News

Days after President Trump suggested that network outlets’ broadcast licenses should be revoked because of “partisan, distorted and fake” news coverage, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is being pressed to speak out on what some journalism groups see as an attack on First Amendment values.

There’s an opportunity to take a pioneering lead in restoring crucial communications networks, including radio.

A group of 21 free-speech activists, including three former FCC commissioners, called on the FCC chairman to publicly repudiate President’s Trump tweeted suggestion that the FCC revoke broadcast licenses for airing “fake news” about him.

Tom Wheeler, the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, implored his successor, Ajit Pai, to say something publicly about President Trump’s threats to take NBC and other networks off the air because of their news coverage of the chief executive.

President Trump continued his assault on NBC News Friday, retweeting former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly’s assertion that “the president will not be able to impact licenses, but he is doing major damage to the NBC brand.”

WASHINGTON — On Friday, 20 press freedom, media-justice, labor and civil-liberties groups submitted a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to publicly condemn President Donald Trump’s threats to challenge the broadcast licenses of news media outlets he dislikes.

President Donald Trump’s war of words with the press escalated again Wednesday when he suggested challenging, or revoking, the broadcasting licenses of stations that air network-news programming. The response from the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission: silence.

President Trump threatened to use the federal government’s power to license television airwaves to target NBC in response to a report by the network’s news division that he contemplated a dramatic increase in the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

WASHINGTON – Several prominent press-freedom groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, Free Press, Media Law Resource Center, PEN America and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, issued the following statement today following President Trump’s suggestion via Twitter that NBC’s broadcast licenses be challenged.

Free Press Action Fund Field Director Mary Alice Crim joins us to talk about what Net Neutrality is, how it affects everyone, and why you should join Team Internet to protect your online rights.