Philly Fox TV station license renewal being contested for lying

[thewayne]

So much fun stuff!

Normally TV station license renewals are pretty much pro forma, rubber stamp exercises. And about the only time they don't get renewed is if the license holder has been convicted of a crime.

Well, for WTXF in Philadelphia, things are different this time around. Their renewal is being VERY publicly challenged by an advocacy group called Media and Democracy Project (MAD) for Fox's disinformation campaign in the previous election cycle, and on-going, a lot based on what was discovered in the Dominion law suit against Fox.

Normally renewals are not public matter, but MAD filed with the FCC to make the renewal project public. Fox, of course, objected, but the FCC said that in this case the reasons expressed by MAD showed a pretty clear public interest and allowed them. MAD says that Fox has shown "...that Fox lacks the character required to maintain a license and hopes other Fox stations will lose their licenses, too. No other Fox stations are up for license renewal until 2028, according to a Bloomberg article.

"Fox's intentional news distortion, sanctioned at the highest levels of its corporate structure and fabricated by management and news hosts, amounts to misconduct that violates the FCC's policy on the character required of broadcast licensees, and was so egregious as to shock the conscience," the petition said, asking for "an evidentiary hearing into FOX's misdeeds."

This could be a very interesting chink in the wall of Fox's broadcast empire, especially if one renewal can be successfully challenged - and possibly lead to a revocation! - then the next renewal in '28 will definitely be challenged. Perhaps not by MAD, but I'm sure someone else will be happy to step up to bat.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/petition-to-deny-fox-tv-license-over-false-election-info-gains-steam-at-fcc/

Comments

[kathmandu]

:crosses fingers::

[disneydream06]

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Go MAD. :)
I hope they win their case. :)
Hugs, Jon

[silveradept]

I'm sure the First Amendment lawyers will be studying this with great interest, because an FCC ruling to revoke the license would probably end up establishing some additional precedents about what kinds of speech are not permitted to be broadcast over FCC-regulated airwaves. If there had been a conviction on defamation, rather than a settlement, that would make MAD's case stronger for the license dismissal as proof that the owner and operator (assuming this is FOX-owned, and not an affiliate owned by someone else) has already engaged in misconduct.

[thewayne]

A conviction would have been much more damning and justifying in doing the revocation.  Now, there are other lawsuits against Fox for lying, such as Sequoia Voting Systems, also suing for some 2+ billion dollars US.  We used to have The Fairness Doctrine for public broadcast airwaves, it was eliminated under the Reagan Presidency along with limitations on how many media outlets that you could own in a given market area.  News was pretty truthful back in those days, but another change was that Corporate decided that news broadcasts had to be evaluated through Nielson ratings, and that's when news started covering the sensational stories, and loudest-voiced minority opinions, such as a complete and total abortion ban, started gaining traction.

[silveradept]

Yeah, there was a lot of dismantling of true fairness as various entities branded themselves as "fair and balanced" and specific media groups began to buy up entire markets so there would only appear to be options in choices of news coverage.

It still would be a nice thing for an entity that engages in misinformation to get slapped with consequences for it. Unfortunately, they probably have great First Amendment protections against that happening from the government.