From: digest-replies@telecom-digest.org   
      
   https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/trumps-fcc-chair-inv   
   kes-rarely-enforced-news-distortion-policy-to-punish-media/   
      
   Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is taking a hard   
   line against broadcast TV stations accused of bias against Republicans   
   and President Trump. To pressure broadcasters, Carr is invoking the   
   rarely enforced news distortion policy that was developed starting in   
   the late 1960s and says the FCC should consider revoking broadcast   
   licenses.   
      
   The FCC has regulatory authority over broadcasters with licenses to use   
   the public airwaves. But Carr's two immediate predecessors—Democrat   
   Jessica Rosenworcel and Republican Ajit Pai—both said that punishing   
   stations based on the content of news programs would violate the First   
   Amendment right to free speech.   
      
   Rosenworcel and Pai's agreement continued a decades-long trend of the   
   FCC easing itself out of the news-regulation business. Two other former   
   FCC chairs—Republican Alfred Sikes and Democrat Tom Wheeler—have urged   
   Carr to change course.   
      
   Carr has multiple probes in progress, and his investigation into CBS   
   over the editing of an interview with Kamala Harris has drawn   
   condemnations from both liberal and conservative advocacy groups that   
   describe it as a threat to the Constitutional right to free speech. One   
   plea to drop the investigation came in a March 19 letter from   
   conservative groups including the Center for Individual Freedom, Grover   
   Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, and the Taxpayers Protection   
   Alliance.   
   ...   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)