Jacob Sullum - Carr's crusade to reshape TV journalism is unconstitutional
This story raises questions about governance, accountability, and American values.
Sullum treats Brendan Carr’s interest in broadcast standards as if it were a backdoor plan to police speech. That framing skips over a basic fact: television journalism operates on scarce public airwaves, under licenses that depend on public trust, not newsroom self-certification. Conservatives are not asking Washington to pick winners in the press.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
On Saturday morning, President Donald Trump criticized a Wall Street Journal article about an Iranian attack on U.S. refueling planes in Saudi Arabia. Three hours later, Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, responded to the president’s
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
Sullum treats Brendan Carr’s interest in broadcast standards as if it were a backdoor plan to police speech. That framing skips over a basic fact: television journalism operates on scarce public airwaves, under licenses that depend on public trust, not newsroom self-certification.
Conservatives are not asking Washington to pick winners in the press. We are asking whether broadcasters that posture as neutral arbiters are meeting their obligations to the public and to basic transparency. When a major outlet reports on attacks involving Iran and U.S. assets, the stakes are not academic. National security reporting demands rigor, sourcing, and corrections that are timely and visible.
The real constitutional problem is pretending that institutional accountability equals censorship. A regulator can insist on rule-of-law standards without dictating viewpoints. The principle at stake is whether powerful media institutions remain answerable to the public they use and influence.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.