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CBS Asks FCC to Dismiss ‘News Distortion’ Complaint Over ‘60 Minutes’ Harris Interview as ‘Blatant Interference With Free Speech’
CBS said a complaint with the FCC alleging a '60 Minutes' Harris interview represented 'news distortion' runs afoul of the First Amendment.
CBS, in its March 7 response to the FCC over the Center for American Rights complaint, said that “The Complaint filed against CBS for ‘news distortion’ envisions a less free world in which the federal government becomes a roving censor — one that second guesses and even punishes specific editorial decisions that are an essential part of producing news programming.” If the FCC took up the mantle of attempting to adjudicate complaints over news programming, CBS said, it would “become embroiled in a quagmire of impossible decisions that it has avoided assiduously for the past ninety years consistent with its Congressional mandate — the very opposite of government efficiency.” CBS, in its response, also said that the essence of the complaint — that the TV broadcaster somehow broke the law by airing a portion, but not all, of a candidate’s answer to a question in a news magazine program — “is fatally flawed.” The complaint “not only ignores the narrowness of the Commission’s rarely invoked and constitutionally suspect ‘news distortion’ policy; it also asks the Commission to violate its duties under the U.S. Constitution, along with multiple statutory authorities,” CBS said.
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