Lawyers for Disney accused the Trump administration of “blatant violations of the US constitution” and censorship on Tuesday in the first court hearing over the Federal Communications Commission’s early review of the media giant’s eight local television station licenses. District judge Loren AliKhan seemed unswayed by government arguments that the order to force Disney’s ABC to apply years early to renew local television station licenses was tied to an investigation into parent company Disney’s hiring practices. ABC, Disney and its station group filed suit against the FCC in August, seeking to block the US media regulator from taking any further steps to punish or pressure the network in connection to the order.
In its lawsuit, ABC argued that the FCC’s actions – taken at the behest of the Donald Trump-appointed chair, Brendan Carr – were actually intended to chill the network’s speech, which the president and Carr have argued is tilted against the administration. In legal filings and during Tuesday’s hearing, the network cited past threats by the president and the FCC chairman that jeopardized the licenses of television networks, including ABC on several occasions, for editorial purposes. She said ABC faced a “chilling effect” that has affected – and will continue to impact – its editorial decision-making, as the network steers clear of political bookings and any other programming decisions that could spark further ire from the Trump administration and Carr.
ABC has said it has stopped booking politicians on the daytime talkshow The View and chose to air a July speech by Trump on its streaming platform so as not to antagonize the president. Dimitar P Georgiev, representing the FCC defendants, argued that “there is no reason to believe the early renewal order has prompted changes to the plaintiffs’ editorial decisions”. He also argued that the US district court for the District of Columbia was not the proper jurisdiction for the case, saying that ABC could instead appeal any adverse decision to the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia.
ABC is seeking a decision from the judge to enjoin the FCC from taking any further actions against the network’s licenses. In what Wilkinson called a “fatal admission”, Georgiev said the license renewal process “is not about the licenses”, but is instead a “tool” to expedite the commission’s review of ABC for potential violations of federal equal opportunities regulations. The lawyer also said the FCC could choose to end the license review process early if ABC is able to satisfy its document requests.
Considering that the FCC opened its employment practice investigation into Disney last year, with requests for documents ongoing since then, the judge asked: “Why is it only in the summer that you determined that their responses were woefully inadequate?” She also questioned why the commission required the company to submit renewal applications for all eight of its stations simultaneously. And she noted past comments by Carr about the network’s licenses, including a remark in July, when he had said ABC’s decision not to carry the president’s speech that month on its linear channel could factor into the license investigation. And she noted that there was “some daylight” in the FCC’s arguments, considering that the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) inquiry was handled by the commission’s enforcement bureau, while the license order was made by the media bureau.
The judge ended the hearing without issuing an order, saying she would take the matter “under advisement”.
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