'WSJ' Blasts Carr on CBS Probe; 'NY Post' Praises NPR Investigation
CBS’ editing of an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris last November “looks like editorial judgment, not an instance of splicing footage to create a misleading response that never happened,” and the FCC probe into CBS isn’t justified by the previous administration’s action against Fox, the Wall Street Journal editorial board said in a column Sunday. News Corp. owns the WSJ and Fox. In a recent interview, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr pointed to the previous FCC’s proceeding on WTXF Philadelphia as setting the precedent for the agency’s current news distortion investigation against CBS (see 2502060059).
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“The bad Biden FCC precedent against Fox is no justification for the Trump FCC to do the same against the liberal press,” said the WSJ editorial board. The issue is further complicated by President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against CBS over the same matter, it added. “Mr. Trump clearly wants to intimidate the press, and it’s no credit to the FCC to see it reinforcing that with an inquiry.” Carr should end “the CBS brouhaha” by declining to act against the broadcaster and dismissing the complaint, as occurred with WTXF. “The question for Congress is whether regulating broadcasts like this even makes sense in a digital age,” the WSJ board said. “If Mr. Trump wants success to be his retribution, as he sometimes says, instead of suing CBS maybe he should deregulate it.”
Meanwhile, the New York Post wrote approvingly of Carr's investigation of NPR and PBS stations in an editorial the same day. Carr "looks to have NPR (at least) dead to rights with a probe of the taxpayer-backed agitprop shop’s flaunting of federal rules," the Post editorial board said. Carr’s investigation "won’t shut NPR down, but at least it may finally remove the federal seal of approval (and taxpayer subsidy)," it said. "And so bring the nation one small step closer to a media landscape where reporters and editors focus on (gasp!) digging up and reporting the news, instead of obfuscating and outright lying to advance left-wing narratives." NPR and the FCC didn't comment.