FCC’s warnings on political interviews ‘chill’ First Amendment, ABC says – POLITICO

Disney’s ABC lambasted the Federal Communications Commission’s newfound efforts to regulate interviews on broadcast talk shows, warning that Chair Brendan Carr’s “unprecedented” actions threaten to “chill” the First Amendment and stifle coverage of political candidates.

The regulatory filing marked the latest stage in a confrontation between the broadcasting networks and Carr, who has used his tenure atop the nominally independent FCC to wage a series of fights against perceived foes of U.S. President Donald Trump.

In this case, the dispute involves Carr’s efforts to wield a decades-old “equal time” rule to demand that broadcast talk shows such as ABC’s “The View” offer equal time to both parties when interviewing political candidates. Such shows had previously relied on the FCC’s exemption for what it calls “bona fide” news interviews — but now, their ability to air those interviews is in doubt, ABC wrote.