Carr Goes After NPR and PBS Over BBC Show; Gomez Says FCC Threats Are 'Empty'

In a press conference Thursday, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said the agency and White House threats against broadcasters are ultimately toothless because of the First Amendment. “Not a single action the FCC has taken so far to try to silence government critics has carried much weight behind it, aside from the ability to make things difficult for those we regulate,” she said. “These threats may sound ominous, but they’re empty.”

Carr’s letter to the BBC, PBS and NPR is focused on a recent BBC documentary that edited together separate portions of Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, 2021, outside the U.S. Capitol. After Trump threatened the BBC with a $5 billion lawsuit, the broadcaster issued an apology for the video and admitted that it was misleading.

"I am writing to determine whether any FCC regulations have been implicated by the BBC’s misleading and deceptive conduct,” Carr said in the letter. Since PBS and NPR distribute some BBC programming, the FCC wants all three entities to provide it with transcripts and video of any broadcast of the documentary in the U.S., he said. “Broadcasters regulated by the FCC have a legal obligation to operate in the public interest. Those public interest requirements include prohibitions on news distortion and broadcast hoax.” The BBC, PBS and NPR didn’t comment.

"Any news distortion claim against an NPR/PBS station would require the FCC to prove that the station's management was directly involved in knowingly distorting the news," TechFreedom President Berin Szoka said in a post on X. "Here, if there was any distortion, it was done by the BBC, not US stations. Carrying, or quoting from, a BBC program isn't enough."

Gomez condemned the letter and Trump’s threatened lawsuit as an effort to “scare the network” into providing more favorable coverage. “The efforts to silence media have now crossed the Atlantic.” The FCC “is powerless to truly retaliate against a news network,” because networks don’t have FCC licenses, Gomez said. “The stations they own do, but none of these licenses is up for renewal anytime soon, and if the FCC were to take the unprecedented step to revoke a license on the grounds that reporting by a network is unfavorable to this administration,” it would fail in court.

The administration’s threats are dangerous but also “desperate attempts” to intimidate, Gomez said. “We must resist the urge to validate the fear they seek to impose on others, and to remind the public that, no, this isn't normal, but it also isn't hopeless.”

ABC and Kimmel

Asked Thursday about Trump’s recent calls for the FCC to act against ABC, Carr said “there’s no news” about distortion proceedings but reiterated that the FCC will “hold broadcasters accountable to the public interest standard” and reiterated that the agency won’t be doing away with the news distortion rule.

Carr also again said the FCC’s actions on news distortion are based on agency precedent. He pointed to citations in the prior FCC’s NPRM on AI political ad disclosures as providing precedent for its current news distortion efforts. In his dissent from that July 2024 NPRM, then-Commissioner Carr wrote that “the authority the FCC claims today is one that, by its own terms, would empower the FCC to operate as the nation’s speech police.” That AI proposal “rests on the sweeping -- and unprecedented -- theory that the FCC is justified in regulating on-air content whenever it believes people might be misled,” he wrote. “Indeed, one might wonder what would prevent the FCC from using the theory advanced by the agency in this NPRM from policing all manners of broadcast content.”

Four months later, Carr said in a Fox News interview (see 2411190051) that he would emphasize broadcaster public interest obligations as chairman and planned to seriously consider news distortion complaints against CBS.

In addition, Carr responded Thursday to questions about FCC action against ABC by mentioning Wednesday's Media Bureau proceeding that seeks comment in part on ways to beef up broadcasters' ability to preempt network programming (see 2511190065). The agency is looking to “balance some of the power between local TV stations -- which aren't necessarily owned by the national programmers -- and the national programmers themselves,” Carr said. Possible remedies could be requiring entities to renegotiate agreements where “there's too much control, such that the station should be attributed to the national program for ownership purposes.”

Carr has previously urged broadcasters to preempt Kimmel’s late-night show, and Trump again called for the host to be taken off the air in a post Thursday on Truth Social. “Why does ABC Fake News keep Jimmy Kimmel, a man with NO TALENT and VERY POOR TELEVISION RATINGS, on the air? Why do the TV Syndicates put up with it?” Trump wrote.

Gomez condemned the Media Bureau proceeding Thursday. “Ultimately, it is doubtful that meddling in the private negotiations between large networks and massive media conglomerates actually serves the public interest, and I'm concerned that this is an attempt to tip the scales in favor of the massive media behemoths under the guise of helping the little guys.”