The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Office of General Counsel and Media Bureau rejected a petition by the progressive Free Press on Monday to “weaponize” the agency against broadcasters and conservatives to censor political speech.
Free Press recently petitioned the FCC to censor broadcasters from showing President Donald Trump’s press conferences on the coronavirus outbreak.
“When the president tells dangerous lies about a public health emergency, broadcasters have a choice: don’t air them, or put those lies in context with disclaimers noting that they may be untrue and are unverified,” Free Press wrote in its petition. “And certainly the FCC has a duty to rein in radio broadcasters that seed confusion with lies and disinformation.”
The FCC denied the petition in a letter to the Free Press, contending that the proposal “misconstrues the Commission’s rules and seeks remedies that would dangerously curtail the freedom of the press embodied in the First Amendment.”
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