Alfred Sikes is the latest figure to urge the commission to study whether Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch meet the character qualification to remain broadcast licensees.
Former Republican FCC Chair Is The Latest To Call For Hearing Into License Renewal For Fox’s WTXF Philadelphia
Former Republican FCC Chairman and broadcast licensee Alfred Sikes today joined the Media and Democracy Project (MAD) and media veterans Ervin S. Duggan and William Kristol to support a petition to deny the broadcast license renewal application for Fox Corp.-owned WTXF Philadelphia
Sikes said: “The FCC has allowed the public interest responsibility of broadcast licensees to become a bureaucratic construct. The behavior of Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, highlighted in the MAD petition, raises a first principles question. Is truthful conduct a part of the standard?”
Nominated by President George H.W. Bush, Sikes was FCC chairman from 1989 to 1992. Prior to that, he was nominated by President Reagan to become assistant secretary of Commerce and director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
As FCC Chair, Sikes supported providing Rupert Murdoch with critical FCC waivers needed to launch Fox Broadcasting Co. Throughout his tenure at the FCC, Sikes opposed the advocacy of Murdoch’s competitors seeking to block efforts to create America’s fourth broadcast network.
“It is noteworthy that Fox News declared Biden the winner in 2020; it was after all paying expert analysts to parse data to help it project winners and losers,” Sikes says in the objection. “And then much of its primetime news coverage and opinionators fell in behind the Donald Trump version, not the Fox version of the outcome. They choose fiction over nonfiction to make many of its listeners and viewers happy. They knew the facts and decided to ignore them.”
The objection concludes by saying: “The FCC has allowed the pledge to operate in the public interest to become perfunctory at best. If the public interest means anything, the FCC must designate for a hearing the application of the Murdochs and Fox for renewal of their license to operate station WTXF, Philadelphia.”
On July 3, MAD filed a petition to deny the broadcast license renewal application for WTXF. MAD is calling on the FCC to initiate an evidentiary hearing into Fox’s conduct to examine whether Fox and its leadership have violated the character requirements expected from public trustees granted a broadcast license.
A copy of Sikes’ informal objection is available here. A link to MAD’s initial Petition to Deny is available here.
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Comments (4)
OldSchool says:
August 21, 2023 at 11:43 am
If you open this door you may have uninvited guests. Politics and news have become a thing recently. The comment about the Fox News calling Biden the winner yet some of the paid talent said different sort of sounds like most networks saying Russian collusion without having the information. Remember when reporting the news without bias was the norm (been a long time), Just my thoughts from a old broadcaster.
tvn-member-3011604 says:
August 21, 2023 at 4:14 pm
Calling on the FCC to initiate an evidentiary hearing into Fox’s conduct would be a total waste of time and resources. But, of course, politicians are experts on that.
AIMTV says:
August 21, 2023 at 7:35 pm
Not so fast OldSchool – Russian interference in 2016 was a documented fact. Your strong opinions aside, this doesn’t offset evidence to the contrary. Indeed Russian meddling in U.S. politics is still going strong, as evidenced by the coordinated disinformation campaign from Russian bots and troll farms after the Maui fires in an effort to dissuade a certain segment of a certain political party to stop supporting Ukraine. If you still don’t buy that, check out some history… the book “Bloodlands” by Timothy Snyder is a good start. If that’s a bit too dense for you, try contemporary historical thrillers with Bill Browder’s (Responsible for the Magnitsky Act) real-life thrillers “Red Notice” or the sequel “Freezing Order”. You might have a different opinion of Russian interference in U.S. politics after these reads. Any TRUE American “Patriot” or believer in democracy would never, ever welcome or glibly dismiss a brutal foreign adversary meddling in our nation’s political processes. I’ll admit, I’m biased, having been followed by the FSB in 2010, harassed by Russian bots and trolls over my stance in supporting Ukraine, and having witnessed first-hand Russia’s ham-fisted and cynical brutality with many Russian friends forced in exile for their views (and one friend of a friend currently wasting away in a Russian jail).
TVN Member # bla, bla, bla – The FCC is a governmental organization. These are the public airwaves. So, I don’t understand your point.
To both of you – If you are confident in the logic of your arguments, why don’t you put your real names rather than hiding behind pseudonyms? I’ll put mine. Robert G. Rose / AIM TV Group. Happy to discuss any time if you decide to come out of hiding from behind your keyboards.
[email protected] says:
August 21, 2023 at 11:38 pm
If there is a hearing on the Fox O&O WTXF in Philly will just be a dog & pony show as I don’t see The FCC doing anything as I think the license will be renewed in my opinion. Some just want the Murdochs to be exposed nothing new will come out of it. If there is a hearing I wonder if it will be this year or next year when it happens along with the renewal as well?
I agree with Fox’s statement using The FCC’s Chairwomen Jessica’s own words in 2017 when Trump wanted NBC’s license revoked I didn’t like at all what Trump said at the time. I’d just maybe read some of the headlines if there is a hearing on Fox’s renewal of local TV stations I’d not go out of my way to watch the audio of the hearings on C-Span.