Donald Trump's administration is already affecting the First Amendment rights of broadcasters — and it could get much worse should the Federal Communications Commission carry on its current course, according to a report.
The FCC could be bolstered should the Trump admin grant it powers discussed in an internal memo seen by the New York Times. Should the memo come to pass, the FCC would determine which political candidates receive airtime. This overstep affected Stephen Colbert just last week, when CBS lawyers strongly inferred an interview with James Talarico, a Democratic candidate for Texas, should be pulled from broadcast.
The interview was instead uploaded to YouTube and seen millions of times, but the FCC's approach has hindered the First Amendment right of broadcasters and threatens to cast live television back to the mid-20th century, the Times reported.
The NYT's editorial board wrote, "This approach obliterates the traditional line between consumer fraud and protected speech. Historically, the First Amendment has limited the reach of consumer law to commercial speech or clear-cut fraud. By treating political bias as a defect in a commercial product, the FCC is claiming the authority to police journalism itself.
"The FCC has long granted an exemption for interviews on news programs, allowing broadcasters to make editorial judgments.
"But in a memo issued last month, the FCC warned that broadcasters might violate the rule if they aired interviews “motivated by partisan purposes.” In practice, this would allow the FCC to determine which candidates get airtime, and it is already having a chilling effect.
"This approach threatens to turn back the clock to the mid-20th century, when the government imposed a wide range of rules on broadcasters. Both Democratic and Republican administrations weaponized these rules to suppress critical coverage of their agendas.
"Under President Ronald Reagan, the FCC ended most of those requirements because it recognized that it was inhibiting the public discourse it had intended to encourage. It concluded that rules regulating content were inhibiting free speech. The Reagan administration was right."
The FCC's power base goes beyond dictating editorial guidance for broadcasters and may affect merger deals in the news and entertainment industry too, the Times editors wrote.
The NYT's team went on to add, "In another intrusive step, Mr. Trump’s FCC is leveraging its merger review power to dictate newsroom operations. As Skydance and Paramount were seeking approval for their merger last year, the agency coerced a concession at CBS, which is part of the joint company.
"Skydance agreed to install a news ombudsman at the network to monitor for bias, and CBS hired the former president of a conservative think tank for the job. This is breathtaking. The federal government is effectively mandating that a private news organization install a political commissar to ensure its reporting meets state-approved standards of neutrality."
