Don’t Fret Too Much About Trump NBC Tweets

OK, all you Trumpsters, circle this date on your calendars: July 1, 2020. That’s the first opportunity you’ll have to file a petition to deny the license renewal of an NBC owned station, WRC Washington.

My hope is that by that time, with the 2020 presidential election in full swing, the scales will have fallen from your eyes and you would sooner sit through a Hillary Clinton health care policy seminar than further advance the Trump cause in any fashion.

But, just in case you’re the kind of loyalist who will go into the bunker with him in the final days, that’s the deadline, and, hey, I can recommend several communications lawyers who may be willing to hold their nose and file the petition for you.

Last Wednesday morning, as part of his never-ending campaign, to discredit and intimidate the news media, Trump threatened NBC stations for an NBC News report that said that last summer he had called for a huge expansion of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

“With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!” he tweeted.

He followed that up that evening with a broader attack. “Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public!”

I can understand his frustration. Earlier tweets to goad Congress into investigating media meanies caused the usual stir in the media, but failed to provoke any real action.

Poor Donald. Bullied by the news media, he pleads for help. A more eloquent leader might have tweeted: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome network?”

Every day must be a lesson for him in the limits of presidential power, given that he obviously had no idea of those limits when he took the job. He is hemmed in by Congress (including some members of his own party), the courts and, perhaps worst of all, recalcitrant bureaucrats.

As you may have guessed from the glibness of the opening paragraphs, I am not too concerned about Trump’s targeting of broadcast licenses.

Some drew comparisons to Nixon and how he tried to bring the Washington Post to its knees during Watergate by threatening the licenses of the Post’s TV stations (now Graham Media). That was serious business in those days and it might have cowed a less courageous publisher/broadcaster than Katharine Graham.

But that was some 45 years ago. Communications law and regulations have since changed. It’s virtually impossible to strip a station of its license if the station has dutifully followed the FCC rules and regs.

As absurd as this may seem, it may be easier for Trump to lay waste to the entire Korean peninsula with nuclear “fire and fury” than it would be for him to take away a broadcast license.

Yes, a station targeted with petitions to deny would run up some legal bills to answer the petitions. But that wouldn’t faze a multi-billion-dollar company like Comcast, NBC’s owner. And, besides, as I noted, Comcast/NBC doesn’t have to worry about license renewals for nearly three years.

Look, Trump can weaponize the FCC to punish stations and networks, but it’s not with license renewal challenges. It’s by pressuring or cajoling FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to act as his enforcer.

FCC chairmen can do great harm to a regulated industry or individual media company if they have a mind to. They can turn minor violations into big ones, stall acquisitions and mergers, ignore pleadings for rule changes and otherwise make life miserable for those who are not in favor.

I don’t think Pai has fallen into the thrall of Trump and I don’t think he will. He built a strong reputation as a thoughtful conservative before Trump was a factor and he has before him a bright future in politics or business. I can’t see him selling out the independence of the FCC for a trip to Mar-a-Lago.

But you never know.

That’s why Democratic Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn are important. As far as I’m concerned, their only job is to keep an eye on things and blow the whistle on any White House meddling in FCC affairs.

What’s disturbing about the tweets is that they show a profound lack of respect for the First Amendment rights of broadcasters. This should come as little surprise.

During his campaign, he vowed to retaliate against the media by weakening libel protections, breaking up media companies and blocking media mergers. He vilified reporters and declared their networks enemy of the republic.

“It is contrary to this fundamental right [of a free press] for any government official to threaten the revocation of an FCC license simply because of a disagreement with the reporting of a journalist,” said NAB President Gordon Smith in reaction to the tweets.

In other words, Trump is way out of line.

RTDNA Executive Director Dan Shelley seconded Smith, saying the call for license revocations was “dangerous to the American people’s right to access responsible journalism.”

The tweets are also a sharp reminder that Trump is no friend of broadcasting, that he has no respect or understanding of it. You just don’t mess with a station license.

It’s true that his appointee Pai is lowering ownership limits, moving along ATSC 3.0, ignoring calls for retrans reform and clearing regulatory underbrush. All good things for the industry.

But Pai would be doing the same thing had any other Republican won the White House and put him in charge at the FCC.

The calls for a congressional investigation into “Fake News Networks” one week and broadcast licenses challenges the next are not as threatening as they may seem, but they provide another peek into Trump’s thinking on media and their freedoms. 

And what I see there isn’t pretty.

Harry A. Jessell is editor of TVNewsCheck. He can be contacted at 973-701-1067 or here. You can read earlier columns here.