The Trump administration is waging a “disturbing” attack on the freedom of the press that amounts to a “true free-speech emergency”, media experts have warned, as the Federal Communications Commission recently launched an investigation into a series of media organizations, including the owner of NBC News.
The FCC, led by Donald Trump appointee and Project 2025 author Brendan Carr, has ordered investigations into NPR and PBS in the first month since Trump took office, while also scrutinizing a CBS News interview and a San Francisco radio station.
In a letter to Comcast, which owns NBC News, Carr said he had asked the FCC’s enforcement bureau to “open an investigation” into the corporation, stating: “I am concerned that Comcast and NBCUniversal may be promoting invidious forms of DEI in a manner that does not comply with FCC regulations.”
It came after Carr, who was appointed to FCC chair by Trump, said he did not “see a reason why Congress should continue sending taxpayer dollars” to PBS and NPR, publicly funded organizations Trump has threatened to defund.
“It’s really quite disturbing,” said Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, a watchdog group.
“What we’re seeing is really an attack on freedom of speech and freedom of the press from all aspects of the Trump administration right now.”
Carr wrote a chapter on the FCC in Project 2025, the rightwing plan to overhaul the US government. A communications lawyer who has worked for the FCC since 2012, Carr is a Trump loyalist whose social media presence is dominated by fawning praise of the president. The Daily Beast reported that Carr has told friends he is having “the time of his life” launching investigations into media companies – Carr reposted the article on X, writing: “Find a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
As the FCC launches its investigation into Comcast, one danger is that news channel-owning corporations such as Comcast – a $100bn company – may not be inclined to go to war with the Trump administration over freedom of the press.
That could be brought into focus by Paramount Global, the owner of CBS News, which is reportedly discussing settling a lawsuit brought by Trump over a CBS News interview with Kamala Harris. Trump alleges the interview was selectively edited and is suing for $10bn. Earlier this month, Carr launched an investigation into CBS. There is no evidence the interview was edited beyond normal practices, and CBS denies the accusation, but a complicating factor is that Paramount is hoping to merge with Skydance Media – a move which would have to be approved by Carr’s FCC.
“This is the path that Viktor Orbán took in Hungary, where you use the power of the state to ensure that the media is compliant, that outlets are either curbed and become much less willing to be critical, or they are sold to owners who will make that happen,” Gertz said.
“Obviously, this is the early stages of anything like that, but the signs that we’re seeing right now are really quite disturbing.”
Rebecca Hamilton, a professor at American University Washington College of Law, told the Guardian that the FCC investigations could affect journalists’ ability to report on the Trump administration.
“Valid FCC investigations can have a positive impact on the information ecosystem. But the latest FCC investigations launched by Carr are aligned with a broader effort by the Trump administration to punish outlets that Trump dislikes. Such investigations risk creating a chilling effect on the ability of journalists to report with fear of retaliation,” she said.
The FCC’s investigations into media organizations, Hamilton wrote in a recent piece for Just Security, represent “a wholesale effort by Trump and his allies to eviscerate the free press in order to construct an information ecosystem dominated and controlled by those who espouse his views”.
Fox Corp, which owns the Trump-friendly Fox News, states a series of values on its website which could be considered to be an example of DEI. A section called “culture and belonging” states that Fox “provide[s] tools and resources for every person to feel connected, seen, heard, and inspired to do their best work”.
The page lists several internal groups employees can join, including a group called “BLK+”, which “celebrate[s] the intersectionality of our Black colleagues”, and a “Pride” group which aims to “foster a work environment where all FOX LGBTQ+ colleagues feel authentic and professionally supported”.
In its 2023 report to shareholders, Fox Corp said it “seeks to promote a diversity of professional background, expertise, perspective, age, gender and ethnicity among board members, including by ensuring that minority and female candidates are presented for consideration with each vacancy”.
The FCC did not respond when the Guardian asked if it planned to investigate Fox Corp, founded by Rupert Murdoch, and did not reply to a request for comment about its investigations.
Craig Aaron, co-CEO of Free Press, a non-profit organization that scrutinizes media freedom, said the US is “facing a true free-speech emergency”.
“The first amendment exists to stop the government from shutting down speech it doesn’t like. A weaponized FCC is trying to do exactly that. The FCC chairman is weaponizing the power of the agency President Trump appointed him to lead, in order to go after the president’s perceived enemies and chill critical coverage,” Aaron said.
“The government should never interfere with such editorial decisions or news content. Yet the FCC has sent threatening letters and launched investigations over editorial decision-making, reporting on law-enforcement activities, and basic fact checking. This is chilling and dangerous.”
