FCC Free Speech Flip-Flop

BRENDAN CARR USED to talk a big game on free speech. In 2021, when members of Congress urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to block the sale of a Miami radio station over its perceived political slant, Carr—one of the agency's commissioners—called that move “a deeply troubling transgression of free speech and the FCC's status as an independent agency.”

- Robert Corn-Revere

He urged his colleagues to push back and assured the public that the FCC's review of the transaction would be “free from political pressure.”

These days, Carr has little credibility on freedom of speech. Now the chair of the Commission, he has been busy reopening investigations against broadcast networks because of their editorial policies, threatening public broadcasters ostensibly about how they raise sponsorship funds (but really about their editorial positions), threatening media companies over their hiring practices, and strong-arming technology companies about issues well beyond the FCC's limited statutory mission.

Most recently, he took to social media to berate NBC owner Comcast for its coverage of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia—the migrant illegally sent from Maryland to a prison in El Salvador, and threaten a “news distortion” probe. Carr's post triggered a complaint from the Center for American Rights, which filed a complaint against 60 Minutes that Carr reopened in January.

The FCC now has a chance to put its money where Carr’s mouth used to be. In April, the Commission invited public comments on which rules it should scrap—part of a proceeding cheekily titled