Fox says that the First Amendment limits the FCC from considering whether its news coverage of Donald Trump’s false election claims should play a role in the license renewal of its Philadelph…
This is actually for a FOX affiliate station not FOX News. I don’t know if there is any relationship between local news on FOX stations and FOX News. I thought that they were supposed to completely separate entities so we can all watch The Simpsons without feeling like we’re supporting Tucker Carlson. But maybe that isn’t true?
Over the air stations are using a limited public resource (slices of the spectrum for the HDTV or radio) so the FCC governs who gets what slices so that we don’t have a noisy mess as competing channels try to broadcast over one another. One of the conditions of a broadcast license is to provide some public good with support for emergency announcements, PSAs and news. So the FCC should have some say in whether the thing you’re doing to meet the “provide news” requirement is actually news.
It’s kinda like, if you want a driver’s license to drive nuclear waste, they may require you to take classes on truck driving and materials safety in order to get and maintain your license. You have the right to drive a bicycle with a box of books wherever you want with no license, but if you want to drive a big rig on public roads with hazardous materials, you need some very specific licenses. And you can’t just say your buddy Jim taught you what you need in his garage last weekend. The licensing body absolutely has the right to say that your buddy popping off on a rant does not meet the qualifications of the required classes.
But with the current Supreme Court, who knows? They could say that the FCC isn’t allowed to make value judgments on “what is news?”. If so, things may get weird. Would they still be allowed to determine “what is obscene?” or would we start getting 24-7 porn on the over the air stations? Would they still be able to require news programs? And if not, what stations would still show news? Would reruns of Three and a Half Men bring in more money than local news? If so, maybe the only stations that would still bother would be ones with owners that want to broadcast specific kinda of news regardless of profit?
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