FCC dismisses challenge to Fox 29′s broadcast license

The Federal Communications Commission has dismissed a petition that challenged the renewal of Fox 29’s broadcast license, as well as three other complaints targeting local TV stations, at the direction of departing chairperson Jessica Rosenworcel.

Rosenworcel said in a statement that her order was intended to direct the agency to “take a stand on behalf of the First Amendment.”

“We draw a bright line at a moment when clarity about government interference with the free press is needed more than ever,” she said. “The action we take makes clear two things. First, the FCC should not be the President’s speech police. Second, the FCC should not be journalism’s censor-in-chief.”

The Media and Democracy Project, a self-described nonpartisan nonprofit, filed its petition with the FCC in July 2023 alleging that Fox telecast “knowingly false narratives about the 2020 election” on its cable-based Fox News Channel. A “good deal of that narrative” was rebroadcast on Fox 29, as well as other local Fox stations, the group contended in its petition.

As a result of that rebroadcasting, the Media and Democracy project argued, Fox 29 became an “over-the-air extension of Fox News Channel.” Fox, it added, had violated the FCC’s policy on licensee character qualifications due to its handling of the 2020 election, making it unfit to maintain broadcast licenses through its local stations.

Fox Corp. asked the FCC to dismiss the petition, saying in a filing that taking Fox 29 off the air would be “fundamentally incompatible with the First Amendment.”

In its order dismissing the Media and Democracy Project’s petition, the FCC wrote that the group’s request for a character assessment was “at odds with the First Amendment and continued freedom of the press.” Past character-based license revocations, it added, were based on “the station’s clear failure to comply with agency rules (not at issue here) or a clearly adjudicated felony for the station owner (also not at issue here).”

The Media and Democracy Project and former Fox executive Preston Padden, who backed the group’s petition, said in a statement that they planned to appeal. The petition, they added, was based on judicial findings that surfaced during a lawsuit brought against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems that later resulted in a $787.5 million settlement. That case, the group argued, proved that Fox‘s Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch did not possess the character required to hold an FCC broadcast license.

“It simply will be wrong if the Murdochs and Fox escape any responsibility for their prominent role for the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and the efforts to overturn the results of a presidential election,” the statement said.

A representative at Fox Corp. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In addition to dismissing the petition against Fox 29, the FCC dismissed three other cases against local TV stations — all filed by the conservative Center for American Rights. Among them was a complaint against Philadelphia’s 6abc over the presidential debate between President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris that argued the station’s broadcast was biased toward the Democratic candidate.

In its other complaints, the Center for American Rights alleged that the New York-based WCBS engaged in “news distortion” over 60 Minutes’ editing of a Harris interview, and it accused New York City’s WNBC of violating the equal-time rule by featuring a Harris cameo on Saturday Night Live ahead of the election.

While differing in their legal circumstances, Rosenworcel said, all four dismissed cases “seek to weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC in a way that is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment.” Doing so, she added, would “set a dangerous precedent.”

Rosenworcel, a Democrat, is slated to step down as FCC chair in conjunction with Trump’s inauguration Monday. Trump’s agency pick, Brendan Carr, a senior Republican FCC commissioner, will take over. Trump has called Carr a “warrior for free speech” who fights “against the regulatory lawfare that has stifled American’s freedoms.”

While she did not call out Trump by name, Rosenworcel said that the “incoming President has called on the [FCC] to revoke licenses for broadcast television stations because he disagrees with their content and coverage.”

“It may seem quaint to draw attention like this to broadcast licenses, in an era when so many of us seek out information we want, when we want it, from where we want it, on any screen handy,” Rosenworcel said. “But these stations remain a vital source of local and national news. And there is nothing antiquated about the idea that the FCC has a duty to respect the Constitution.”