Toledo Blade: Fox, law vs. power (Editorial)
The Editorial Board
We are about to find out whether power or the law is paramount in the United States.
At stake is the local TV empire of Fox Broadcasting and the Federal Communications Act, which requires a character assessment to hold the license to operate a station.
Fox owns 29 TV stations in 14 of the top 15 TV markets in the nation. Each one of these stations is an extremely valuable business, required to operate in the public interest as a condition for the FCC license which allows transmission through the public airwaves.
The Fox-owned station in Philadelphia is up for license renewal. A volunteer citizens group called the Media and Democracy Project is challenging the license over the character clause.
The broadcast license challenge comes from misconduct by sister company Fox News in the mostly unregulated world of cable television. Specifically the $787 million settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems for Fox’s false reporting alleging programs in the voting machines produced bogus results which made Joe Biden President of the United States.
Discovery in the civil suit against Fox News makes it clear the cable network knew there was no evidence to support these claims but spread them anyway out of fear of losing their audience to other networks even more receptive to the conspiracy thinking.
The top brass at Fox News and Fox Broadcasting are the same, Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan.
The unsubstantiated claims on Fox, allowed by the Murdochs, helped inspire the assault on the Capitol Jan. 6, 2021, as thousands of MAGA faithful gathered to “stop the steal” and keep Congress from certifying election results.
If the long-established law behind the FCC character clause has any validity, it must be enforced against Fox Broadcasting where internal documents from the cable news side of the corporation shows that profit comes before truth or the national interest.
Based solely on the facts and the law, Fox does not deserve a license to own a broadcast station.
If the FCC grants license renewals to a station owner that has knowingly and repeatedly reported false news shown to incite violent insurrection against the government, there is no longer any standard of character required by law.
Fox has grown rich and powerful as the network of conservative America and the politicians they support. Applying the law to Fox will be disputed as a political act rather than an unquestioned outcome driven by fact.
For those who would make America great again, the best way to start is by placing standards based in law ahead of financial and political power.
Fox News paid the $787 million judgment like it was pocket change. The FCC character challenge against Fox Broadcast would administer a more significant lesson about the abuse of a public trust and the government-licensed use of the public airwaves.
[Bold type emphasis added]
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