Former FCC Chairs And Commissioners Call Out Brendan Carr For “Weaponized” News Distortion Policy And Petition For Its Repeal

A bipartisan group of former FCC chairs and commissioners is calling on the agency to rescind its “news distortion” policy, arguing that it is “constitutionally problematic” and that it has been “weaponized” by the current chairman, Brendan Carr, to go after unfavorable coverage of President Donald Trump.

Carr has invoked the policy numerous times. A news distortion complaint over CBS 60 Minutes editing of an interview with Kamala Harris last year led to an FCC investigation, and Carr cited the policy when he warned ABC stations over late night host Jimmy Kimmel and his comments about Charlie Kirk. The network pulled Kimmel’s show off the air for several days before reinstating him.

Among those who have signed on to the petition calling for a repeal of the policy are Mark Fowler and Dennis Patrick, chairmen of the FCC under President Ronald Reagan; Alfred Sikes, chairman under President George H.W. Bush; and Tom Wheeler, chairman under President Barack Obama. The petition was filed by Protect Democracy and TechFreedom, along with consumer advocates Gigi Sohn and Andrew Jay Schwartzman.

The petitioners noted that, up until recently, the policy has been enforced only in rare circumstances — only eight times over the past 60 years, and “typically in cases involving an intentional hoax.” They noted that a separate broadcast hoax rule already covers such instances.

The FCC itself states that its authority to enforce the policy is narrow, and must involve “a significant event and not merely a minor or incidental aspect of the news report.” It also must involve deliberate distortion, not mere inaccuracy or difference of opinion.

An FCC spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

The petitioners also question whether the policy, in its vagueness, would survive a Supreme Court challenge.

Citing the Supreme Court decision in Moody vs. NetChoice, the petitioners wrote that the high court “reaffirmed that the government has no role in ‘un-biasing’ the media. In direct contradiction to that decision, the news distortion policy seeks to mold the speech of private broadcasters to the FCC’s own view of what is correct, complete, and accurate news. The First Amendment forbids the government from embarking on such a project.”

The petitioners wrote, “The current leadership of the Commission is using the news distortion policy to directly advance the interests of the White House.” They noted that “the Commission has reopened and threatened to open news distortion investigations into broadcasters simply because the Chairman disapproves of their coverage as biased or allegedly ‘false.’ This pattern of escalating attacks demonstrates just how sweeping and dangerous the expansive powers claimed under the news distortion policy are.”

The FCC under Carr has yet to render a decision on the array of news distortion complaints that have been filed, often by the Center for American Rights, a conservative group. The complaints include not just the 60 Minutes complaint, but another filed against ABC over the way that moderators conducted the 2024 presidential debate.

The petitioners, though, warned that the complaints themselves, and warnings from the chairman, chill protected speech and lead to self-censorship, arguing that “broadcasters are more likely to meaningfully alter their news coverage in ways that align with the current administration’s preferred narratives.”

As an example, they pointed to the resignation of Bill Owens as executive producer of 60 Minutes, as he said that he could “no longer make independent decisions based on what was right for” the show and the audience. The network grappled with the 60 Minutes news distortion complaint, along with a lawsuit from Trump, just as its parent company Paramount Global was seeking FCC approval to be acquired by Skydance.

The petitioners also called out Carr for appearing to threaten Comcast outlets with an news distortion investigation “solely because they described Kilmar Ábrego Garcia, the individual at the center of a wrongful-deportation scandal, as a ‘Maryland man.’”

In April, Carr posted on X that that Comcast was ignoring “obvious facts of public interest,” suggesting that they were portraying Garcia as “merely a law abiding U.S. citizen” and not reporting on his alleged MS13 gang affiliation.

“Comcast knows that federal law requires its licensed operations to serve the public interest. News distortion doesn’t cut it,” Carr wrote.

Carr’s comment was followed by the filing of a complaint, also by the Center for American Rights.

“Purporting to apply the policy, Chairman Carr has used the power of the FCC to question the precise words an outlet uses to describe an individual, as well as the outlet’s decisions about which facts are relevant enough to include in any particular story,” the petitioners wrote.