The Watchdog with David Bozell

Disney is taking the FCC to court.

One of the world's largest media companies is suing the federal agency that oversees the public airwaves, seeking to stop its scrutiny of ABC’s broadcast licenses and The View.

And MRC is right in the middle of the fight.

We have spent nearly 40 years exposing what the liberal media say and do. But exposing bias is only useful if someone is willing to do something about it. Increasingly, we are making sure the evidence gets into the hands of people who can force change.

We saw what can happen last year.

For decades, NPR and PBS collected taxpayer dollars while producing increasingly partisan programming. MRC documented it, exposed it, and worked with the Trump administration to make the case that taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize it.

Then something happened almost nobody in Washington thought possible: Congress pulled more than $1 billion in taxpayer funding from public broadcasting.

Now another fight is underway over the privileges America’s broadcast networks enjoy.

ABC, CBS and NBC have extraordinary access to the American people through the public airwaves. That access comes with responsibilities. Yet the networks increasingly behave as though their broadcast licenses are permanent possessions, not privileges granted in the public interest.

The FCC has begun challenging that assumption.

MRC is making sure it has the evidence.

In June, we filed a formal comment urging the FCC to strip The View of its designation as a “bona fide news interview program.” ABC enjoys that designation while airing a program that routinely functions as political advocacy. Our research found that nearly 100% of its partisan guests came from the Left.

Soon after, we filed a petition urging the FCC to deny renewal of the broadcast licenses for ABC’s eight owned-and-operated stations. We supplied a detailed record of electioneering, suppression of important stories, rhetoric minimizing or excusing political violence, and ABC personalities treating the deaths of unvaccinated Americans as a punchline.

ABC has every right to express its political views. Disney owns cable channels, streaming platforms, and websites where it can push whatever political agenda it chooses.

But nobody owns the public airwaves.

And nobody has a constitutional right to a broadcast license.

ABC responded to our petition largely by avoiding the evidence. Instead, it attacked the premise that the government can scrutinize how broadcasters use their licenses. We called it a “squatter’s rights” argument: ABC occupies a piece of the public spectrum and apparently believes that gives it the right to stay there without meaningful challenge.

Now Disney has escalated.

Rather than simply make its case before the FCC, Disney has gone to federal court seeking to stop the agency’s scrutiny.

Consider where the battle now stands. The FCC is challenging the old assumption that the broadcast networks can use the public airwaves however they please. MRC is supplying evidence showing exactly how ABC has abused that privilege. And Disney is fighting in court to limit the FCC’s ability to act.

Good.

For too long, the liberal media have operated under another assumption: They can use enormous institutional power to advance a political agenda without consequences.

MRC exists to prove otherwise.

The public airwaves belong to the public. The FCC has decided to ask some long-overdue questions about how ABC is using them.

We intend to stay right in the middle of that fight

Take it easy,David Bozell
President