ABC Defends The View As Real Journalism

Brendan Carr’s FCC has been taking shots at ABC for a while now. Besides briefly getting Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air, the FCC has been arguing shows like The View can’t have political candidates on without affording “equal time” to everyone they’re running against. And on Tuesday, the FCC ordered an early review of ABC’s broadcast licenses. In response, the network filed a 52-page petition, made public this week, arguing that The View is, in fact, journalism. To put in legal terms, ABC is clapping back.

This particular beef began in February, when Carr said he’d investigate The View for interviewing Texas representative and Senate candidate James Talarico. Carr claimed The View isn’t a “bona fide” news program and thus has to offer equal time to Talarico’s opponents, like Jasmine Crockett. ABC has accused the FCC of violating the First Amendment in trying to make it abide the “equal time” rule. “The Commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly,” it reads. It also cited one-sided interviews that skewed right — Texas Republican candidates on The Glenn Beck Program, for example — that didn’t provoke Carr’s ire.

This filing is the latest indication that Josh D’Amaro’s Disney isn’t interested in capitulating to the Trump administration. When Trump once again called for Kimmel to be fired over a joke (this time about the age discrepancy between him and Melania), the response was crickets from ABC. In response to the FCC’s early review of its licenses, the network also issued a statement with backbone: “We are confident that record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels.” In legalese, that’s basically a mic drop.