Human cheeseball and CNN content creator Brian Stelter is very concerned this week after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr publicly reminded TV broadcast stations that they in fact do not have a right to deliberately lie to voters using the public airwaves.
Three times in as many days, Stelter has referred to a “threat” from Carr last weekend wherein the chairman said, “Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.” The statement came in the context of President Trump and other administration officials complaining — not always justifiably — that the media were excessively negative in their coverage of our war with Israel on Iran. “Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up,” Carr said. “The law is clear.”
In each of his morning newsletters since then, Stelter has highlighted a bunch of Democrats and at least one feckless Republican to bemoan Carr’s “authoritarian,” “fascist,” “vindictive” and “unconstitutional” observation, as though it’s a world class scandal for the FCC chairman to note that it’s literally his job to ensure his agency is a good steward of the airwaves, which are owned by the public, not TV stations.
It’s true that the government is prohibited from censoring points of view, but the “public interest” obligation is long-standing and requires stations to use their access to airwaves to serve the needs of their communities. That includes not lying or willfully misleading their audiences about, say, an international war in a midterm election year.
I know the networks have had a nice run these last few decades, having convinced the permanent Washington bureaucracy that the media’s preferences and opinions are paramount and that any attempt to ensure they’re acting in good faith is a constitutional violation, but none of that has ever been true. They only got away with it for so long because it benefited Democrats and most Republicans are afraid to do anything about it. Carr apparently isn’t, and as the elected president’s appointee, it’s his right and duty to safeguard the airwaves from all forms of abuse.
Pointing that out isn’t “authoritarian” or “fascist.” Brian Stelter and his Democrat buddies know that. The “threat” isn’t to the First Amendment. It’s to their established communications machine that benefits them politically at taxpayer expense. Brendan Carr knows that.
“The American people have subsidized broadcasters to the tune of billions of dollars by providing free access to the nation’s airwaves,” he said. “It is very important to bring trust back into media, which has earned itself the label of fake news.”
