The conservative group Center for American Rights has filed another “news distortion” complaint with the Federal Communications Commission. The newest complaint, filed April 21, alleges ABC, NBC and CBS offered “false or misleading information” during their coverage of the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, which the group alleged “is a failure of their responsibilities under the public interest standard.”
The filing, which the group called an “informal consumer complaint,” came shortly after FCC Chair Brendan Carr escalated his complaints regarding NBC's owner, Comcast with an April 16 social media post blasting Comcast’s cable news channel MSNBC for inaccurate coverage of the controversy surrounding the deportation of the Salvadoran immigrant.
In that post, which racked up more than 1 million views, Carr weighed in on the dispute over the deportation of the El Salvadoran immigrant by writing: “Comcast outlets spent days misleading the American public—implying that Abrego Garcia was merely a law abiding U.S. citizen, just a regular ‘Maryland man.’ ”
Comcast outlets spent days misleading the American public—implying that Abrego Garcia was merely a law abiding U.S. citizen, just a regular “Maryland man.”When the truth comes out, they ignore it.Comcast knows that federal law requires its licensed operations to serve the… https://t.co/0sGZHQvp5rApril 16, 2025
Critics interpreted the post as a threat that the FCC chair, who has already openly criticized Comcast’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, might open an investigation into the broadcast station licenses owned by Comcast’s NBCUniversal.
The Center for American Rights (CAR) had previously filed complaints against stations owned by ABC, CBS and NBC for “news distortion” of their coverage of Donald Trump during the presidential race. Those complaints were dismissed by the FCC and then reinstated by Carr.
In the newest complaint, CAR argued: “Going back decades, this Commission has insisted that a licensee may not ‘distort or suppress the basic factual information upon which any truly fair and free discussion of public issues must necessarily depend.’ … Yet that is precisely the situation regarding the deportation of illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia. NBC, ABC, and CBS have all done a grave disservice to the basic facts of the controversy by consistently referring to him as a ‘Maryland father’ and in some instances even presenting false information, like calling him a ‘legal resident.’ The actual facts—that he is an illegal alien and that an immigration judge has found he is a member of a violent gang—are not reported or are treated as unconfirmed rumors. The story is slanted in a way that distorts, misrepresents, or simply incorrectly reports the basic facts.”
It is not clear from the complaint what sort of penalty CAR wants the FCC to impose on the networks or even what entity should be penalized.
The FCC does license broadcast stations and regulate the broadcast networks, but it does not license the networks. CAR’s other “news distortion” complaints were made against specific FCC-licensed broadcast stations owned by the networks. The newest filing does not mention any specific stations.
In the filing, CAR outlines various conditions that would allow the FCC to remove licenses and lays down legal arguments supporting the idea the regulator could remove a license for “news distortion” and failure to offer news coverage and information that meets the “public interest” standard.
While the complaint focuses on the network news operations, it does not mention the fact that the FCC does not license the networks. Instead, it urges the FCC to act to restore the public’s faith in traditional media and broadcast news by investigating operations that violate the “public interest” standard.
“When the American people no longer trust broadcast news media’s good faith, this Commission needs to exercise more vigorous enforcement of the public-interest standard,” the complaint noted.
“The integrity of news broadcasting is crucial to an informed, responsible electorate and the Commission has stressed the continuing duty of licensees to take adequate measures to insure such integrity,” the complaint concluded. “NBC, ABC and CBS have not acted with journalistic integrity in their reporting on Mr. Abrego Garcia. Quite the opposite, in fact. Their extreme and evident bias on this story is just one more reason [why] ‘[m]ore Americans trust gas station sushi than the legacy national media.’ @BrendanCarrFCC (Feb. 26, 13 2025). That sort of self-evident news distortion, providing ‘false or misleading information concerning the basic facts' of the story, is a failure of their responsibilities under the public-interest standard.”
The NAB has in the past argued that these arguments for denying broadcast station licenses are “unconstitutional” on First Amendment grounds and go far beyond the legitimate powers of the FCC. In addition, former FCC commissioners have accused the FCC of acting as the `White House’s personal censor’ by investigating news organizations providing critical coverage of the administration.
The full CAR complaint is available here.
