The FCC on Tuesday shot down CBS’s bid to immediately dismiss a complaint from a conservative group over the controversial “60 Minutes” interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris just weeks before the election.
The show drew criticism from the Center for American Rights and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump over CBS’s broadcast of a portion of Harris’ answer to a question about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on “60 Minutes” and a different portion of her answer to the same question on “Face the Nation.”
Trump has sued CBS for $20 billion, alleging that “60 Minutes” deceptively edited the interview in order to interfere with the election, which he easily won over the vice president.
CBS, which is owned by Paramount Global, said in a filing made public Tuesday that “the transcript and unedited interview footage demonstrate that CBS engaged in commonplace editorial practices – specifically, by deciding what material from a lengthy sit-down interview would air in a time-limited television format.”
The network called on the FCC to dismiss the complaint “without delay.”
But FCC chairman Brendan Carr quickly pushed back on the idea, telling Reuters on Tuesday that there is still an ongoing investigation.
“We’re not close in my view to the position of dismissing that complaint at this point,” he said.
Paramount is seeking FCC approval for an $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media — a deal that Paramount’s controlling stakeholder Shari Redstone had hoped would have already closed.
CBS cited a handful of conservative advocacy groups that warned last week that any FCC action against CBS “would violate the First Amendment and chill speech, all while creating the prospect that the commission will serve as the arbiter of acceptable journalism going forward.”
The Tiffany Network said the lawsuit aims to turn “the FCC into a full-time censor of content” which would result in an unconstitutional role and an impossible one for the agency.
The FCC is currently reviewing whether the “60 Minutes” broadcast violated “news distortion” rules. Though the agency is prohibited from censorship or infringing the First Amendment rights of media, broadcasters cannot intentionally distort the news.
The American Civil Liberties Union said separately there was no basis to investigate, Reuters reported. “To conduct an investigation into news distortion without a shred of evidence appears intended to harass CBS and chill those putting forth disfavored viewpoints,” the group said.
Under Carr, the FCC reinstated complaints about the “60 Minutes” interview with Harris, as well as complaints about how Disney’s ABC News moderated the pre-election TV debate between then-President Joe Biden and Trump. It also reinstated complaints against Comcast’s NBC for allowing Harris to appear on “Saturday Night Live” just ahead of the election.
Carr’s predecessor, Jessica Rosenworcel, had initially rejected those complaints in January.
