TPM - "What Trump Can And Can't Do To Bully Broadcasters Over Negative Coverage" [View all]

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/trump-fcc-bullying-broadcasters-negative-coverage

By TIERNEY SNEED Published OCTOBER 11, 2017 5:39 PM

President Trump’s latest threat against NBC for negative coverage was classic Trump: a frightening broadside against essential American freedoms that nonetheless ignores — almost comically—the basic workings of the government.

Telecommunications law experts and veterans of the Federal Communications Commission told TPM Wednesday that Trump’s suggestion for how NBC could be punished for “Fake News” is a long shot, legally speaking, but also troubling in its implications.

“When the President is attacking the media criticism and threatening legal action, because he doesn’t like what they’re broadcasting, it’s obviously a great concern and raises serious questions of First Amendment values and relationships with the free press. But as a legal matter, it’s an empty threat,” said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, an expert in telecommunications law at Georgetown University Law Center.


In a tweet Wednesday, which appeared to be in response to an NBC report on comments Trump made at Pentagon meeting about nuclear weapons, Trump mused that the broadcaster’s licenses should be challenged, seeming to reference a process overseen by the FCC, an independent commission. In theory, Trump seemed to hint at a major financial penalty for the broadcaster in the form of putting its ability to operate its stations into question.


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