When Bill Owens, longtime producer of the popular news show 60 Minutes, resigned in April it was natural that correspondent Scott Pelley would pay tribute to him. What was unexpected was that Pelley not only discussed why Owens was leaving—he openly sided with Owens against CBS’s management—but also explained that Owens left because Paramount (which owns CBS) “had began to supervise our content in new ways” and as as result Owens “felt he had lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”
Pelley blamed the increased supervision of 60 Minutes on the fact that Paramount is currently seeking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s approval to be acquired by Skydance. Paramount is concerned that if 60 Minutes and other CBS news shows run stories overly critical of President Trump, the President will pressure the FCC to deny approval of the acquisition. They are right to be concerned. CBS is negotiating a settlement with Trump over the President’s $100 billion dollar lawsuit over allegations that 60 Minutes edited their September interview with then Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris to make Harris look more coherent and knowledgeable. CBS claims the edits were done to make the interview fit the 21 minutes allotted for it. CBS also pointed out that Face the Nation ran unedited portions of the interview on the same day the interview aired on 60 Minutes.
President Trump has also called for CBS to lose its broadcast license. What makes this more than an empty threat is that Brandon Carr, who President Trump elevated from FCC board member to Commissioner, has suggested he may block the Skydance-Paramount deal because CBS is not fulfilling its congressionally mandated duty to serve the “public interest,” and has pointed to the edited Harris interview as proof.
Whatever one thinks about the wisdom or necessity of the federal government allocating broadcast spectrum bandwidth and requiring license holders to operate in the public interest (as defined by the FCC), it should be clear that using that power to second guess editorial decisions of news programs violates the First Amendment. Conservatives inclined to support using government regulatory authority to punish the “liberal media” should consider how a future Democratic FCC Chair may use this precedent to target conservative news programs, particularly conservative talk radio.
There is no need for federal regulatory agencies to serve as a “fact checker” on the media. The rise of platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Rumble, and TikTok—as well as the rise of podcasting—has made discovering and sharing a variety of news and opinion content, including exposures of erroneous or biased reporting by the legacy media, super easy.
Some will say the new media is vulnerable to “big tech” censorship, and that therefore government must regulate the internet to protect online speech. Those calling for such regulations ignore the fact that a wealth of new speech-friendly platforms have sprung up in response to concerns over “deplatforming” anyone more than 6 inches to AOC’s right. They also ignore the fact that the worst examples of online censorship were done at the behest of the Biden Administration.
CBS news President Wendy McMahon resigned less than a week after Owens. Media reports indicate her resignation was also due to “tensions” with Paramount. It is understandable why many would condemn Paramount for interfering with their news division in order to placate President Trump and FCC Chair Carr. However, Paramount is only interfering because of the government’s power to make or break their deal with Skydance. So, the solution is to ensure that politicians, bureaucrats, and judges cannot pressure social media companies into removing certain posts or second-guess a news organization’s editorial decisions.
This is why President Trump should work with Congress to pass Senator Rand Paul’s Free Speech Protection Act. This bill forbids federal employees (including employees of federal contractors) from interfering with any American’s First Amendment rights. Anyone caught violating this act could face fines of up to $10,000, suspension, demotion, or termination, plus a lifetime ban from future federal employment. Passage of the Free Speech Protection Act will protect both “legacy” and “new” media from would-be censors on both the left and right.
