FCC investigations under Trump could hurt broadcasters

By Katie Kwasneski >>

President Donald Trump’s new Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr has begun multifaceted investigations of national news organizations for reasons ranging from “news distortion,” running commercial ads on noncommercial public broadcast stations, and DEI programs.

The first of these investigations began two days after Trump’s inauguration. 

Carr reinstated news distortion complaints against NBC, ABC and CBS made by the Center for American Rights), a right-wing advocacy organization. 

These complaints that revolved around the 2024 presidential candidates were previously dismissed by former FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel who found the complainants lacked substantial evidence of wrongdoing. Rosenworcel cited the Communications Act of 1934, calling investigations into the stations on the basis of evidence presented by CAR “an overreach of the FCC’s ‘power of censorship’ and an interference with the First Amendment’s right of free speech.” 

In the case involving CBS, Rosenworcel referred to current FCC chairman Carr’s decision when he responded to criticism over media coverage during the 2020 election, “[a] newsroom’s decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official, not targeted by them.”

An Order involving Fox, a conservative news station, and its owned and operated WTXF-TV channel was among complaints contained in the docket containing the NBC, ABC, and CBS cases.

Fox faced  scrutiny when renewing the license of WTXF-TV. Media and Democracy Project (MAD) petitioned against the renewal, based on the  parent company Fox’s defamation case involving Dominion Voting Systems and Fox’s intentional spread of false news about the 2020 presidential election. Fox settled the case for $787 million.

The petition and other informal objections made against WTXF-TV were denied by the Commission for similar censorship issues like the limited scope of FCC and First Amendment protections. But Carr didn’t reopen that news distortion case. 

Each case was different, but then Chairwoman Rosenworcel said, “What they share is that they seek to weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC in a way that is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment. To do so would set a dangerous precedent. That is why we reject it here.”  

In a Feb. 12 letter to Chairman Carr and Nathan Simington, Commissioner in the FCC, Democratic  Senators Edward Markey, Ben Ray Lujan, and Gary Peters noted that “the reinstatement of the ABC, CBS, and NBC complaints without the reinstatement of the Fox challenge appears to be a naked attempt to target networks upon baseless allegations of bias or personal or political disagreement with editorial choices.” 

Fox admitted getting the facts wrong about Dominion voting machines. Journalists, however, defended the way 60 Minutes edited a transcript of its pre-election interview with Kamala Harris.

                                                        Sponsorship vs. advertising

Not long after these news distortion complaints returned, Carr initiated an investigation into PBS and NPR member stations over suspected noncompliance with rules regulating Non-Commercial Educational (NCE) broadcast stations. 

On Jan. 29 Carr sent a letter addressed to Katherine Maher and Paula Kerger, the presidents and CEOs of NPR and PBS respectively. 

In the letter he said, “For my own part, I do not see a reason why Congress should continue sending taxpayer dollars to NPR and PBS given the changes in the media marketplace since the passing of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. To the extent that these taxpayer dollars are being used to support a for profit endeavor or an entity that is airing commercial advertisements, then that would further undermine any case for continuing to fund NPR and PBS with taxpayer dollars.” 

In short, per the FCC rules for NCEs, these stations “may acknowledge contributions over the air, but…may not broadcast commercials or…promote the goods and services of for-profit donors or underwriters”. The letter failed to mention complaints or evidence supporting this investigation.

On Jan. 30, Maher responded to Carr assuring that NPR programming and underwriting messaging is in compliance with FCC guidelines and that members of the station are expected to be in compliance as well. She is confident that the review will confirm their adherence to federal regulations. 

Information from the NPR website shows that less than 1 percent of its operating budget comes from grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and agencies and departments at the federal level.

In a statement shared with NPR, Kreger said she’s open to a review. 

“PBS is proud of the noncommercial educational programming we provide to all Americans through our member stations. We work diligently to comply with the FCC’s underwriting regulations and welcome the opportunity to demonstrate that to the Commission.” 

PBS receives about 16 percent of its budget from the CPB, according to an article published by NPR. 

“By statute, more than 70 percent of CPB’s annual federal appropriation goes directly to more than 1,500 local public media stations,” the CPB website notes. 

On Feb. 7 Congressman Dale Strong (R-AL) introduced the ‘No More Funding for NPR Act of 2025’ over concerns with ‘biased reporting’.

Section 2 of the act reads “no federal funds may, directly or indirectly, be made available to or used to support [NPR], including through the payment of dues to or the purchase of programming from such organization by a public broadcasting station using Federal funds received by such a station.” 

Therefore, a problem that may arise from the act is that CPB could prohibit stations from spending their appropriations on NPR or PBS programming.

A source with prior experience with the St. Louis Public Radio (STLPR) said that when most focus groups talk with donors that give, the donors say that the primary reason they give is because of the NPR programming. 

The source wishes to remain anonymous for personal reasons. 

They said that “there’ll be local inserts within all of those [NPR] shows and local news within Morning Edition and all things considered, but most of the time is spent with national programs and most of the national programs are from NPR.”

“So stations are very reliant on NPR,” they said. “One, to cover so much of the broadcast day, but also for building that listenership that serves the audience, and the audience will contribute.” 

If smaller stations drop out of NPR’s network, NPR will have to raise their fees for other stations. 

“So it’s a spiraling effect that if you lose some of those stations, it’s going to impact everybody,” they said. 

“PBS is very much the same way,” they added. “The station in St. Louis probably carries maybe five hours a week of local programming and everything else is coming from PBS or other national distributors.”

The STLPR 2023 financial report showed that it relied more on corporate sponsorships, which make up about 22 percent of total revenue. Federal funding through CPB makes up about 7 percent. 

Fred Martino, the Executive Director of Broadcasting Services at WSIU Public Broadcasting at Southern Illinois University Carbondale supports this saying that although the 0.1 percent of federal funding is a tiny fraction of the federal budget, “it is essential, especially for stations with smaller budgets like WSIU.” 

Martino said that with the assistance of federal funding, the nation is provided with rural access to updates like emergency weather information, news and public affairs, arts and culture, and much more, and that NPR “fits our mission of filling gaps in service,” he said, since commercial radio has “largely abandoned news and public affairs.”

WSIU serves nearly five million people throughout parts of Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Southern Illinois.

According to Connie Johnson, Associate Director of Finance and Administration of WSIU, “WSIU-FM received $202,434 in CPB funding for FY24.” $352,617 was received from underwriting sponsorships. 

Therefore, about 19 percent of WSIU total revenue came from the CPB, and about 38 percent from underwriting in FY24. 

“Incidentally, our NPR dues in FY24 were $206,000,” Johnson said. That makes it more than their contribution from the CPB. “The remainder is funded through local support.”

Mike Janssen, Digital Editor at Current magazine, asked CPB to explain how funding breaks down station by station, and the average amount each gets from the broadcaster.

“Almost half of the rural grantees, which is 120 stations, rely on CPB for at least 25 percent of their revenue. 33 rural stations, many of which are in Native American reservations, rely on CPB funding for at least 50 percent of their revenue,” he said during an episode of the 21st Show on WSIU. 

“Individual donations represent 28 percent of an average rural station’s total revenue versus 40 percent for non-rural stations.” Janssen says, which is a reason why CPB funding is more essential to these rural stations. 

Other challenges to the practices of NPR and PBS are currently underway.

Congresswoman Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called both Maher and Kreger to a hearing about ‘news distortion’ in March.

The recent additions of Defund Government-Sponsored Propaganda Act, and the No Propaganda Act could be further supporting evidence for members of Congress to pass legislation that ends or changes funding for CPB and in turn, appropriations for public broadcasting stations and from there the support to broadcaster member stations. 

DEI INITIATIVES

In a letter to Brian Roberts, CEO of the Comcast Corporation and parent company of NBCUniversal, Carr announced his plans to begin an investigation into their DEI initiatives. He refers to the Executive Orders signed into law by President Trump on Jan. 20 on ‘ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing’ and ‘ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity’. 

The FCC aligned with President Trump by ending its own promotion of DEI one day after the President issued his Executive Order. 

In his letter to Roberts, Carr announced that he will be shutting down any programs that “promote invidious forms of DEI discrimination” and do not comply with “the civil rights protections enshrined in the Communications Act and the agency’s EEO rules.” 

“PBS completely dropped their DEI [initiatives] from their website,” the STLPR source said. “And [STLPR] changed a lot of things that they had posted on their website. They don’t use the term diversity, equity, and inclusion. They call it something like community representation.” 

According to an NPR analysis, Other companies that have ended their DEI departments around the same time as Trump’s order, including Disney, General Motors (GM), General Electric (GE), Pepsi, Intel, PayPal, Chipotle, 3M, Regeneron, and Philip Morris. 

The analysis mentions that while some companies told NPR that they are “re-evaluating some of their DEI programs as well as examining Trump’s executive orders…most companies have not disclosed the reasons for the changes.”