“Rules? Rules? The FCC don’t need no stinkin’ rules! No First Amendment! No Judges!” That’s paraphrasing the Federal Communications Commission’s Chairman Brendan Carr who is turning the FCC into the Federal Commission of Chaos.
Chairman Carr’s latest travesty: hiding information that his lone administrative law judge, Jane Halprin, who was expected to hear the bogus ABC licensing case, quietly resigned May 30. Halprin had a no-nonsense reputation at the FCC. Friendly to broadcasters but strict with the rules. This is the same judge who called into question whether, given the gravity of its misstatements to the Commission, Sinclair had the necessary character qualifications to hold any broadcast licenses.
Every eight years, radio and TV stations prove to the FCC they are “serving the Public Interest” to keep their licenses to broadcast. Traditionally not a big problem for Peabody award-winning ABC stations which go 24-7 live in event of local fires and emergencies. And ABC’s licenses don’t come up for renewal anytime soon, some not until 2030.
But Chairman Carr bulldozed his way into the process by calling all of ABC’s local TV licenses in for renewal now, something the FCC virtually never does, not even in the Entercom Radio water-drinking contest that killed a woman. The FCC says it’s due to ABC’s DEI policies, but it’s really because shows like Jimmy Kimmel and “The View” criticize or make fun of the current president (something TV and radio shows have done forever). ABC is defending its right to bash whomever it wants (just like Savage, Hannity and the Conservative crowd do on radio every single day).
But Chairman Carr’s scheme takes away the Public’s right to challenge stations’ licenses for years future — even if (as in the Entercom case) an ill-planned station contest were to lead to somebody’s death.
In rare cases where the FCC calls in a license mid-term, it sets an immediate date for license renewal, perhaps August 2026. Carr’s FCC didn’t do that, oddly allowing ABC licenses to remain in place for years, with WPVI the last to renew in August 2031. So? Until news broke of her retirement, we expected Judge Halprin would hear this case and would fairly examine past ABC behavior. But she was also somehow expected to adjudicate years of unknown future behavior, putting the Sword of Damocles over ABC’s head. But now she’s gone, a fact held secret by the agency sworn to protect Our interests. Will Chairman Carr now be judge, jury and executioner?
It gets worse: Carr’s illegal rules strip We the Peoples’ right to ensure broadcaster accountability for that four-year period. Should KABC kill someone, or more likely capitulate its (and Our) First Amendment rights by curbing free speech, We have zero opportunity to object. That’s against the law.
What if next year ABC buckles to shareholder pressure and makes a deal with the FCC to keep their licenses? The FCC typically does these deals in secretly negotiated “consent decrees,” without an opportunity for public input or oversight. What if ABC next silences its shows’ voices? There would be zero avenue for We the People to complain. Bye bye, Public Airwaves, hello Big Brother.
The reason Frequency Forward and Media Action Center filed a Petition to Deny in the ABC case is to make our stand for We the People now and future. We filed a novel argument in response to unprecedented potentially illegal FCC action which robs Us of Our rights. The organizations’ goal is not to revoke ABC’s licenses — unless Disney/ABC sells its viewers down the river and becomes a propaganda arm of the government — and to prevent the entire system to protect the public interest in broadcasting from collapsing entirely.
Our attorney Arthur Belendiuk says, “The FCC is not only denying Disney its first amendment rights, but by chilling free speech it is denying the public’s unequivocal First Amendment right to receive new and other programming free of government interference.”
In this dizzying everything everywhere all at once era of smoke and mirrors misdirection, We the People are standing up for the Public Airwaves We own and demand a seat at the table to ensure our — all Americans’ free speech interests — are protected as demanded by the Communications Act and U.S. Constitution. We cannot let Carr get away with this unconstitutional power grab.
It’s now or never for Our rights as owners of the public airwaves.
Sue Wilson a former award-winning broadcast reporter turned media reformer and founder of the Media Action Center.
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