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In one of his initial acts since becoming FCC chairman, Brendan Carr last month revived a complaint against CBS News over the way that 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election season.
On Friday, in response to an FCC inquiry, the network said it would hand over the unedited transcript and video of the interview, the source of a complaint and a lawsuit brought by Donald Trump.
But four years ago, Carr, in his role as an FCC commissioner, argued that government efforts to inquire about editorial decision-making was outside the scope of federal scrutiny, given “First Amendment norms.”
At the time, two Democrats on the House Energy & Commerce Committee, Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerny, had sent a letter to major multichannel distributors, asking them whether they planned to continue to carry Fox News, One America News Network and Newsmax, in light of the January 6th attack on the Capitol. In their eyes, the rightward news outlets had contributed to the spread of misinformation.
Their letter, though, triggered an outcry, not just from Republicans but from a media group, The Media Institute, as well as from Carr.
In a 2021 press release, Carr said, “Debate on matters of public interest should be robust, uninhibited, and wide open. Yet the concerted effort by Democrats to drive dissent from the public square represents a marked departure from those First Amendment norms. A newsroom’s decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official, not targeted by them.”
He added, “To the House Democrats that used their official letterhead to launch this inquiry, I would say this: Your demand to know the ‘moral principles’ that guide a private entity’s decision about what news to carry cannot be reconciled with bedrock principles of free speech and journalistic freedom.”
After the Harris interview aired in October, Trump accused 60 Minutes of editing the piece to make his election rival look better. He pointed to the fact that a 60 Minutes promo that aired on CBS’ Sunday morning Beltway show Face the Nation showed Harris giving a different answer to a question than the one that aired on the broadcast. 60 Minutes said there was no deception, but that it was the “same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response.” In other words, part of the answer aired on Face the Nation; the other part on 60 Minutes.
Nevertheless, Trump sued CBS News later that month for $10 billion, claiming the show violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which is generally aimed at false advertising. Paramount Global is in talks with Trump’s team about settling the case, sources said, as regulatory approval looms over Skydance’s acquisition of the company.
The conservative group Center for American Rights also has filed an FCC complaint against the network over the 60 Minutes piece. Carr, who was appointed by Trump, also has said that the complaint was “likely to arise” as part of the review of the Skydance transaction. Just before her departure, FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, Carr’s predecessor, dismissed the complaint, calling it “at odds with the First Amendment.” But Carr revived it. The FCC said the complaint was dismissed “prematurely” and “based on an insufficient investigatory record for the station-specific conduct at issue.”
The FCC regulates broadcast stations but has much more limited oversight over cable networks. Carr has cited the agency’s news distortion policy, in which broadcast stations are subject to enforcement only “if it can be proven that they have deliberately distorted a factual news report.” But enforcement of the policy has been rare, and the FCC also states that it “is prohibited by law from engaging in censorship or infringing on First Amendment rights of the press.”
A spokesperson for Carr did not immediately return a request for comment.
In court and FCC filings, CBS, Paramount Global and Skydance have stated that their editorial decisions are protected by the First Amendment. The network had initially resisted Trump’s demands for an unedited transcript of the 60 Minutes broadcast, with its attorney writing that there was “no legal basis” for their demand that they do so. But last week, after the FCC request, CBS said they “are working to comply with that inquiry as we are legally compelled to do.”
The Eshoo-McNerney letter was issued at the same time that the House Energy & Commerce Committee was holding a hearing on misinformation, a little more than a month following the attacks on the Capitol. The two lawmakers — who have since left Congress — defended the inquiry as merely asking questions, and argued that it was within the bounds of the First Amendment. The top Republican on the committee, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who also has departed, blasted the letter as a “dangerous escalation,” warning, “Combating disinformation is a shared goal, but we do not want to follow the lead of authoritarian country.”
Testifying before that committee that day was Jonathan Turley, professor of the George Washington University Law School. He warned in his remarks, “From the perspectives of free speech and the free press, the [Eshoo-McNerney] letter is not just chilling; it is positively glacial.”
Turley said via email today that he has “concerns over investigations into media editing decisions, including the FCC investigation.”
He added, “I want to emphasize that I believe that there are also serious journalistic concerns raised by the CBS interview and the alleged bias shown by the network (which I used to work for). However, allegations that media organizations strove to make a candidate ‘look good’ or to scrub the flubs can be dangerously vague and ill-defined.”
