We have one last conversation in this broader topic around the fourth estate. If you aren't familiar with how the FCC works, currently it is chaired by a Republican, Brendan Carr. There is a Republican who also sits as a commissioner, and there is just one Democrat. We invited both Chairman Carr and the Democrat, Anna Gomez, to speak. Chairman Carr was unavailable, but Anna Gomez will be speaking with us. So, please give a warm welcome to Commissioner Gomez.
Commissioner, thank you so much.
Thank you. It's been a busy news cycle.
I would like to get your reaction to what happened yesterday. Chairman Carr went on a news program and he said, "We can do this the easy way or the hard way" in trying to pressure ABC to address Jimmy Kimmel's comments on the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Shortly thereafter, we all know what happened there: pressure from local broadcasters, ABC suspended Kimmel indefinitely. What is your reaction to the role that the commissioner played in that and how that portrays the commission?
I see this as a part of this administration's campaign of censorship and control. And what it's doing is it's weaponizing its licensing authority in order to bring broadcasters to heel and to really think twice about what they say about this administration. It's not because the content of these broadcasts, whether it's the Jimmy Kimmel Show or CBS, is actually inciting violence or breaking the law in what it's doing. All it's doing is speaking about this administration in a way that it does not like. That is contrary to the First Amendment. It's contrary to the Communications Act. The Communications Act prohibits the FCC from censoring broadcasters. So any pressure on these broadcasters to alter their broadcast because of their content is in fact inappropriate. And I think it's important to keep in mind the FCC doesn't have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to revoke a license because of content like this.
So then why does Chairman Carr go out and say these things?
I think that the threat is the point. There is no way that the commission could revoke a license based on something like the Jimmy Kimmel Show. It is a very hard standard to meet to revoke a license, which is why it's so rarely done. But broadcast licenses to the broadcasters are extremely valuable, and so they don't want to be dragged before the FCC either in order to answer to an enforcement complaint of some kind or under the threat of possible revocation. I think it's also important to note that we don't license the networks. We license the local broadcasters. And so the pressure is on those local broadcasters. We issue licenses for eight-year terms. We are nowhere near the expiration of any licenses. So these threats are truly empty. We don't have the ability to actually take these actions. But it's the threat and the enforcement threat that is the point. It is to get capitulation as soon as possible. And when you see so much capitulation by the corporate parents, it's really disappointing because every time they capitulate rather than show courage, what they are doing is eroding our democracy and our First Amendment freedoms.
This is such an awkward dynamic because you clearly have a very strong point of view on the role of the commission, and Chairman Carr clearly has a very different point of view. And he's out there publicly saying that they're going to be doing investigations, for example, investigating a bunch of media companies over their DEI policies. How involved are you in those investigations? Does he give you a heads up? Do you know that they're even happening? How do you find out about them? Have you worked with him on them?
So that's a very good question because in fact none of these are going before me for a vote. These actions are being directed at the staff level because again, if the commission really tried to take enforcement action against a company because they actually have diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, which themselves have First Amendment components — if you think about it, freedom of speech, freedom of association — it would in fact not be able to survive judicial scrutiny. But by initiating investigations at the staff level, there is no opportunity to appeal. The process has to go through a final commission action before it can reach any type of judicial scrutiny. So what that does is it encourages the companies to capitulate. Then what the FCC does is it says, "Oh, you have a transaction." For example, Paramount and Skydance, or Skydance and Paramount, they offered to give up their diversity, equity, and inclusion practices before the commission acted on its license transfer between Skydance, Paramount and Skydance. It also, of course, gave to me a very severe capitulation, which was we will appoint an ombudsman that I call the truth arbiter, which is going to field any complaints about the content at CBS, including any news editorial decisions. This is really dangerous, and it voluntarily committed to do this in order to get the FCC to grant its transaction.
Question for you on the logistics of that. So, we saw a bunch of things happen before that transaction. The cancelling of Stephen Colbert's show happened before the deal was officially approved. Once a deal is approved, do you think there is any logic or reason for these companies to hit the brakes and stop, or do you think that they feel right now that if they don't continue to, in your words, sort of bend, that they're going to be penalized?
So this administration doesn't let go at the first capitulation. We've seen that in a variety of ways. We've seen that with Colombia, for example. So no, and what I hear from this administration is we're going to trust but verify, and if we feel like they actually don't implement these measures that they committed to voluntarily — they were not requirements for this transaction, they were simply noted as a public interest benefit of the transaction — then we'll come after them for lack of candor, which is something that we can enforce against. So, there is a clear threat and a clear "we're watching you and you better stay the course or we're going to come after you."
I was just listening to Paula Kerger talk about the threat to public media licenses at the FCC. How real do you think that threat is? Does Chairman Carr and the agency have its eye on sort of going after public media next?
