ABC Accuses Trump’s FCC of Trying to Censor the Whole Media Industry

ABC accused the Federal Communications Commission Thursday of “attempted censorship” and a clear “retaliation” effort meant to send a message to every other media company in the country.

“The Administration has openly and repeatedly called for the revocation of ABC’s licenses, because it dislikes the content and viewpoints expressed on ABC network programs,” ABC wrote in a fiery 119-page regulatory filing to the agency.

The filing is the latest in a legal battle between the television network and the FCC, which abruptly moved to review the licenses of eight ABC-owned television stations in April. The agency initially claimed that the review was related to ABC’s diversity and inclusion hiring policies, though it came shortly after Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about President Trump that Trump didn’t like. The federal government had never before demanded such a vast review of a major television network’s licenses.

ABC’s latest filing called out FCC Chair Brendan Carr by name and made clear that this fight isn’t just about the Disney-owned network: “The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: accommodate the Administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price.”

“Across the government, regulatory and contracting carrots and sticks have been trained on other disfavored speakers,” the filing continued. “The tools vary; the objective does not: a media industry too fearful of official reprisal to report the news freely.”

Carr has rejected accusations of censorship, despite the sledgehammer he’s taken to the free press since the start of Trump’s second term.

“Look at the results so far,” Carr bragged at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March. “PBS, defunded. NPR, defunded. Joy Reid, gone from MSNBC. Sleepy-eyes Chuck Todd, gone. Jim Acosta, gone. John Dickerson, gone. Stephen Colbert is leaving. CBS is under new ownership, and soon enough, CNN is going to have new ownership, as well.”

Still, despite it all, Carr claims he doesn’t view the FCC as “the speech police.”

Luckily, as ABC outlined in its filing, the network has received a massive outpouring of support from viewers, current and former FCC officials, advocacy groups, and political leaders on both sides of the aisle—including warnings from conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Senator Ted Cruz. The FCC’s website has been buried in public comments supporting ABC and offering passionate defenses of the First Amendment and local television.

This latest filing may not change Carr’s approach, but it could rally the rest of the industry—and the public—before the FCC makes its next move. ...