Formal agenda The FCC appears to be in line with its normal fanatical pursuit at its public meeting this week. There are some projects on satellite broadband, a licensing framework for the low 37 gigahertz spectrum, and new proposed rules that can help stop Robocalls. In the practice of government Kabuki, the commissioner spoke, the proposal was voted unanimously, and the Donald Trump-appointed chairman Brendan Carr performed well, despite his hilarious behavior. Observers may conclude that despite the new government, business on the FCC is still the same as usual.
Then there is the regular news Q&A. The beat journalist once politely investigated Carl’s investigation into his recent moves – like using the power of his character to investigate broadcast stories from news organizations that just happened to upset Donald Trump. It is worth noting that Carl has launched an investigation into how CBS edits A 60 minutes The interview with Kamala Harris, who was selected at that time. Although there is no evidence of a news story, Trump asked the network to “lose permission” in the story. He also advised other networks to lose their members “because they are as corrupt as CBS – perhaps worse!”
This was before Trump returned to power, when then-FCC president Jessica Rosenworcel deleted it. She noted that the agency did not revoke the license because a politician did not like his way of covering it. The complaint was denied before Rosenworcel resigned. But after Trump served as FCC chairman in late January, he pulled the case out of the trash and began an investigation. Following Trump’s executive order on January 20, requiring “no federal government officials, employees or agents to engage in or promote any conduct that would unconstitutionally remove any freedom of speech in U.S. citizens.”
Carl’s answer to the question about CBS in the public meeting was: “All options remain on the desktop, even the “death penalty” of a webcast license. He also noted that NBC and other networks covering legal immigration cases could have similar troubles when mistakenly deported to the El Salvador prison. His reasoning was that because broadcast media had exclusive access to their public waves, their content had to be in the public interest. He said they could be podcasts if they didn’t like that.
This question – OK a lot of It’s a hassle – it’s obvious that the “public interest” here is interpreted as “things Donald Trump likes.” Although the FCC can issue sanctions on “news twists,” the term refers to creepy and consciously fraudulent reports. CBS cases and deportation network coverage is even the same universe as this malfeasance. “It’s one of the tools the government uses to censor and control the news media and to punish anyone who dares to oppose our government,” Anna Gomez, the rest of the committee’s Democrat, told me this week.
It was not only the Democrats who were shocked by this. In March, the far-right crustor Grover Norquist (the man who once said he wanted to drown the government in the bathtub) was one of the superconservatives who signed a letter asking Carr to plead with Carr to dismiss the case, saying that “formed a regulatory over-and-progressive precedent that could be weaponized by future FCCS.” Dud, Current FCC we have to worry! When Carr tried to explain his complaints about news reports, he said they were all about strengthening local news rather than large networks. But Gomez told me that the station itself was frightened. “I’ve spoken with local broadcasters across the country and they’re worried they’ll be dragged down in front of the FCC based on what their reports are,” she said.
