"We can do this the easy way or the hard way": Trump's FCC again uses the threat of its regulatory powers to push a critic off the air

"For decades, the renewal of television licenses was overwhelmingly pro forma; a license has been taken away because of content exactly once, when a Mississippi station was racist enough to block Black people from its airwaves for more than a decade. But Carr, that entrepreneurial thinker, realized that the FCC's power could be abused to force media companies to bend to the regime's will, forcing out voices it doesn't like and encouraging fealty in advance."

"We saw it with 60 Minutes, whose corporate parent - needing FCC approval for a merger - was willing to grease Trump's palm with millions over a bogus complaint over editing. Depending on who you believe, that handshake deal may or may not have included the canning of America's No. 1 late-night talk show host and a side deal promising millions in pro-Trump propaganda airtime. It left one of the country's most important news sources in the hands of a regime loyalist and with a friendly minder overseeing operations."

Brendan Carr used FCC authority to leverage merger approvals and license processes to pressure media companies into political compliance. Television license renewals were historically routine, with content-based revocation occurring only once in the past. Carr exploited merger approval vulnerability to extract concessions from media owners. Paramount allegedly paid millions and made personnel and programming accommodations to secure FCC approval. Similar leverage is being applied to the Nexstar-Tegna merger. ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show indefinitely after conservative complaints about his descriptions, illustrating a chilling effect on critical media voices.

Read at Nieman Lab