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FCC Reinstates Complaints Against Major Broadcasters Regarding 2024 Election Coverage


The allegations suggest that the broadcasters exhibited a bias favoring the Democratic candidate.

On Wednesday, Brendan Carr, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), reinstated three complaints that were previously dismissed by his predecessor just before President Donald Trump took office.

The renewed complaints originate from the Center for American Rights, a conservative legal organization based in Chicago. They target the stations of three major networks: NBC, ABC, and CBS, focusing on their coverage during last year’s presidential election.

One of the complaints involves WNBC-TV in New York, which is accused of breaching the “equal time” rule by featuring then-Vice President Kamala Harris in a “Saturday Night Live” skit on November 2, just before the election.

An additional complaint points to ABC’s Philadelphia affiliate, WPVI-TV, claiming bias during the presidential debate held on September 10, where moderators frequently fact-checked Trump while allowing Harris to go unchecked.

A third complaint accuses WCBS-TV, a CBS station in New York, of exhibiting “news distortion” regarding its interview with Harris on “60 Minutes.”
In a clip released online that also aired on “Face the Nation” on October 6, Harris provided an extensive answer to correspondent Bill Whitaker’s question about U.S. influence over Israel. However, the final version of the “60 Minutes” interview that aired on October 7 presented a significantly shorter response.
The contrasting clips drew criticism from both Trump supporters and the Republican candidate himself, who called for an investigation into CBS, alleging the network aimed to portray Harris as “more presidential” through the edit.
Subsequently, Trump filed a lawsuit against CBS for $10 billion under Texas’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act, a law commonly used in cases of false advertising.

Recently, the outgoing chairwoman of the FCC, Jessica Rosenworcel, dismissed the three complaints and another submitted by the progressive group Media and Democracy Project. This latter complaint claimed that Fox-owned WTXF-TV should lose its broadcast license due to its reporting on voting machines during the 2020 election.

“We draw a clear line at a time when we need clarity concerning government interference with the free press,” Rosenworcel stated during that time. “Our actions demonstrate two things: First, the FCC should not act as the president’s speech police. Second, the FCC should not serve as the censor-in-chief for journalism.”

In reviving the complaints, the Trump FCC noted that the previous dismissals were “issued prematurely, based on an insufficient investigatory record for the station-specific conduct at issue.”

Chairman Carr, who assumed office on Monday, refrained from commenting on the reinstated complaints but has previously criticized NBC for Harris’s appearance on SNL. He characterized the Democratic candidate’s appearance as a “clear and blatant effort to evade” the FCC’s “equal time” rule, which mandates broadcasters to provide equal airtime to opposing political candidates during non-news programming.

“The intent of the rule is to prevent this type of biased and partisan behavior—using public airwaves to favor one candidate just before an election,” Carr wrote on X on November 2.

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, one of the two Democrats on the commission, criticized Carr’s decision to reinstate the complaints.

“We must not allow our licensing power to be used as a weapon against press freedom,” Gomez expressed on Wednesday, emphasizing that federal law disallows the FCC from censoring broadcasters.

“We need to uphold the protections of the First Amendment alongside the limitations expressed in the Communications Act.”

NBC, ABC, and CBS have yet to provide immediate comments. On November 3, NBC broadcast a statement from the Trump campaign following a NASCAR race and an NFL game, which many viewers interpreted as an attempt to counterbalance Harris’s time on SNL.



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