Article in The Guardian by Seth Stern & Clayton Weimers, 12/18/25
Headline: “Brendan Carr admits his FCC is Trump’s journalism police”
Subhead: “It is clear that the FCC is not an independent agency, but an instrument of the president’s political agenda”
“The Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, admitted at a Senate hearing on Wednesday that there had been a political “sea change” and he no longer viewed the FCC as an independent agency. Commissioners, he says, serve at the pleasure of the president. . .”
“By scrubbing references to independence from the FCC website after admitting the agency answers to Trump, Carr has made explicit what his actions already demonstrated. He could not have made a better argument for the dangers of letting the public interest standard serve as the government’s backdoor into the newsroom.”
Read the full article at:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/18/brendan-carr-fcc-trump-journalism-police
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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 12/18/25
Headline: “Opinion | Why a single word disappearing from the FCC’s website matters for press freedom”
Subhead: “FCC Chair Brendan Carr says the agency is not ‘independent,’ sharpening concerns about political pressure on the media”
“If you went to the Federal Communications Commission website first thing Wednesday morning, you would have read the following:
“ ‘An independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the Commission is the federal agency responsible for implementing and enforcing America’s communications law and regulations.’
“Note the word: independent. . .”
“. . . Carr stunned everyone by saying, ‘The FCC is not an independent agency, formally speaking.’
“A short time later, the word ‘independent’ was removed from the FCC’s site. . .”
Read the full article at:
https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2025/fcc-chair-brendan-carr-independent/
