We are reaping the fruit of the industry’s cowardice.
For more than a year, most major media companies have stood by or aggressively acquiesced as President Trump and FCC Chair Brendan Carr pressured them through lawsuits and baseless investigations. Radio coverage of ICE raids? Investigated. A comedian’s joke? Investigated. Fair hiring for people of color? Reframed as racist.
CBS installed a monitor. ABC paid out a settlement to the President. Nexstar and Sinclair pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air on their local stations. To get what they wanted from the FCC, each company submitted or stayed quiet.
Every time a company bowed to Carr, he went further. Now he is not just pressuring media powerhouses; he is targeting families and children, casting their existence as a danger to others. In the last few days, Carr has gone after the most vulnerable and the most powerful in quick succession.
The goal is intimidation
Last week, at the behest of Carr, the FCC’s Media Bureau opened a proceeding on whether the TV ratings system should flag shows that include transgender and nonbinary characters, claiming it wants to “empower parents.” Carr knows the outcome of asking these questions is to discourage broadcasters and networks from including LGBTQ people in children’s programming.
Carr does not have the authority to do this. To keep the government away from monitoring speech and preserve the First Amendment, the TV ratings are set by a private industry board, not the FCC. Commissioner Anna Gomez pointed out that the board’s most recent annual report found only 11 pieces of public correspondence. The goal here is not empowerment: it is intimidation. We do not have to guess what that looks like. In recent years, Disney has already pulled a trans storyline from Pixar’s Win or Lose and removed queer-coded elements from Elio. The chilling effect of the culture wars championed by the President and Carr is already happening. The threat now is more direct.
Trans people are children of God, not a content warning
The United Church of Christ believes that every person bears the image of God. Trans people are our neighbors, our family members, and our fellow congregants. More than 5 million children in this country have LGBTQ parents. Labeling their families’ existence as a content warning is not protecting anyone. Our church has a long history of affirming LGBTQ people, and we are not stopping because an FCC chair wants to extend “Don’t Say Gay” policies from classrooms to living rooms.
Media companies can stand up or cower
On Tuesday, the FCC ordered Disney’s eight ABC-owned stations to file early license renewals, an unprecedented decision. The license renewals were not due until 2028. Despite Chair Carr’s denials, the trigger was obviously the President’s and First Lady’s criticism of a joke Jimmy Kimmel made about the First Lady.
There is no precedent for demanding an early renewal in this manner. The likelihood that the FCC could actually retract a license is exceedingly low. Carr knows that. The point is to make every broadcaster think twice and fear a long legal battle before airing something the White House does not like. The President doesn’t like Jimmy Kimmel, the point is to get him fired when last time the pressure didn’t work. Disney can fight, or it can do what Nexstar and Sinclair did last fall, pulling Kimmel’s show because they had business pending before the FCC.
There is reason for hope. Even Glenn Beck and Ted Cruz have said Carr overstepped on the Disney license order. The same principle should apply to the TV ratings proceeding. More than 800 comments have already been filed. People across the political spectrum can see government overreach for what it is. Media companies, workers and leading voices must speak out and insist they will not vilify and hide our LGBTQ siblings from programming.
We have been here before
Some companies may think they can wait this out. That time is over. Everyday people are fighting. Parents of trans children are fighting. The largest media companies in the world have have no excuse not to join them.
UCC Media Justice has been doing this work since 1959, when our founders went into the Jim Crow South to hold television stations accountable for ignoring the Civil Rights Movement. Blatantly excluding Black Americans from the airwaves in a community where they represented a substantial part of the audience was clearly a violation of the licenses those stations held.
The authority of the FCC is important to hold broadcasters to account — but it requires careful and legally justified analysis and facts, not witch hunts. McCarthyism was bad, not because laws against treason are bad, but because the accusations were made based on political malice and not on the scrupulous application of the law. The FCC’s rules about broadcaster accountability are important: they must be conducted with fidelity to the law and with fanatical attention to the facts and due process.
The current FCC sets aside the law and the facts to obtain support for the President. Disney, its viewers, and all people of conscience should speak up. When these companies fold, we all lose access to the journalism and storytelling that sustain us — whether that is political satire, stories that illuminate the full humanity of all God’s children, or a cutting-edge news story.
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