Trump Wants To Challenge Licenses

RadioPatrol said:

Update the FCC will not challenge the licenses of NBC owned stations for now. Yes the first amendment issue is at play here.

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Democrats will get the chance to grill the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over President Trump's tweets attacking media outlets during a hearing Wednesday.

The House Commerce subcommittee on technology will hold its first FCC oversight hearing since the agency added two commissioners over the summer. And a new controversy involving the president will take center stage.

Earlier this month, Trump floated revoking the broadcast licenses of news organizations that have been critical in their coverage. The president singled out NBC News, which had published a report claiming Trump had called for a massive buildup of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which he disputed.

Democrats seized on the controversy and have called on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to condemn the proposal.

Pai addressed the controversy at an event last Tuesday when he noted that his agency does not have the authority to revoke broadcast licenses for the content of their reporting.

"I believe in the First Amendment. The FCC under my leadership will stand for the First Amendment," he said.

But Democratic lawmakers say his response fell short.

"This statement is better than nothing, but it is merely a reiteration of the FCC's authorities under the law," Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said in a statement.

"What we needed is a full-throated defense of the independence of the FCC against political interference. When the president announced his intent to retaliate against a broadcaster based on content, the FCC should have rejected it."

"Chairman Pai was right to assure the public that the FCC cannot revoke any broadcast licenses based on the content of a specific newscast, but I am disappointed that the Chairman continues to remain silent on the President's ongoing efforts to intimidate and threaten news outlets," added Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), the top Democrat on the House Commerce Committee.

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RadioPatrol said:

Now the FCC Chairman is going to have to meet with congress over the Trump Cabinet's feud with the media.

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RadioPatrol said:

http://www.tvnewscheck.com/mobile/index/article/id/108260

Update now Chris Wallace of Fox News has mentioned similar stuff that former Presidents Bush and Obama, McCain, Shepard Smith and others have said about Trumps Feud with the media.

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Brad Ramsey, WFAA’s general manager, said that he felt the commentary was necessary because some people are lumping all media into the fake news bucket and he wanted to point out what was different about local media.


Brad Ramsey
“This was very much about our local journalists in Dallas/Ft. Worth and our local audience that we are focused on serving. I believe there’s a growing trend to lump all media into one negative basket. The true picture is very different. We’re very focused on lifting up the Dallas/Ft Worth community and being an ally and advocate for the DFTW audience. I wanted to stand up for our team and let people know that.”

Ramsey said the station received a lot of emails and comments on their WFAA’s Facebook page, both supportive and not supportive of his comments. And the emails continue to come in, said Ramsey.

“That’s OK, we welcome that feedback, if the comments were going to be all positive, that probably meant the commentary wasn’t worth doing.”

Ramsey’s commentary on the station’s Facebook page has more than 45,000 views, and almost 1,200 comments.

KSAT, the ABC affiliate in San Antonio owned by Graham Media, also aired an editorial in favor of the free press.


Bernice Kearney Bonner, KSAT’s news director, said that because KSAT is a CNN and ABC affiliate, “we get lumped into that big media group all the time.”


Bernice Kearney Bonner
Bonner said the station’s news managers thought it was important that people in the community understand “we are here looking out for our community, and doing the job we’re responsible for doing. This was an opportunity for us to be very pointed about that mission that’s important to us.”

Bonner said the station did received many phone calls and emails about the editorial, both negative and positive.

Bonner said “I’m not under any delusions that just because we write something saying this is what we stand for, this is what we effort to do every day on behalf of the community we serve, that people are going to say, oh ok now I get it. We didn’t participate in this because we wanted to pat ourselves on the back and have people say great job.”

Bonner said the station put a news promo back on the air that was created in the beginning of the year to support the commentary.



“I was kind of surprised more TV stations didn’t take the opportunity to plant the flag on where they stand,” said Bonner.

KSAT’s commentary generated almost 300 comments on the station’s Facebook page.

WDRB, the Fox affiliate in Louisville, Ky., owned by Block Communications, aired a series of editorials on the importance of the free press, the first one airing on Aug. 7, more than a week prior to the date set by the RTDNA for its members to respond to President Trump’s attacks on the news media.

In an email, Bill Lamb, WDRB’s general manager, said: “WDRB in Louisville took a strong position on the importance of the media, the first amendment, ‘fake news,’ and the ‘enemy of the people’ over the past two weeks, long before the Boston Globe’s efforts.

“I do two editorials per week, 52 weeks a year. I have done this in Louisville for more than 16 years. I did a series of three editorials on this topic which ran multiple times on all three of our stations in Louisville.”

“The biggest pushback I got (and I got a lot),” said Lamb, “was that the media is much more biased than it was years ago and that’s why respect for journalists has dropped. Local media seems to be lumped in with the New York and Washington reporters who are unapologetically biased in their reporting. The Trump supporters are buying what he’s saying without giving it much independent thought based on what they are seeing in network coverage.”

NOTE: I encourage readers to go to both WFAA’s Facebook post and KSAT’s to look at the comments from users. WDRB’s Facebook page didn’t show the posts from Lamb that aired on television.

Here are just four comments from WFAA’s Facebook page and then from KSAT’s page. I chose to include two positive reviews and two negative from each. How many of the several hundred comments were either positive or negative, I don’t know, but you can go and find out for yourself.

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The President has long tweeted and emailed that the media are enemies armed with fake news in service of his Democratic opponents, but the email from Melania Trump attacking the press is unusual.

She asks Trump supporters to sign the following "Presidential Pledge of Support":

"Dear President Trump,

"Please know that I am 100% behind you in these critical times. It’s extremely vital that we all stand together against the Democrats, the mainstream media and other powerful foes who are determined to derail your Presidency and destroy you personally.

"I am proud to pledge my support and am ready to UNITE all members of our movement."

That email came at about the same time the President was tweeting this: "Fake News Media trying endlessly to make me look as bad and evil as possible. Look at the real villains please!"


And while the President has been using social media giant Twitter to reach his supporters, he has added those platforms to his enemies list as well, suggesting they are censoring millions:

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TheBigA said:

Because at some point, it becomes a first amendment issue. Using the power of the federal government to inhibit or stifle criticism and free speech is exactly why the framers made it the FIRST amendment.

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FreddyE1977 said:

He managed to get Father Coughlin essentially banned from the airwaves because his movement presented a huge threat to FDR's own political base.

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boombox4 said:

And in the age of the internet and the smartphone, it really can't happen.

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President Donald Trump set aside his complaints about tech companies and foreign leaders, at least for the moment, to return to his comfort zone of blasting the TV news business.

In three morning tweets (which followed a re-tweet of a Breitbart News post explaining Kanye West’s loyalty to Trump), the president said the “hatred and extreme bias of me by @CNN has clouded their thinking and made them unable to function.” The tweets cast a wide net, including “fake books” written about him.

Zeroing in on CNN boss Jeff Zucker, he added, “Little Jeff Z has done a terrible job, his ratings suck. & AT&T should fire him to save credibility!”

He also ripped into NBC News, anchor Lester Holt and president Andy Lack. “The good news is that Andy Lack is about to be fired (?) for incompetence, and much worse,” Trump tweeted.



He also said Holt “got caught fudging my tape on Russia.” It wasn’t immediately clear what he was implying about the May 2017 NBC interview, one of the most problematic of his presidency, in which he casually admitted to firing former FBI director James Comey on air because he took part in the Russia investigation. Some far-right media outlets often claim that footage aired on mainstream news networks has been falsified through the use of special effects, though a one-on-one interview would be pretty difficult to fake. The tweet cited no evidence behind the claim.

NBC News declined to comment when reached by Deadline.

The diet of TV news this week is likely not easing Trump’s mind, especially extensive memorial coverage of his longtime foe, Sen. John McCain. The week began (was it really this same week??) with a storm of criticism facing Trump over the decision to raise the flag at the White House and refuse to offer any remembrance of McCain’s military service or character.

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According to the FBI, the suspect said he would shoot staffers in the head and called the outlet "the enemy of the people," which President Trump says of journalists on a routine basis.
A Los Angeles man was arrested Thursday for allegedly making death threats against employees of the Boston Globe, calling the outlet the “the enemy of the people," which President Trump says about journalists on a routine basis, the FBI confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.

Robert D. Chain, 68, of Encino, has been charged with one count of making threatening communications in interstate commerce, according to authorities.

NBC News was first to report the arrest.

On Aug. 10, The Boston Globe requested that newspapers around the country publish a coordinated editorial response to political attacks on the media from the president and his White House.

Shortly after the announcement, Chain allegedly began making threatening calls to the Globe newsroom, referring to the paper as “the enemy of the people” and threatened to kill employees, according to court documents.

In total, Chain allegedly made approximately 14 threatening phone calls to the Globe between August 10 and 22. What's more, on Aug. 16, the day the coordinated editorial response was published in the paper, he allegedly called the newsroom and threatened to shoot employees in the head “later today, at 4 o’clock," according to court documents.

As a result of that call, police went to the Globe’s offices and maintained a presence outside the building to ensure the safety of the employees.

“Today’s arrest of Robert Chain should serve as a warning to others, that making threats is not a prank, it’s a federal crime," Harold H. Shaw, special agent in charge of the FBI, Boston division, said in a statement. "All threats are taken seriously, as we never know if the subject behind the threat intends to follow through with their actions. Whether potentially hoax or not, each and every threat will be aggressively run to ground."

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