More Media Execs Back Effort To Pull Fox News’ Philly Broadcast License Over Election Fraud Lies
from the disinformation-nation dept
Last month we noted how media reform activists had petitioned the FCC to revoke Fox News’ local broadcast license in Philadelphia. More specifically, the group argued that Fox News’ rampant election fraud propaganda technically violated the “character clause” embedded in the Communications Act the FCC is supposed to use to determine whether an organization should hold a broadcast license.
As we noted at the time, this politically feckless FCC is never likely to act. Even if they did, it would only impact this singular Fox broadcast station (FOX 29 Philadelphia, WTXF-TV), and not meaningfully imperil Fox News’ broader mission to fill gullible peoples’ heads with hatred and pebbles.
Still, I’d argue it’s a worthwhile effort from a media campaign and public awareness perspective. So much of the conversation about “what to do about Fox News” (and the massive, deeply funded right wing propaganda apparatus more broadly) fixates exclusively on what’s not possible under the First Amendment. Rarely do you see much in the way of constructive ideas.
This group (the all volunteer-run Media and Democracy Project) is at least trying to be creative.
This week the effort got some additional support from former PBS President Ervin S. Duggan and former Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol (no stranger to political falsehoods himself), who filed a joint petition with the FCC in support of the effort:
“As media veterans, we are acutely aware of the power afforded to those who control the information broadcast on our nation’s airwaves,” said Ervin S. Duggan. “Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch’s role in perpetuating election falsehoods stands as a blatant violation of the character requirements expected of those the FCC entrusts to hold a broadcast license.”
Again though, this current Rosenworcel FCC is so politically feckless, it can’t even acknowledge that telecom monopolies are real and harmful things. It’s simply never going to wade into this kind of political shitstorm. And it’s not clear you’d want it to; a second term Trump FCC could easily exploit this precedent to take aim at broadcasters critical of the GOP (not that there are many of those left).
As we noted last time, there’s a long list of things we could be doing to counter right wing propaganda (education reform, public funding of journalism, improved mental health care, creative financing for independent journalism, tougher media consolidation standards, actually staffing the FCC with folks who care about media diversity), we’re just not interested in it. Yet.
The real threat to Fox News’ right now? It’s not the Dominion or Smartmatic suits. It’s the growing shift away from bloated, expensive cable TV bundles and towards streaming. Without the massive infusion of billions of dollars from cable TV customers who pay for Fox News in a bundle but never watch it, the propaganda mill’s financial future looks decidedly less certain.
Filed Under: disinformation, election fraud, fcc, philadelphia, propaganda, rupert murdoch, WTXF-TV
Companies: fox, fox news
Comments on “More Media Execs Back Effort To Pull Fox News’ Philly Broadcast License Over Election Fraud Lies”
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
As usual, TechDirt pretends to be committed to freedom of speech while actually favoring every avenue of censorship legally possible that silences viewpoints with which they disagree. The government should manage spectrum through sale or lottery, never by restrictions on what those who have access to it are allowed to say.
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…hallucinates nobody mentally competent, ever.
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Even worse than that: Techdirt is (obliquely, since it is not their focus) arguing that Fox should not have their license pulled. I think it’s very very hard to argue that is a form of censorship.
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Evidence, you fuck.
Provide them.
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‘Election fraud’ is a ‘viewpoint’ to disagree with now I see.
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Bye, straight white trash.
Literally nobody will miss you except your pussy-grabbing locker room jocks, who are realistically all gay for each other anyway.
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The incels are hiding the truth more actively than usual. Nothing more than the pitiful death struggle of a trapped animal.
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Hey Herman we know it’s you replying to yourself.
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Hey Jhon you manage not to sexually harass anyone today?
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Election lies are not a “viewpoint”, they are a fraud on voters. Punishing broadcasters who lie about elections would not be censorship, it would be defending democracy.
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It’s not a lie if they believe it. And people have the right to believe whatever they want. And share that belief with anyone who is willing to listen.
That’s freedom of speech. That’s how it works. Nobody is forcing a single viewer to watch the station.
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Doesn’t matter, if people are too stupid to understand factual reality they will suffer the consequences, like other peoples free speech.
That station has a broadcast license which contains a couple of stipulations, if they don’t follow them or skirt them they will upset some people who will say that the station doesn’t deserve that license.
That’s freedom of speech, say stupid things – win stupid prizes.
Every reply above being in service to feeding a troll is embarrassing. Y’all really need to learn some self-control.
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No.
Tolerance of such insurrectionists is tantamount to terrorism.
Shame them into the ground, or put them there.
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You can’t shame anyone who has no sense of shame.
Karl Popper (and I) would agree with your first sentence, though.
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Says you. I believe in the power of true love, the same true love that won when we got gay marriage approved.
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Stop kink shaming bro. Some of us would have to pay good money elsewhere to taunt the usual idiots here.
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I know, right? I certainly can’t cum in another man’s ass if I haven’t already made Matthew Bennett feel like a piece of shit.
we need Faux news
How else will we keep tabs on the “under a rock” crowd?
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Spongebob reruns?
I mean, Patrick Starr lives under a rock…
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All you people should, for the record, state clearly that you personally want the government to shut down broadcast outlets that air views that you personally consider dangerous.
Like they do in totalitarian countries.
You people should state, for the record, that you personally trust the government to make these decisions fairly and accurately.
The government that renditions and Guantamanos, entraps idiots into terrorism charges, targets and kills American citizens abroad and “collaterally damages” other innocent humans, protects the powerful and fucks the little guy, and wants Assange in jail, among many other evils large and small.
The “stolen election” is bullshit, but so was “Jim Crow 2.0”. Should we take the stations that pushed that “democracy damaging lie” off the air? Or the “chemical weapon stockpile” bullshit? That one actually sent poor kids to their deaths. “Pee-gate”? That one damaged democracy too. Maybe the Russian/Cuban “sonic weapon” scare? Arms for hostages? Sandanistas? Missile gap? FDR’s polio coverup? We should gulag all of those broadcast outlets too, following the same so-called logic.
I at least hope that you people are being honest with yourselves and realize that you personally are now arguing for those things. I sadly suppose that some of you are perversely proud of it.
Defending free speech means putting up (as a polity) with all of those lies, and those who tell them. Idiot progressives are always screaming “fascism”. If you are arguing for the obliteration of this broadcast outlet, check your bathroom mirror to see a for-real fascist. But I’ll bet you believe your own lies too.
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Who are these “you people” you are talking about?
Regardless, you can generalize and put up as many strawmen you like but the point is that there are people who think the Philly-branch of Fox News broke the “character clause” by airing pure lies spun as news or facts.
You can demonize them all you want and others using your strawmen arguments, but the reality is that they are allowed to criticize and petition to have an organization’s license revoked because they think said organization didn’t adhere to the regulations.
As usual, free speech doesn’t mean you are free from consequences – especially when you are bound by regulations.
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The regulations are in violation of the first amendment. And need to be repealed.
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You are free to ask SCOTUS to repeal everything that has to do with FCC and broadcast law but until you get what you want it’s still the law.
I seem to remember that you were big on law and order, funny how you now are using the above as an excuse for behavior that possibly breaks the law.
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You have two issue here.
The ultimate law of the land is the constitution, paired with the federal statutes.
No law can violate the constitution, and any attempted law that does must be struck down. You don’t see me defending Florida, Texas, etc and their media laws, now do you? (I do and have publicly contemplated the abilities of such laws to Coexist with the constitution within a state via state’s rights but that’s a very deep and convoluted mess, post civil war when the federal government removed so many rights that constitutionally belonged to the states)
More than that, I’m a huge free speech advocate. The more you, or even I, dislike it, the more I support its right to exist. I am an enemy of censorship.
So much so:
I respect the legal right to private localised censorship, but I will never stop pointing out what it is.
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A law that violates the constitution is an illegal law. As such it is by its existence free to break.
I hope they DO yank the license. And fox broadcasting, the multi entity partnership behind fox stations nationwide, challenge the revocation. The “left” here is handing themselves a major win if they loose in this station.
This could be the end of the crap shite content regulations. (Is this an intentional false target?)
Like it or not, (only ignorant fools don’t understand), this is the strongest constitutional court scotus in over a century. They’ll toss the fcc regulations in a bonfire in half a second.
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Note: There’s also zero evidence of intelligent life behind any of LittleCupcakes’s other comments, either.