Last July, we noted how media reform activists had petitioned the FCC to revoke Fox News’ local broadcast license in Philadelphia. More specifically, the group argued that Fox News’ rampant election fraud propaganda technically violated the “character clause” embedded in the Communications Act the FCC is supposed to use to determine whether an organization should hold a broadcast license.
To be clear, a single Fox broadcast affiliate losing its license to broadcast in Philly wouldn’t have much of an impact on Fox’s ongoing efforts to spew GOP propaganda nationwide.
But, if successful, it might be replicable in other markets. Even if not, it serves a useful function in terms of activism and gaining media exposure for the need for some flavor of regulatory reform (like restoring popular, bipartisan media consolidation limits stripped away by the Trump FCC, media antitrust reform, or having the FCC actually use its authority to ensure economic and racial diversity ownership in media).
A gentle reminder that if you pay for a cable or satellite TV package, even if you don’t watch fox, you’re still giving money to Fox. They get a cut of every Cable TV and Satellite TV subscriber.
Just gonna leave this here: https://unfoxmycablebox.com/
Glad to see these thoughts spelled out:
We inhabit an era where the question “what do we do about Fox News propaganda?” sees a real shortage of solutions that are both practical and don’t run afoul of the First Amendment. Everything in the conversation tends to steer toward what’s not possible. Or they involve unworkable gibberish like trying to bring back the Fairness Doctrine (which wouldn’t apply to cable TV anyway).
So I think it’s good that activists are trying something creative and new. I think it’s good to have a broader conversation about what can actually be done about authoritarian and right wing propaganda. I think it’s good to form new, bipartisan coalitions that finally recognize the harm in partisan propaganda masquerading as news. Because our efforts up to this point have consisted of either stoic tut-tutting about what’s not possible under the First Amendment, or half-baked incoherence.
Can we do OAN?
OANN doesn’t have a FCC broadcast license. They’re cable only.
WTXF is owned and operated by the Fox corporation, one of 18 such Fox-affiliated stations in the country (Fox owns others but they don’t run any sort of news/“news” programming, so are probably safe). Even if all of them lose their broadcast license over this, it wouldn’t really affect the main Fox News cable channel at all.
Full list here.
Won’t ever happen. Great job getting the clicks “abovethelaw.com”
Maybe it won’t happen, but this is the kind of clever stuff you see The Satanic Temple doing, and for that reason, it’s probably worth the effort.
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What about the boomers /s
