The U.S. Press Starts Showing The Hint Of A Backbone

Well would you look at that.

ABC and Disney this morning filed a lawsuit against the Trump FCC accusing the agency of a coordinated harassment campaign designed to stifle the company's First Amendment right to free speech.

"Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts," ABC/Disney wrote in its complaint.

It's a refreshing sign of a backbone from a company that just a few years ago paid Trump a $15 million bribe to settle a baseless lawsuit the company easily could have won in order to appease our mad, idiot king.

In case you'd missed it, the Trump FCC under Brendan Carr has launched numerous phony "investigations" into ABC for such egregious crimes as hosting comedians that make fun of the president's wife, not quite being sexist and racist enough for Donald Trump's liking, and platforming politicians on ABC daytime talk shows Republicans worry could erode their control of the Senate.

These investigations included an unprecedented early review of ABC's eight local broadcast licenses. As I've written at Techdirt, that effort was particularly interesting given it involved the FCC actively colluding with right wing broadcast companies like Sinclair Broadcasting to pretend ABC violated the law.

These investigations are legally baseless censorship efforts by dim autocrats, but they've historically been propped up by other cowed media outlets – and the vast right wing propaganda apparatus – as serious inquiries.

Usually you'll see FCC boss Brendan Carr, a telecom-industry lackey who failed upward through the ranks of regulatory capture, try and frame these harassment efforts as a meaningful public interest campaign. This, for example, was Carr speaking on Fox Business last month:

“Look, as a country, we should have a trusted, respected news media, and we’re not there,” Carr told anchor Maria Bartiromo. “So I hope more broadcasters return to their public interest obligations.”

Republicans, usually arm-in-arm with corporate power and the extraction class, have waged an unsubtle generational war on journalistic integrity that has decimated the public's trust in media. They then turn around and pretend a combination of censorship and propaganda somehow restores this trust.

ABC's lawsuit this morning burns through that pretense.

"Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts," ABC/Disney wrote in its complaint.

The goal of the FCC harassment wasn't to just intimidate ABC. It sent a message to any U.S. media company that if they platform people (journalists, satirists, comedians, talk show hosts) critical of the President, they can expect massive, costly, and protracted legal headaches.

"The consequences of the Administration’s campaign against free speech reach well beyond ABC," ABC lawyers wrote. "If the Administration gets its way, the message to every media company in the country will be unmistakable: tell only the stories the Administration deems favorable, or face the coercive machinery of the federal government. In such a world, the press could in no way be described as free."

Carr and Trump of course never really want to pursue this case in court. It's a legal dog designed primarily to bully weak-kneed corporate media companies into steering clear of politics. It's been semi-successful, in that ABC's The View hasn't hosted a politician since they were threatened for interviewing James Talarico.

Still, ABC fighting back in court is a welcoming sign. To date, most U.S. media companies have obediently nuzzled up to Trump's stinky leg in the hope of getting tax cuts or their latest shitty merger approved (and ABC is petitioning the FCC to kill rules prohibiting the big four networks from merging).

As Trump's power, health, and polling fail, you're starting to see signs of courage from what has to date been a largely-feckless U.S. corporate media. Overseas outlets like the BBC have also started showing signs of life, clapping back against ham-fisted authoritarian efforts to stifle journalistic freedom.

With any luck and a little momentum, it can become a bit of a trend.