The FCC Targeting Disney is Another Trump Attack on Press Freedom | Opinion

There is nothing new about the Trump Administration attempting to retaliate against press organizations based on the nature of their coverage. There have been numerous such incidents. Most recently, the White House press credentials of reporters for three major news organizations—MS NOW, CNN, and Politico—were pulled. (Full disclosure, I am Senior Advisor to Versant Media, the parent company of MS NOW).

Even prior to this latest skirmish with the press, the Federal Communications Commission’s alleged retaliation against Disney for its news coverage has faded deeply into the background. Cutting through the FCC Chair’s disingenuous claim as to the basis for the investigation, this case is really all about the Trump administration’s distaste for views expressed by ABC personalities and coverage of the Trump administration by ABC News. In other words, the FCC is doing the Trump administration’s bidding in trying to punish ABC for exercising its First Amendment rights.

In investigating Disney, the FCC has also raised the possibility that Disney-owned television stations, including WABC-TV in New York and KABC-TV in Los Angeles, could lose their licenses. This is unprecedented.

As a longtime media industry executive who has regularly provided commentary on the industry, I have put forward many public critiques of Disney’s business performance and business strategy. However, I want to state unequivocally my total support for the Magic Kingdom company in its fight against the FCC and its current chairman, Brendan Carr. Carr ordered early renewal reviews of Disney’s eight broadcast station licenses, even though they were not due to be considered until October 2028. The proceedings raise the possibility that the stations could ultimately lose their licenses.

The Trump White House was well aware of the considerable First Amendment case law governing the removal of White House press credentials. A federal judge nevertheless had to intervene, finding that the affected news organizations were likely to succeed in showing that their credentials had been revoked without adequate due process. In my view, intimidation and distraction from scrutiny of other issues were the real goals.

Similarly, the FCC knows that established First Amendment law would make it extremely difficult to take action against Disney and ABC over the editorial content of their programming. It therefore needs a pretext for initiating early license-renewal proceedings. That pretext must be exposed for what it is: another infringement of First Amendment rights by the Trump administration.

The FCC’s stated justification is that Disney has engaged in discriminatory employment practices in violation of the FCC’s Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) regulations. This form of retaliation is in some ways more insidious than a frontal attack on press freedoms by banning reporters from a government building like the White House or the Pentagon. By pursuing Disney on grounds that a court may find harder to dismiss out of hand, the government makes its actions considerably more difficult for the company to challenge.

Moreover, by going after the licenses of Disney’s television stations, the economic consequences of the retaliation is far more punitive. By contrast, when press access to a building is curtailed, those press organizations can continue to broadcast and publish coverage about the Trump Administration, and their audiences may become even more inclined to spend time watching that coverage. Taking away the station’s licenses would destroy those businesses and prevent Disney from serving their local audiences.

I have some personal history with a key element of the legal underpinnings of the Disney case. I was senior counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Telecommunications in the 1980s. One of the few rules that remained after deregulation of the broadcast industry was the requirement that stations comply with EEO regulations.

In my Capitol Hill role, I worked diligently to extend those rules to the cable industry. In fact, a last-minute compromise over the EEO provisions in the Cable Act of 1984, to ensure the language could not be interpreted as sanctioning racial quotas, helped secure the legislation’s passage. That law subsequently helped fuel the growth of cable television in the United States.

The goal of the FCC EEO requirements was to ensure that broadcast stations made meaningful efforts to recruit widely, so that minorities and women could be better represented in the ranks of station operations. Just like the legislatively enacted cable EEO framework, there were to be no quotas, no hiring mandates, just efforts made to make sure people of all backgrounds were considered for roles.

The rules were implemented in the hope that they would help to make broadcast programming and news coverage more responsive to the needs and interests of diverse audiences by having a station attempt to make its workforce more diverse. Promotions were also to be made on a nondiscriminatory basis so that minorities and women would have a fair shot of moving up the ranks. These rules in their current form have been in place for nearly 25 years and the FCC has not undertaken to change them since. That is key here, the FCC has never undertaken any effort to change those rules.

What has changed is that the Trump administration in its second term has decided to attack Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in all its forms. The chairman’s actions suggest that he views the efforts to recruit and promote minorities and women encouraged by the EEO rules as themselves discriminatory.

Yet although this mindset extends throughout the Trump administration, from the Education Department to the Pentagon, the FCC has not changed its EEO rules. Broadcasters cannot reasonably be expected to alter their hiring practices while those rules remain in place. If the FCC wants to change the rationale underpinning them, it can do so through the formal rulemaking process. But the agency has proposed no new rules or guidance for broadcasters. Instead, it appears to be trying to manufacture a violation of existing rules where none exists.

Moreover, the FCC’s authority does not extend to the employment practices of Disney businesses outside its regulatory jurisdiction, including its theme parks, cruise line, film studios and streaming services.

Of course, the FCC’s real aim is less about Disney’s employment practices—which because of the EEO requirements that have been in place for so long are probably very similar to those of many TV companies—and more about trying to intimidate Disney and the wider media industry not to engage in criticism, unflattering coverage or satirical comedy about the Trump administration. In fact, President Trump made clear what is actually going on here when he stated that ABC’s recent decision not to broadcast his primetime speech about election fraud “should mean a revocation of their licenses.”

Trump’s first-term FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, could not have been clearer when the president suggested back then that broadcast licenses should be revoked over “fake news.” Pai said the FCC “does not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast.” In stark contrast, current chair Carr appears to be intimidating media companies over their editorial decisions, warning that broadcasters “running hoaxes and news distortions—also known as the fake news—have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.”

Disney, to its discredit, has caved a couple of times to Trump administration pressures. First, it settled a suit by agreeing to pay a Trump-related foundation $15 million following remarks by ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos. Then, it took Jimmy Kimmel off the air for a short period following his highly criticized remarks about the death of Charlie Kirk. But now Disney has found its courage given that the stakes are much higher: revocation of eight television licenses is the death penalty for a television station group.

This fight is incredibly important for the entire broadcast industry and the free exercise of its First Amendment rights. However, almost as disturbing as the FCC’s actions here is the total lack of public support Disney has received from the rest of the media industry. Much of the electronic news media admirably rallied around MS NOW, CNN and Politico in protesting to the White House about the press credentials of their reporter colleagues being pulled. Every broadcast station company, and every major news media organization, should be publicly advocating on Disney’s behalf and submitting legal briefs in support of Disney’s stand. Other than public interest groups and the National Association of Broadcasters (the industry trade group), media companies have been largely silent.

This is too crucial a fight for the rest of the industry not to join it. Silent obedience is what Trump wants from the media industry—and this is another case where the industry must speak up.

Tom Rogers is executive chairman of the AI film studio Fountain 0, executive chairman of agentic AI company Claigrid, Inc., the founder of CNBC, an on-air CNBC contributor, a member of the Task Force for American Democracy.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.