One of the two Republican-nominated Federal Communications Commission commissioners told RedState he flagged Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel about the conduct of CBS News, through its owned and operated WCBS-TV outlet, when it heavily edited its interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I believe I’m the only one to publicly take up the issue,” said FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington. “That said, I have sent a request to the chairwoman asking for her point of view on this and asking if she would not consider the adequate predicate for additional outreach.”
Simington said the FCC has no authority over internet outlets and networks, like CBS, do not have a broadcast license as a corporation. Rather, the license is held by individual stations, so action must be taken against the station, WCBS-TV, which, in this case, is owned and operated by CBS.
Interesting. 🤔 Big if true. Will look into it. https://t.co/M2JHHYKOc6
— Nathan Simington (@SimingtonFCC) October 16, 2024
Simington said that while the FCC enforced a so-called “Fairness Doctrine ” for many years, which was upheld by the Supreme Court’s 1969 Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC decision, it has been a dead letter since 1985.
Instead of reaching back to the Fairness Doctrine, the commissioner said the FCC can flag a broadcaster for news distortion.
“The FCC doesn’t sit around as a truth committee going around and making sure that everyone is behaving appropriately,” the University of Michigan Law School alum said. “If something does harm someone’s reputation in this way because of a deceptive editing process, and if this is broadcast on a TV station that knows about and acquiesces in the process, there is a potential news distortion claim.”
“News distortion claims that are meritorious are very few and far between. The last one I saw to reach trial was in the late nineties, but it’s not impossible. It’s not an impossible bar. We shouldn’t give up on it,” the commissioner also said. “So long as those rules are on the books, then it makes sense that we dust them off and take a look and see if they apply in this or any other case that might arise,” he said.
The editing of the interview was exposed by CBS News itself.
Harris sat down with “60 Minutes” reporter Bill Whitaker for an interview that aired on Monday night, Oct. 7, during the election presentation. The previous day, CBS News aired a teaser clip on “Face the Nation.”
CBS quietly edits word salad Kamala answer, immediately disqualifying it as a news organization.
No Republican candidate should ever agree to a debate on that network again.
Stop legitimizing propaganda.pic.twitter.com/1Ljs7LBc2F
— Rob Smith (@robsmithonline) October 10, 2024
Although the Harris campaign denied any involvement, in the intervening hours between the teaser and the interview’s formal airing, Harris’s answer was significantly trimmed so that it was far less than her typical word salad.
Simington said he cannot initiate commission action on his own.
Center for American Rights files news distortion compliant with FCC
As the commissioner waits for Rosenworcel to act, the Chicago-based Center for American Rights filed its own complaint on Thursday.
Here is how the complaint, submitted by the center president, Daniel R. Suhr, described the editing as deliberate news distortion:
In the first clip, CBS journalist Bill Whitaker asks the Vice President about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening.”
In that clip, Harris replies: “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”
In the second clip, Whitaker asks the exact same question. But in this clip, Harris replies: “We are not gonna stop pursuing what is necessary for the United
States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
Same interview, same question, two completely different answers.
Suhr, who was a senior advisor to former Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker, asked the FCC for relief: “Direct CBS to release the complete transcript of the Vice President’s interview with ‘Sixty Minutes.’ The need for the Commission’s action is strengthened by CBS’s refusal thus far to release the transcript, which it has done in similar interviews in the past.”
Suhr said he was motivated to file the complaint to restore trust in the media.
“This is about the public’s trust in the media on critical issues of national security and international relations during one of the most consequential elections of our time,” he said.
“When broadcasters manipulate interviews and distort reality, it undermines democracy itself,” he said. “The FCC must act swiftly to restore public confidence in our news media.”
Former president Donald Trump has also weighed in:
Simington: FCC needs to take news distortion very seriously
A senior FCC staffer told RedState another factor is that if a broadcaster demonstrates a pattern of news distortion, the commission can put conditions on the broadcaster’s license renewal.
The staffer said those conditions are taken very seriously in the industry because they would significantly lessen the value of the license in the marketplace.
If someone is looking for a pattern, CBS News did not help themselves when Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) charged the Tiffany Network with doctoring the tape of his “Face the Nation” interview:
Apparently, CBS also doesn’t want you to hear about Virginia Gov. Youngkin, who is trying to clean the state’s voter rolls so non-American citizens can’t vote there.
We need more states doing this, but the Biden-Harris Administration is SUING VIRGINIA and trying to STOP it. pic.twitter.com/10JIJSNkPR
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) October 15, 2024
Simington said there is a two-step test to determine if a broadcaster distorted the news.
“Our standard is materiality and substantiality,” he said. “The materiality standard basically asks a question of who’s doing it. If there’s an action that’s material, that’s an action.”
“If the licensee itself participated in or acquiesced, the materiality threshold has probably reached,” he said. “Next, we turn to substantiality. We say that news distortion allegations are substantial if No. 1, they’re deliberately intended to mislead, and No. 2, they are involved in a significant event—not merely minor or incidental.”
Simington said successful news distortion complaints are extremely rare, so he is not familiar with one in his 25 years in broadcast law.
That does not mean that the FCC does not have a role in protecting the public, he said.
“It would be uncharted territory for a lot of us,” he said. “On the other hand, if there is a meritorious allegation, we have had rules in place for 50 years saying that you can’t distort the news.”
