The Watchdog with David Bozell

At the MRC, we don’t just catalog media bias. We take action.

For decades, ABC has treated the public airwaves as its private property and abused that access to advance its left-wing agenda. To name just a few: ABC News lavished Kamala Harris with wall‑to‑wall positive coverage. The View has functioned as a Democrat pep squad for 30 years and rarely books conservative guests. Jimmy Kimmel once “joked” that Charlie Kirk’s shooter was MAGA and that Melania Trump looked like an “expectant widow.” 

These aren’t isolated slips. They’re a sustained pattern of partisan electioneering, misinformation, and programming that minimizes political violence.

On June 29, we filed a petition urging the FCC to deny the early renewal of broadcast licenses for ABC’s eight owned-and-operated stations. In exchange for the privilege of using publicly licensed spectrum, ABC assumed a clear obligation: to operate in the public interest. Our 25-page filing detailed how ABC systematically violated that obligation.

Unsurprisingly, ABC mischaracterized our petition as concerning mere ideological bias, then dragged in the defunct Fairness Doctrine to suggest we’re asking for forced balance — which we’re not — before hiding behind First Amendment claims.

On Wednesday, as reported exclusively in the New York Post, MRC submitted a formal reply to ABC’s opposition. ABC’s defense amounts to a squatter’s-rights claim. As I told the Post: “Once ABC occupies the public airwaves, it believes no one can question whether it deserves to stay. But broadcast licenses are not permanent entitlements. They are temporary privileges conditioned on serving the public interest.” 

Yes, ABC is arguably the most liberally biased broadcast network of the three, but the only question that matters is this: Has ABC met the public‑interest standard required to keep the licenses?

It has not. The FCC should judge the record, not the network’s rhetoric. ABC’s entitlement era must end. 

​​​​​​Take it easy, 

David Bozell
President