Protect Democracy has submitted comments to the FCC on behalf of a bipartisan group of former FCC chairs and commissioners that strongly criticizes the FCC’s ongoing investigation of “news distortion” by CBS News in its handling of a "60 Minutes" interview with then vice president Kamala Harris.
The filing which was signed by former FCC Chairs Alfred Sikes (R) and Tom Wheeler (D) and former Commissioners Rachelle Chong (R), Gloria Tristani (D), and Ervin Duggan (D) accuses the FCC of abandoning its traditional role as an independent agency and defender of free speech so that it can act as “the White House’s personal censor” to threaten broadcasters to who offer coverage that displeases President Donald Trump.
“By reopening this complaint, the Commission is signaling to broadcasters that it will indeed act at the behest of the White House by closely scrutinizing the content of news coverage and threatening the regulatory licenses of broadcasters whose news outlets produce coverage that does not pass muster in the President’s view.” the filing said. “We recommend the Commission reverse course, closing this proceeding without further action and reaffirming its long-held commitment to acting as an independent agency rather than the White House’s personal censor.”
The investigation stems from a complaint filed by the conservative group Center for American Rights (CAR) that accused CBS of news distortion in the way it edited an interview with then vice president Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election.
President Donald Trump has also filed a $20 billion suit against Paramount Global and the FCC has said it is considering the news bias complaint as part of its approval process of the Paramount-Skydance merger.
Taken together these FCC investigations could put pressure on Paramount to settle the lawsuit, producing a lucrative payoff for the lawsuit’s plaintiffs.
Trump and Paramount have agreed to appoint a mediator to handle the suit.
Late last year, Disney agreed to settle a libel suit filed by Trump against ABC by paying $1 million to cover legal fees and $15 million toward Trump’s future presidential library.
Separately CAR filed a complaint against ABC’s WPVI in Philadelphia for “news distortion” in its live fact checking of the Presidential Debate.
Former FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel dismissed the three complaints filed by CAR along with separate complaints filed against the Fox-owned station WTXF in Philadelphia on first amendment grounds. Shortly after being named FCC chair, Brendan Carr reinstated all the CAR complaints against Paramount Global’s WCBS-TV New York, Disney’s WPVI Philadelphia and NBCUniversal’s WNBC New York.
“These actions strongly suggest that the FCC is wielding its authority in an effort to chill CBS news coverage of the Administration and extract concessions from CBS in only tangentially related contexts,” the FCC chairs and commissioners noted in the filing by Project Democracy. “President Trump has filed a lawsuit against CBS seeking $20 billion in damages allegedly caused by the editing of the “60 Minutes” interview. A motion to dismiss rooted in the First Amendment is pending, but the Commission’s actions here have resulted in the disclosure of the relevant transcript long before the plaintiffs would otherwise be entitled to it. A finding by the Commission that CBS had engaged in news distortion would strengthen the President’s litigation case, and the very pendency of the proceeding pressures CBS to hand the White House a victory by settling that case.”
"Moreover, CBS’s parent company Paramount is currently seeking FCC approval of its merger with Skydance,” the filing noted. “The Commission seems poised to use the instant proceeding as additional leverage in the merger review process, either to impose conditions on the transaction desired by the White House or simply to place additional pressure on CBS to modify its coverage of President Trump and his allies. Indeed, the public notice establishing the docket in this proceeding goes so far as to note that the allegations in this matter were incorporated by CAR in a separate complaint seeking to condition the merger, making this relationship explicit.”
In the newest filing, the FCC chairs and commissioners also cited extensive legal precedents showing that the FCC does not have the authority to censor news content and argued that its authority to investigate “news distortion” is extremely limited.
“From our many combined years of experience as Commissioners, we cannot stay silent,” they wrote. “The Commission on which we served, regardless of the party of its Chair or the policy agenda of the President, was an independent agency. It contains a bipartisan group of five commissioners due to the sensitive nature of regulating broadcasters, and the critical role they play in free press and free speech, the bedrock foundations of our democracy. It was dedicated to ensuring that the broadcast spectrum helped to create the marketplace of ideas that undergirds political debate and ensures the richness of American culture. We have taken great pride in the Commission’s historic bipartisan commitment to that position.”
“To remain true to its mission, the Commission must close this proceeding without further action,” they concluded. “To do otherwise would suggest that the Commission has been transformed into a tool of White House-driven speech suppression.”
The complete filing is available here.
