October 2017

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai declined to criticize President Donald Trump’s attacks on broadcasters. In his first public appearance since President Trump tweeted that Comcast’s NBC and other broadcasters should lose their licenses for reporting “fake news,” Chairman Pai instead noted that his agency could not do what the president wanted. “Look, I will reiterate what I have said for many years at the FCC up to and including last month,” Chairman Pai said in an appearance at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. “I believe in the First Amendment. The FCC under my leadership will stand for the First Amendment. And under the law, the FCC does not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast.” Asked a second time more directly if he would block a broadcaster’s license application based on content, Pai said he would “stand with exactly what I’ve said last month and for years at the FCC.” Pai did not mention the president by name.

"Commissioner Pai's statement is a profile in cowardice," said Andrew Schwartzman, Benton Senior Counselor at the Institute for Public Representation, Georgetown Law Center. "Unlike his predecessors, who have forthrightly stood up to Presidential interference, he continues to equivocate. He needs to say that President Trump has no right to interfere in the FCC's licensing process and he will ignore the President's pressure."

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has told an opponent of Sinclair Broadcast Group's proposed purchase of Tribune Media that the agency may review media ownership rules before ruling on the $3.9 billion deal, something that could delay a decision on the merger. “Ajit Pai told me in my meeting that he has not decided to approve the merger first, that he may conduct a review of the ownership cap," Christopher Ruddy, chief executive officer of Newsmax Media Inc., said Oct 13. “I can confirm to you on the record that he told me that he had not decided and that he was open to doing the review first. And I encouraged him to do it."

Ruddy said Pai made his statement in a Sept. 27 meeting. The Newsmax chief said the merger would allow too much media concentration that could crowd out independent voices. Newsmax offers a TV channel that appears on cable systems and online.