Brendan Carr doesn't understand his own media landscape

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr threatened to revoke broadcasters' licenses over coverage of the Iran war, after President Trump accused news outlets of "intentionally misleading" the American public.

Trump criticized print media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, for reporting Friday that Iranian strikes damaged five U.S. Air Force refueling planes in Saudi Arabia. The president said four of the five tanker planes suffered "virtually no damage and are already back in service."

Several ironies here. Whether the tankers were only marginally damaged or not, the fact that Iran could reach them by striking Saudi Arabia should give the president (and everyone else, pause.) 

The other irony. Carr reveals he doesn't understand the media he controls. People don't get their news from traditional sources. They get it from everywhere but the Wall Street Journal and NY Times. The final irony is the unintended consequence of the Supreme Court dismantling Chevron Deference. *

• Top Social Media Platforms for News: YouTube (62%), Facebook (55%), Instagram (45%), and TikTok (38%).
• Digital Dominance: Over half of U.S. adults (52%) prefer digital platforms over TV, radio, or print.
• Declining Traditional Media:
  While 64% still use television, its influence is waning compared to digital sources.
Top Trusted Sources: The Weather Channel (! LOL) is rated most trustworthy, followed by the BBC and PBS.
Local News: Nearly 90% of Americans get local news digitally via apps, websites, or social media.
Generational Shift: Younger adults (18-29) rely most heavily on social media, with up to 85% of young people using it for news. 

Carr has focused a lot of his rhetoric and threats on broadcast licenses for TV networks and local stations, warning that they could “lose their licenses” if they do not “correct course” in their coverage.That approach assumes broadcast outlets are still the central chokepoint for news, even though much political information now flows through platforms (social media, streaming, aggregators) the FCC does not license in the same way.

While Carr has stated that broadcast licenses are "not a property right" and can be revoked for what he deems "news distortions," the actual impact of such a move is limited by how people currently get their information  In any case, the FCC does not have the authority to revoke "licenses" for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, or digital-native outlets, as they do not use the public broadcast spectrum.

Even if the FCC were to successfully target a network like ABC or CBS, it only regulates the local broadcast affiliates (the over-the-air signals). It does not regulate the cable transmissions or the streaming apps (like Paramount+ or Peacock) where many viewers now watch that same content. 

The intersection of 20th-century broadcast law and modern digital reality is where Brendan Carr’s strategy meets its steepest hurdles. To understand how he might navigate this, we have to look at the "scarcity" loophole and the massive legal roadblock the Supreme Court just threw in front of federal agencies

The reason the FCC can even talk about removing licenses for "news distortion" while being powerless against a newspaper or a blog comes down to the Scarcity Doctrine. In Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969), the Supreme Court ruled that because there are only so many frequencies on the radio and TV dial (a "scarce resource"), the government has a right to ensure those frequencies serve the "public interest." This created what legal scholars often call "Junior Varsity" First Amendment rights for broadcasters. Unlike a private citizen or a digital platform, a broadcaster is considered a "proxy" for the public.The FCC's "News Distortion" policy—which Carr is currently invoking—allows the agency to investigate if a station deliberately slants or stages news. However, the bar is incredibly high: you usually need "extrinsic evidence" (like an internal memo from a manager telling a reporter to lie) rather than just a biased-looking broadcast.

Carr has expressed interest in expanding FCC reach to digital platforms by "interpreting" Section 230 (the law that protects social media companies from being sued for what users post). But the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo changed the game in one of those delightful unintended consequences: the end of Chevron Deference.  Previously, if a law like the Communications Act was vague, courts would defer to the FCC’s "reasonable" interpretation. Loper Bright killed that.  Now, if Carr tries to say, "I’m interpreting the Communications Act to mean the FCC can regulate social media algorithms," the courts will no longer take his word for it. They will look at the text of the law themselves.  Legal experts argue that since Section 230 doesn't grant the FCC any explicit enforcement power over social media, Loper Bright makes it nearly impossible for Carr to unilaterally "re-interpret" digital law to match his broadcast powers.

 Sources:

1. https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/news-platform-fact-sheet/ 
2. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/brendan-carr-fcc-media-free-press-1236166624/ 
3. NiemanLab.org
4. https://fedsoc.org/commentary/fedsoc-blog/power-to-persuade-the-fcc-s-authority-to-interpret-section-230-post-loper-bright# 

 * Chevron deference was a legal doctrine arising from the 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. It established a two-step framework for how courts should review a federal agency's interpretation of a statute. If Congress had not directly addressed the specific issue in the law, courts were required to defer to the agency's interpretation so long as it was "permissible" or "reasonable", even if the court would have reached a different conclusion. This gave agencies like the FCC or EPA significant power to fill in the gaps of broad or ambiguous laws. 

N.B. My sources of news.  Just as an experiment, as an old (78) person I am listing my sources of news, i.e. what I read regularly, pay for, or watch.

Atlantic Magazine (print and online), The Guardian (online), New Yorker (print and online), Yahoo News (online), USA Todayv (online), New York Times (online), Washington Post (online), Jacobin (online), New York Review of Books (print and online), New Scientist (print and online), SCOTUSBlog (online), Justia (online), Dorf on Law (online0 Verdict (online), YouTube (Heather Cox Richardson, Shipping News, Washington Week, others ad hoc. I have also found AI (Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude to be incredibly useful research tools. (I never would have considered looking at the Federalist Society for comments about Loper Bright for example) Make of all that what you will.