President Donald Trump’s administration has warned that news outlets could revoke their broadcast licenses over reports critical of the war against Iran, accusing the media of “distortion.”
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said in a social media post on Saturday that broadcasters “must act in the public interest,” or face losing their licenses.
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“Broadcasters who have been perpetrating frauds and distortions of news — also known as fake news — now have an opportunity to correct course before their license renewals come due,” Carr wrote.
The warning is the latest apparent threat from Carr, who has repeatedly attracted scrutiny for statements that appear to pressure broadcasters to conform to Trump preferences.
Last year, for example, Carr called on the ABC channel and its broadcasters to “find ways to change behavior, to take action” on comedian Jimmy Kimmel, whose late-night show criticized the president.
“We can do it the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said of Kimmel on the podcast. ABC temporarily suspended Kimmel’s show after those comments.
Carr’s latest statement prompted swift condemnation from politicians and free speech advocates, who likened his remarks to censorship.
“This is a clear directive to provide positive war coverage or licenses will not be renewed,” wrote Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii.
“It’s worse than comedian stuff, and a lot. The stakes are raised here. They’re not talking about late-night shows, they’re talking about how they cover war.”
Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), condemned Carr for silencing negative war coverage.
“The First Amendment does not allow the government to censor information about a war being waged,” Terr said.
Trump condemned coverage of the war
Carr’s latest statement came in response to Trump’s social media post accusing the “fake news media” of reporting that US refueling planes had been shot down in an Iranian strike in Saudi Arabia.
“The base was hit a few days ago, but the planes were not ‘hit’ or ‘destroyed,'” Trump said in a social media post. “Four out of five had virtually no damage and have already returned to service.”
“Reporting to the contrary is deliberately misleading,” he said. “The lowlife ‘papers’ and media actually want us to lose the war,” he wrote.
The president and his allies have faced accusations that he uses state power to penalize dissent and critical news coverage, raising concerns about press freedom.
The war that the US and Israel launched on February 28 is largely unpopular in the US, a poll shows.
A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 53 percent of voters oppose military action against Iran, including 89 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of independents.
Legal experts condemned the war as a clear violation of international law that prohibits unprovoked attacks.
However, Trump has changed his reasoning for why he believes Iran poses an imminent threat to US security.
Despite ongoing Iranian attacks on US forces across the region and the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade artery, he asserted that the war is continuing successfully.
“We won. I tell you, we won,” he said at a rally this week in Kentucky. “In the first hour, it was over.”
Meanwhile, his administration blamed the news media for turning public opinion against the war.
“Yet some of these personnel, in the press, are unstoppable,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a briefing Friday.
A former Fox News host, Hegseth called for “patriotic” reporters to write more optimistic headlines. He condemned TV banners that read, for example, “Middle East War Intensifies.”
“What should the banner read instead? How about ‘Iran is more desperate’? Because they know it, and you accept it,” Hegseth said.
He specifically criticized CNN for a report claiming the Trump administration had underestimated the chances of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz.
Hegseth quipped that the expected deal would soon put CNN under the control of David Ellison, a close Trump ally and son of tech executive Larry Ellison.
“The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” he said.
(Tags to be translated)News(T)Donald Trump(T)Freedom of the Press(T)US-Israel War Iran(T)United States(T)US & Canada
