\n<\/p>\n
Brendan Carr, the Trump-aligned chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has accused Disney of running a \u201ccampaign of misinformation\u201d as the media group defends itself against investigations the regulator has initiated.<\/p>\n
Disney-owned ABC launched a public awareness campaign earlier this week to encourage viewers to back the network as it faces two separate investigations before the US media regulator.<\/p>\n
Since ABC began running advertisements encouraging viewers to file public comments, the FCC has received more than 51,000 submissions on its investigation into whether the daytime talk show The View violated equal time provisions around political candidates appearing on programs.<\/p>\n
There have also been nearly 40,000 submissions regarding the commission\u2019s broader investigation into whether ABC should be able to renew its licenses for the eight local television stations it owns around the country. The outcome of that license renewal process, which could take more than a year, is extremely crucial for the future of the network.<\/p>\n
Carr said that Disney \u201cis running a fairly standard, off-the-shelf PR strategy\u201d and is seeking to litigate the case in the media. Taking it one step further, Carr said: \u201cI do think that Disney is running a campaign of misinformation here, I think in a lot of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
He specifically called out ABC for saying in its advertisement raising awareness about The View investigation that \u201cthe FCC wants to control who is allowed to appear on the show.\u201d \u201cOur position is that we are enforcing the provisions of the Communications Act that Congress has passed,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to apply the law. Again, we have not made a decision one way or the other. We\u2019re open-minded. We\u2019ll see what they say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether the FCC would factor in the overwhelming proportion of comments that are defending ABC when making decisions about the network, Carr said: \u201cWe have our ways of combing through the comments and we evaluate the merits of what people are saying. We look at the facts and the arguments that are being presented. This is what we do day in and day out. Maybe it\u2019s more comments than we normally get, but it\u2019s not entirely unprecedented when you get issues that break above the media noise floor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some telecom experts critical of Carr have said the license renewal process could ultimately take years, leaving the network in limbo. Asked by the Guardian about those concerns, Carr said it\u2019s too early to say how long it could go.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not been decided at the FCC yet whether to renew the licenses, or whether we can\u2019t make a finding to renew and therefore you set it for hearing through a hearing designation order,\u201d he said. \u201cAgain, at this point, all options remain on the table and it can be dictated by the facts and the law, and we just got to go forward. If it\u2019s short, great. If it\u2019s long, great. But we got to apply the Communications Act and the provisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anna M Gomez, the lone Democrat-appointed FCC commissioner, reiterated her belief that Carr is using investigations and the license renewal process to put editorial pressure on ABC to go soft on the Trump administration, and not out of concern about whether Disney is discriminating against employees based on their race and gender, the rationale the chairman has given.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is so clear that this early license renewal is being done to pressure Disney,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is all designed to pressure Disney to cave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gomez also expressed doubt about whether public comments supporting ABC would factor into the FCC\u2019s decision-making.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s not pretend that the public\u2019s opinion will have an impact on the outcome,\u201d she said. \u201cI suspect this FCC will cherry-pick the submissions of partisan organizations to support its goal of silencing critics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brendan Carr, the Trump-aligned chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has accused Disney of running a \u201ccampaign of misinformation\u201d as the media group defends itself against investigations the regulator has initiated. Disney-owned ABC launched a public awareness campaign earlier this week to encourage viewers to back the network as it faces two separate investigations<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[2055,6536,20776,15390,3707,658,205,290,4473],"class_list":{"0":"post-50667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-abc","9":"tag-accuses","10":"tag-brendan","11":"tag-carr","12":"tag-disney","13":"tag-investigations","14":"tag-media","15":"tag-misinformation","16":"tag-regulator"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}