Journalism

Historically, when evaluating structural rules such as broadcast ownership limits through a public interest lens, the Federal Communications Commission has focused on three core policy objectives: promoting competition, ensuring a diversity of voices, and supporting localism. Without commenting on specific proceedings that may come before me at the Commission, I can share a few general thoughts about how I’m currently thinking about these issues:

In a raw exercise of leveraging public trust for political gain, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, at the behest of President Trump, is forcing America’s broadcasters to choose between free speech and their business interests. It is a bad business deal and an even worse deal for democracy.

So that we may better understand the Federal Communications Commission’s actions regarding the Nexstar-Tegna transaction, please provide written responses to the following questions no later than April 13, 2026:

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss struck down part of President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, ruling that it was unconstitutional retaliation that violated their press freedom rights under the First Amendment. The May 1, 2025, executive order, titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media,” cut off funding to public media—with President Trump calling out what he perceived as left-wing bias in NPR’s and PBS’s news reporting. “The message is clear,” wrote Judge Moss in an opinion.

When Americans look to learn more about a breaking news event, they turn to a variety of sources. This mirrors the fragmented way that people get news and information more broadly these days. When a breaking news event happens, 36% of U.S. adults say they typically turn first to their preferred news organization to get more information. Another 28% look to search engines like Google or Bing, and 19% make social media their first destination.

The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau approved the sale of certain local broadcast TV stations from TEGNA to Nexstar, with certain conditions Nexstar committed to in the record. The Media Bureau found that approving this transaction, with those commitments, will empower these broadcasters to better serve their communities by investing in local news and reporting. The transaction will also enable these broadcast TV stations to counter the growing power that national programmers have amassed in recent years.

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr is threatening broadcasters over slanted coverage of the war in Iran. He’s firing the wrong missile at the wrong target. He might want to tell President Trump that TikTok is a real national-security risk and a bigger source of fake news. Few Americans today get their news from the public airwaves. Social media now ranks as the top news source for most Americans, and it is a leading medium for adversaries to spread anti-American propaganda.

When he was growing up, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr says, his chief ambition was to land a comfy job at a big law firm and spend his career bringing in new business. But instead, he says, a series of “Gump-like experiences and opportunities” had propelled him up the ranks at the FCC. By the time he reached the top of the institution he’d come to cherish, a particularly tumultuous, anti-institutional fervor was sweeping through the federal government led by President Trump and Elon Musk, a technology billionaire wielding a chainsaw.

If you were going to single out the most dangerous functionary in President Trump’s little circle of Hell, you’d have plenty of candidates from which to choose. But don’t sleep on Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr. His legacy of awfulness may prove more durable. His rhetoric is all about ensuring a “diversity of viewpoints.” He holds himself out as an honest broker in search of a more balanced media.

Once again, this FCC pretends it has the power to control news coverage. In reality, the FCC has vanishingly little power over national news networks. It licenses local broadcast stations, not networks, and no licenses are up for renewal until 2028. Early renewal attempts are exceedingly rare, and the process is so demanding that any effort would almost certainly fail, especially given the well-documented First Amendment violations underlying these moves.