Brendan Carr's Crusade to Reshape TV Journalism Is Blatantly Unconstitutional: The First Amendment Does Not Allow the FCC Chairman to Police News Coverage

Jacob Sullum
Tue, 17 Mar 2026 14:58:28 -0700
Opinion

On Saturday morning, President Donald Trump criticized a Wall Street Journal article about an Iranian attack on U.S. refueling planes in Saudi Arabia. Three hours later, Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, responded to the president's complaint by warning broadcasters that they "will lose their licenses" if they fail to "operate in the public interest."

Why did an allegedly misleading newspaper article prompt a regulatory threat against TV stations? Because Carr is eager to advertise his crusade to restore "faith and confidence in the media" — a megalomaniacal mission that is neither part of his job description nor consistent with the First Amendment.

The gravamen of Trump's objection to the Journal story remains hazy. Under the headline "Five Air Force Refueling Planes Hit in Iranian Strike on Saudi Arabia," the newspaper reported that the planes "were struck and damaged on the ground at Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia."
Updated: Wed Mar 18, 2026

On Saturday morning, President Donald Trump criticized a Wall Street Journal article about an Iranian attack on U.S. refueling planes in Saudi Arabia. Three hours later, Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, responded to the president's complaint by warning broadcasters that they "will lose their licenses" if they fail to "operate in the public interest."

Why did an allegedly misleading newspaper article prompt a regulatory threat against TV stations? Because Carr is eager to advertise his crusade to restore "faith and confidence in the media" — a megalomaniacal mission that is neither part of his job description nor consistent with the First Amendment.

The gravamen of Trump's objection to the Journal story remains hazy. Under the headline "Five Air Force Refueling Planes Hit in Iranian Strike on Saudi Arabia," the newspaper reported that the planes "were struck and damaged on the ground at Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia."

Trump said the headline was "intentionally misleading," adding that the Journal's "terrible reporting" was "the exact opposite of the actual facts!" Yet he conceded that all five planes had in fact been damaged, although "none were destroyed" — a claim the newspaper had not made.

If the basis for Trump's complaint was hard to discern, the logic of Carr's response was even more puzzling. The FCC does not license or regulate newspapers, which would be clearly inconsistent with freedom of the press.

Carr's threat underlines the anomalous legal status of broadcast journalism, which allows government interference that would be obviously unconstitutional in any other medium. That baffling distinction hinges on "the scarcity of radio frequencies" — a rationale that never made much sense, since allocation of broadcasting rights does not require empowering federal bureaucrats to police the content of TV programming.

Given the plethora of news options available to Americans, the distinction between broadcast speech and speech in every other medium makes even less sense today. But even if you take the FCC's authority in this area for granted, Carr's blatantly partisan meddling cannot be justified by the rules he claims to be enforcing.

Without citing any specific examples, Carr averred that broadcasters "are running hoaxes and news distortions." Yet even if the Journal were a TV station, its reporting plainly would not fit the FCC's definitions of those offenses.

The FCC's "hoax" rule prohibits "false information concerning a crime or a catastrophe," but only if "the licensee knows this information is false," "it is foreseeable that broadcast of the information will cause substantial public harm," and "broadcast of the information does in fact directly cause substantial public harm." The rule against "broadcast news distortion" likewise applies only when there is "evidence showing that (a) broadcast news report was deliberately intended to mislead viewers or listeners."

As should be clear from Carr's manifestly inapt use of those labels, his agenda goes far beyond enforcing any particular FCC rule. He aims to reshape TV programming by requiring that broadcasters serve "the public interest" as he defines it, which evidently precludes news coverage that annoys the president.

As Carr sees it, "the public interest" also precludes ill-informed anti-Trump commentary by late-night comedians, politically biased selection of talk show guests, and left-leaning reporting by network news shows. Trump thinks broadcast licenses should be contingent on his own judgment of whether TV programming is fair and balanced, and Carr clearly agrees.

"It is very important to bring trust back into media, which has earned itself the label of fake news," Carr said on Saturday. "When a political candidate is able to win a landslide election victory ... in the face of hoaxes and distortions, there is something very wrong."

Whether or not you agree with that analysis, Carr does not have the authority to correct the problem he perceives. The FCC "does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the 'public interest,'" he warned in 2019. He should listen to his own advice.