Court Asked to Force FCC Action on News Distortion Policy

A group of former Federal Communications Commission chairs, commissioners and senior staffers is asking a Washington court to force a decision about continuing a longstanding FCC policy that allows the regulator to discipline TV station owners over perceived charges of “news distortion.”

The group, which includes Reagan and Obama-era FCC chairmen, said current agency head Brendan Carr has sat for too long on their request that the news distortion authority be phased out. The policy, which allows the commission to “sanction broadcasters who deliberately ‘distort’ or ‘slant’ the news,” has been around for 60 years and has rarely been enforced, according to the petition filed in federal court Tuesday.