{"id":15421,"date":"2025-08-03T17:25:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T17:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo4.dedicatedhost247.com\/newstime\/brendan-carr-declares-victory-over-the-first-amendment\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T17:25:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T17:25:14","slug":"brendan-carr-declares-victory-over-the-first-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo4.dedicatedhost247.com\/newstime\/brendan-carr-declares-victory-over-the-first-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"Brendan Carr declares victory over the First Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"


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On Monday, the Freedom of the Press Foundation filed a complaint against Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr. The filing, sent to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel at the DC Court of Appeals, alleges that Carr had repeatedly broken basic principles of conduct as a licensed attorney, including by leveraging his power to control media outlets\u2019 speech. As a legal complaint it\u2019s a long shot \u2014 but as a document, it sums up months of Carr\u2019s escalating war<\/a> on free speech<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While the complaint\u2019s examples go back months, Status<\/em> reports<\/a> that the FPF\u2019s \u201ctipping point\u201d was Carr\u2019s recent approval of a merger between Paramount and Skydance. It\u2019s a situation that started out sketchy and has somehow managed to look steadily worse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For months, the FCC let the request languish while Paramount negotiated a specious anti-speech lawsuit from President Donald Trump. Then, Paramount paid Trump $16 million in settlement money \u2014 but that wasn\u2019t enough. The merger was approved on the condition that the new company appoint an ombudsman to guarantee it aired viewpoints \u201cacross the political and ideological spectrum,\u201d a directive found nowhere in the FCC\u2019s usual rules. Along the way, Paramount subsidiary CBS canceled the show of comedian and Trump critic Stephen Colbert \u2014 insisting the decision<\/a> was purely financial, only to have Carr show up on CNBC<\/a> and imply it had helped the company comply with FCC law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe American people simply do not trust the mainstream media, and for broadcasters \u2014 again, different than cable, different than podcasts \u2014 for broadcasters, they have a federal license, and they are obligated to operate in the public interest,\u201d Carr said when asked about Colbert\u2019s show ending. \u201cAnd to the extent that we\u2019re starting to see some changes, I think that\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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An \u201cunconstitutional shakedown\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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There\u2019s no reasonable way to spin the combination of Trump and Carr\u2019s actions except as an attack on the First Amendment, or in a phrase quoted by the complaint, an \u201cunconstitutional shakedown.\u201d Trump disliked how a news outlet edited an interview with a political rival. In retaliation, one of his officials threatened its parent company. To placate him, the company agreed to produce more work with his preferred politics, under the supervision of a government-appointed monitor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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What\u2019s a little easier to elide is who this hurts. Nominally, the victims are Paramount and Skydance, a pair of giant corporations facing a threat to their bottom line. But the real target is everyone who enjoys news, comedy, or virtually any other kind of broadcast media, and the stakes are the freedom to choose what you watch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The merger conditions require \u201ca diversity of viewpoints,\u201d which sounds like a lofty goal \u2014 but let\u2019s play out what it means in Carr and Trump\u2019s world. The original CBS lawsuit claimed the network had edited an interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris that made Harris look too articulate \u2014 so to start, the ombudsman will probably be looking at how politicians are presented in news coverage, encouraging journalists to show Trump\u2019s critics in a negative light.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Carr celebrated Colbert\u2019s cancellation as a \u201ccourse correction,\u201d so comedians are on notice too. And over at another network<\/a>, Disney, Carr has presented attempts to create diverse show lineups<\/a> as an example of \u201cinvidious\u201d and illegal \u201cDEI.\u201d So prepare for probes into the racial or gender makeup of the shows it greenlights, making sure its TV programming isn\u2019t too diverse in the wrong ways<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The whole situation was skewered earlier this month<\/a> in the season debut of one of Paramount\u2019s crown-jewel TV shows, South Park<\/em>, which sees the eponymous town shaken down with a multibillion-dollar lawsuit from Trump. It\u2019s full of barely veiled parallels with the Paramount situation and suggestions that it\u2019s South Park<\/em>, not just South Park, under threat. (The White House insulted the show, but so far, it seems safe.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Conservatives have warned darkly for years that Democratic presidents\u2019 FCC operations amount to censorship, frequently raising the specter of a \u201cnew Fairness Doctrine,\u201d referring to the long-defunct rule that broadcasters must present multiple viewpoints on matters of public interest. The offending policies have ranged from actual surveys of newsroom operations<\/a> to far-afield consumer protection efforts: in 2016, Trump claimed that \u201cnet neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine\u201d and \u201cwill target conservative media.\u201d Now, a Republican commissioner just put the government\u2019s thumb straight on the scale of American culture, insisting that networks shouldn\u2019t build their businesses on what customers like \u2014 they should look to Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In a country where media companies are endlessly consolidating, the FCC is in a position to stall any business that seeks a merger until it extracts the terms it wants. It\u2019s already landed anti-\u201cDEI\u201d provisions<\/a> from a different company, Verizon, and there\u2019s no reason to think it will stop there. It seems unlikely the FPF\u2019s complaint will seriously derail this mission. But it baldly lays out just how badly Carr has failed at doing what he demands of broadcasters: serving the public interest by allowing a free expression of views.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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