener, the National Review then contends “the FCC can in theory use the same legal justification that undergirded the Fairness Doctrine to police any speech it wants.”
In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that free speech by broadcasters can be limited, so long as those limits are in the public interest. “What counts as the public interest is to a large extent up to the FCC to determine, subject to judicial review,” the National Review says.
A CRITIQUE OF CARR
The editors of the National Review then turned their attention to Chairman Carr, who claim broadcasters “got the hint” after Carr responded to Kimmel’s comments by saying, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Nexstar Media Group, which sees regulatory approval of its merger with TEGNA ahead of expected broadcast television ownership deregulation, was first to say it was pre-empting Jimmy Kimmel Live! Then came word ABC was indefinitely suspending the show, while Sinclair Inc. minutes later issued its own statement demanding Kimmel even go so far as to make a contribution to a Charlie Kirk memorial fund.
Were Nexstar and Sinclair pressured by Chairman Carr and the Trump Administration to act, leading ABC to make a decision to put a stop to Kimmel’s late-night show instead of having him return the next day to make an on-air retraction and apology? The National Review shares, “Defenders of the administration have since claimed that the broadcasters did so entirely on their own with no pressure from the government. But if you don’t want to be accused of practicing bullying government, it would help for government officials to not talk like bullies. The FCC shouldn’t have this power because it shouldn’t exist. The government’s role in broadcast frequencies need not extend further than defining and protecting property rights, which can be done through ordinary courts and law enforcement. If one station owns a frequency, others shouldn’t be able to broadcast on it, for the same reason that the station’s headquarters building shouldn’t be able to be overrun by trespassers. The country doesn’t need a Federal Headquarters Buildings Commission, with political commissioners looking to flex their partisan muscles, to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
The editors conclude their opinion piece by stating, “Empowering so-called independent agencies with nebulous laws that cover vast swaths of American industry is an open invitation for abuse by politicians and bureaucrats. The FCC is no longer needed, if it ever was. Rather than fantasizing about using government power to punish the left, leaving open the invitation to be punished again when Democrats regain power, Republicans should foreclose the possibility of future suppression by shutting down the FCC.”
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Abolish the FCC?? That is the funniest thing I have read all week!
Sorry to disappoint but the FCC isn’t going anywhere.
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