FCC’s Gomez calls Disney target of censorship by Trump administration

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez sent a letter to Disney (DIS) CEO Josh D’Amaro saying that the media giant has been “made a target” by the commission. “I am writing because The Walt Disney Company has once again been made a target by this FCC, and the record of its actions against your company demands a clear accounting,” the letter reads. “What Disney and ABC are facing is not a series of coincidental regulatory actions but a sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control, carried out through the weaponization of the FCC’s authority as a federal regulator and aimed at pressuring a free and independent press and all media into submission. You are not the first target of this campaign, and you will not be the last. But Disney’s experience is, by now, the most documented, and it is worth laying it out plainly. This Administration’s campaign against Disney and ABC began in earnest when ABC agreed to pay $15 million to settle a baseless defamation lawsuit brought by the incoming President of the United States. Whatever the legal calculations behind that decision, its effect was immediate and unmistakable. It told this Administration that pressure works. It told every other company watching that capitulation was an option. And it opened the door to every action that has followed. That settlement did not buy you peace. It only bought you time. Disney’s experience since then has made one thing undeniable for any company facing the same pressure. You cannot buy this Administration’s favor. For the right price, you can only borrow it. And the price always goes up. Since that settlement, the FCC has pursued your company on multiple fronts, none of which reflect legitimate regulatory enforcement… In what is now the most egregious assault on the First Amendment this FCC has taken to date, the agency has directed Disney’s eight ABC-owned local television stations to file for early license renewal, a mechanism that has not been invoked in more than half a century. Some of these licenses were not set to come up for renewal for nearly five years. Using the licenses of individual local stations as leverage against a parent company is an extraordinary and dangerous misapplication of this agency’s authority. The FCC licenses local broadcast stations, not national networks, and every action taken against these stations is, in truth, an action taken against local communities and against press freedom. Ultimately, this effort to punish and intimidate your company will not succeed. The FCC’s internal process will be lengthy, and should it produce an outcome unfavorable to your stations, Disney will have every right to challenge that outcome in federal court, a process that could take years. Throughout all of it, Disney’s stations keep their licenses. Disney has been here before. When the state of Florida came after the company with the full weight of its government, Disney fought back and won. The same resolve that carried that fight can carry you in this one. The First Amendment does not belong to this Administration to grant or withhold. It belongs to the public, to the press, and to every broadcaster willing to defend it. Your stations serve real communities, and the audiences who depend on ABC extend far beyond those eight licenses. Your journalists do work that matters to millions of Americans across the country, and the viewers who rose up to defend Jimmy Kimmel are the same viewers who will stand up again if this FCC follows through with its threat. I am encouraged to see that Disney is choosing courage over capitulation. The fight ahead may not be easy, but the law, the facts, and the public are on your side. This is a fight worth having, and one that I am confident you will win. I am committed to using every tool available to me as a Commissioner to shine a light on what this FCC is doing to curtail press freedom and to hold this process to account at every step.”