Brendan Carr Says He Wants Public Input On His Censorship Campaign Against ABC

from the pretending-to-be-open-to-input dept

As we’ve previously noted, Brendan Carr recently launched a series of phony inquiries into ABC because Jimmy Kimmel made fun of the president’s wife. Carr can’t just come out and say that, so he’s launched a series of fake (and legally laughable) “investigations” into the company. They’re all designed to scare ABC, and other big media companies, away from platforming critics of the unpopular president.

“If you platform voices critical of the president you’ll face an endless barrage of costly and annoying legal headaches and bad press in the right wing media,” is the unsubtle threat.

So Carr has falsely claimed ABC is violating the Communications Act by embracing diversity practices. He’s also falsely claimed that ABC violated the dated FCC “equal time” rule by not platforming more right wing Trump supporters. And he’s repeatedly lied and stated ABC is violating the FCC’s antiquated and never used “news distortion” rule because Kimmel made fun of Charlie Kirk.

It’s all a very big pile of racism, ignorance, zealotry, and censorship pretending to be serious adult policy. And you’ll notice the inquiries only go one way: Carr has nothing to say about Fox News (or countless local right wing broadcast new affiliates and AM radio stations) routinely airing right wing propaganda. Right wing outlets can do whatever they’d like without criticism or repercussion. Funny, that.

As part of the proceedings, Carr has repeatedly threatened to pull one of ABC’s eight broadcast licenses if they refuse to roll over to the administration (they haven’t… so far).

Last week, Carr pretended he was open to receiving public input about the whole ignorant mess. The FCC Media bureau issued a public notice seeking opinions on whether The View qualifies for the bona fide news exemption to the FCC’s equal-time rule, which requires equal time for opposing political candidates on non-news programming. From the notice:

“Does The View qualify as a bona fide news interview program? Does the federal equal opportunities statute pass relevant constitutional scrutiny, either as a general matter or as applied here? Are the relevant decisions on The View, including on format and participants, based on newsworthiness or on an attempt to oppose or support particular candidates within the meaning of FCC precedent? We welcome comment on these and any other relevant points.”

The last page of this document has details on how you can formally comment. Of course, Brendan Carr doesn’t really welcome public input; they’re looking to make this appear like a meaningful public policy initiative, and not the censorial witch hunt it actually is. I suspect the call for comments, as is usually the case, will be flooded with all sorts of bots and fake people.

As we’ve mentioned previously, ABC’s daytime talk show The View hosted Texas Democrat James Talerico last February. The Trump administration is apparently unhappy with the inroads Talerico has been making with Texas Christians and independents. So Carr has falsely claimed that platforming Talerico violated the FCC’s equal time rule, requiring ABC file appropriate paperwork and platform a Republican voice in opposition.

But as ABC’s recent notice to the FCC makes clear, The View was clearly granted an FCC Bona Fide Exemption to the rule back in 2002. Most talk shows have broadly been viewed as exempt since 1984 or so (and increasingly so, as the Internet challenged TV’s supremacy). So there’s nothing to really debate.

Carr knows that, so instead he manufactured a controversy. But it’s worse than that: as ABC’s filing made clear, Carr appears to have worked collaboratively with right wing local broadcasters to make it seem like ABC-owned Houston affiliate KTRK had done something wrong. They collaborated on a big performance to make it seem like KTRK broke the law.

This is all so profoundly stupid it would be laughed immediately out of court in a functional country. But a corporate media, worried they won’t get mergers approved (or could face costly legal headaches for having a spine), has generally chosen to roll over both in their official capacity, and as reflected by their journalism.

As a result, most of the reporting on Carr’s censorship has generally either failed to call out Carr’s behaviors as radical or extreme, or they’ve taken a “both sides” approach to the story where they frame everything as a matter of two equally valid opinions, in turn normalizing authoritarian censorship.

But make no mistake: Carr’s a censorial authoritarian zealot engaged in a laughable and racist government harassment campaign because the U.S. President is a giant baby with a historically fragile ego. And Brendan Carr should never be allowed to live it down.

Filed Under: authoritarian, brendan carr, bully, censorship, equal time, fcc, first amendment, free speech, james talerico, the view

Companies: abc, disney