Written by David Shepardson
WASHINGTON – The head of the US Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday denied that the government blocked CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert from broadcasting an interview with a Democratic US Senate candidate and asserted that the Federal Communications Commission is investigating ABC’s “The View.”
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Colbert could have done his interview with Texas State Representative James Tallarico, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, if the Late Show had complied with equal time rules by airing interviews with Democratic rivals or choosing not to air the interview in Texas. Talarico said President Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission tried to censor the interview and “blocked” him from broadcasting.
The Republican-led Federal Communications Commission said last month that daytime and late-night television talk shows are no longer considered “real” news programs and are exempt from requirements to give equal airtime to the opinions of opposing candidates. For decades, talk shows were exempt from those rules.
Colbert posted his interview with Tallarico on YouTube, where the video had been viewed more than 6 million times as of Wednesday afternoon.
“There has been no censorship here at all. Every broadcaster in this country is obligated to be responsible for the programs they choose to broadcast, and they are responsible whether they adhere to the FCC rules or not, and that is not happening, and those individual broadcasters will also have potential liability,” Carr said.
Carr also confirmed that the FCC has opened an enforcement action over whether the ABC daytime talk show violated equal time rules after an earlier interview with Talarico.
Colbert said Monday that the network’s lawyers prevented him from airing an interview with Tallarico. Colbert noted that the FCC issued new guidance in January stating that daytime and late-night talk shows are not exempt from equal time rules for candidate interviews.
“The Donald Trump administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV,” Colbert said Monday.
Democratic FCC Commissioner Ana Gomez criticized the guidance and said the agency violated the free speech rights of broadcast stations.
“The FCC has no legal authority to pressure broadcasters for political purposes or to create a climate that undermines freedom of expression,” she said.
Trump has repeatedly urged Carr to take action against US broadcasters and criticized the networks for what he sees as one-sided coverage.
CBS said Tuesday it had provided “legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC’s equal time rule for other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and provided options on how to achieve equal time for other candidates.”
Carr responded to Colbert’s criticism, saying the late-night host has “what he considers probably a long and distinguished career in the spotlight, and he sees the spotlight fading, coming to an end. This must be a difficult time for him… That doesn’t change the facts of what happened here.”
This article was generated from an automated news feed without any modifications to the text.
