With the Federal Communications Commission just weeks away from possibly stripping The View of their status as a purported “bona fide news program,” and the fight over the license renewal of ABC-owned affiliates just heating up, the left was still trying to muster their defenses. However, the coalitions of liberal former FCC officials and far-left activist groups coming out of the woodwork on Disney and ABC’s behalf could not make any sound legal argument to counter the evidence provided by the Media Research Center, with some even taking nip at the companies in their support letter.
As reported by Variety, a letter showing support was signed by a slew of leftist organizations and delivered to Disney CEO Josh D’Amero. The signatories included: the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fall of Freedom, Issue One, LGBT Tech, National Coalition Against Censorship, PEN America, People for the American Way, Public Knowledge, TechFreedom, The Media and Democracy Project, The Trevor Project, The Tully Center for Free Speech, and UnidosUS.
“We urge you to continue to defend and exercise your First Amendment rights, so that we can all continue to exercise ours,” the collective proclaimed.
The letter did seem to suggest that they felt ABC and Disney were being too silent about what they were going through and they needed to do more:
“Meaningfully fighting back requires more than strongly worded regulatory filings. It requires that you make clear to the public what is happening to you and to them — that the government is violating the First Amendment,” the letter to D’Amaro reads. “Remember: the public rebelled against the heavy-handed attempt to force Jimmy Kimmel off the air, and stood with you. Disney now has the opportunity to stand with all of us in protecting our rights to watch, read, and access information the government wishes we would not. Illegal jawboning demands decisive and vocal resistance. Your rights, and all of our rights, depend on it.”
As NewsBusters previously reported, ABC had waited until the final day of public comment to launch their audience write-in campaign.
In a response to the Media Research Center’s petition to deny the renewal of broadcast licenses for eight ABC-owned affiliates, a laundry list of former FCC officials spilled 28 pages of ink without laying down a good legal argument in Disney and ABC’s favor. They were helped along by the leftist Protect Democracy Project and a collection of others likes Gigi Sohn of G Squared Strategies, Berlin Szoka of TechFreedom, and Andrew Jay Schwartzman.
“This early license renewal proceeding is unprecedented in the history of the Federal Communications Commission and a grave violation of both the Communications Act and the Constitution. Through this proceeding, the FCC seeks to censor Disney’s and ABC’s speech and send a chilling message to all broadcasters: carry speech we don’t like at your peril,” they proclaimed.
At no point did the group argue that MRC’s evidence of license violations (i.e. electioneering, promotion of political violence, abdicating their duty to act in the public interest etc.) were wrong or inaccurate in anyway.
Instead, they falsely suggested it was part of ABC’s “editorial discretion” and right to flout their responsibilities as a broadcaster:
Invoking the news distortion policy and equal opportunities requirement, these petitions ask the Commission to interfere with the stations’ First Amendment-protected editorial discretion: word choices, fact-checks, time covering certain topics, personnel, and the licensees’ perceived viewpoints. These are not legitimate subjects of FCC regulation. Indeed, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government may not “un-bias” what it thinks is biased. The news distortion policy has never authorized the type of interference with editorial discretion that the petitions call for. And, as a group of us argued in a separate petition, the policy is inherently vulnerable to abuse and should be repealed. Nor does the equal opportunities requirement permit investigation into whether, across all content, a licensee harbors partisan bias.
Without ever addressing any of the MRC’s specific arguments, they contended, “The Commission has always underscored that ‘mere inaccuracy or difference of opinion’ cannot constitute a news distortion violation.”
In fact, they took it a step further and demanded that the FCC repeal their policy to examine and discipline broadcasters for “news distortion.”
“Both petitions ask the Commission to scrutinize and second-guess ABC’s editorial decisions at the microscopic level—word choices, fact-checks, the number of minutes spent covering particular topics, even personnel. These petitions only underscore the danger created by failing to repeal the news distortion policy,” they wrote.
Yes, ABC does have editorial discretion. However, they can’t use that discretion to willingly violate the responsibilities they agreed to when they sought their licenses. This also wasn’t an effort at censorship because even if they lost their license, they could still compete as a cable news outlet like CNN and MS NOW.
