New FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced a last-minute decision by the Biden administration-led regulator to dismiss bias complaints filed by President Donald Trump against three network TV news stations over their coverage of the presidential campaign. The decision will be reversed, officials said. post.
Kerr plans to restore the active or pending status of charges accusing ABC, NBC and CBS of favoring Democrat Kamala Harris, the people said. First reported by Newsmax news.
Last week, Jessica Rosenworcel, chair of the Biden Democratic Party, dismissed the three claims, saying they amount to “stifling press freedom.”
Had Rosenworcel acted on media complaints weeks ago, Kerr would not have been able to reverse the decision because there is typically a 30-day buffer period, the sources said. told the Post.
FCC representatives and Mr. Carr did not respond to requests for comment.
The three complaints to the FCC in question were filed by the American Rights Center, a conservative nonprofit law firm.
“These are serious issues that deserve real solutions. The former speaker's last-minute actions were political and not based on a principled defense of the First Amendment,” said American Rights Center Director. 's Daniel Sarr told the Post in a statement.
One of the complaints said ABC News gave Harris an advantage by aggressively fact-checking Trump during her showdown with Harris during its coverage of the presidential debate.
Another claimed that CBS was guilty of news distortion by airing edited responses to Harris' interview on “60 Minutes.”
“Ms. Harris couldn't put two sentences together, so they deleted her answer entirely and inserted another,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after the interview.
He demanded that Tiffany Network release the entire transcript of the “60 Minutes'' sit-in and later filed a lawsuit against the network seeking $10 billion in damages.
CBS declined to release the full transcript, saying it aired a short response for clarity and time.
According to the Wall Street Journal, executives from parent company Paramount Global have discussed settling the lawsuit.
Trump's team did not respond to requests for comment.
The third complaint criticized NBC over Harris' appearance on “Saturday Night Live” in a skit with Maya Rudolph just three days before the election.
Approximately 70 other FCC complaints have been filed nationwide regarding the SNL bit. According to The Hill.
The complaint alleges that NBC violated “equal time” rules that require networks that feature presidential candidates on their programs to provide equal time to all other presidential candidates.
