This Is How It Happens

Every authoritarian takeover of the press begins the same way: “fake news,” regulatory threats, and a government that decides what journalism is allowed.

We need to do a wellness check on the First Amendment, because all my calls are going to voicemail.

FCC Chair Brendan Carr took to X this weekend to warn broadcasters that they’d better “correct course” on their Iran war coverage — or risk losing their licenses. His exact words: “Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.”

It was a response to a long screed from President Trump complaining about war coverage — making the connection between the “correct course” and Trump’s desires.

On one level, legal experts are right that this is a hollow threat. TV licenses don’t even come up for renewal until 2028. The FCC hasn’t denied a license renewal in decades. Any attempt to pull a station’s license would trigger years of litigation, and any network worth its salt would mount a First Amendment case that would tie the government in knots.

So there’s really nothing to worry about, right?

Not so fast.

What Carr is really saying

The legal enforceability isn’t the point. The intent is.

When a federal official — the chairman of the agency that literally controls whether your station stays on the air — tells you to “correct course” on your news coverage, he’s issuing a warning. And the message underneath the warning is simple: Report what the administration wants you to report, or face consequences.

Think about what that actually means. It means the administration believes that news networks should reflect the government’s version of events. Not investigate them. Not question them. Not provide independent analysis. Just... relay the official narrative.

There’s a word for that. It’s called state media. (Okay, that’s two words, but you get the point.)

Here’s a concrete example of how the pressure works in practice. When an ABC News reporter asked Trump about Jeffrey Epstein last year, Trump responded by saying the network’s license should be taken away. Carr, his hand-picked FCC chair, has been more than happy to carry that water. Two major station groups — Nexstar and Sinclair — quietly pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s show from their ABC affiliates. It’s worth noting that both companies had pending business before the FCC at the time. That’s not a coincidence. That’s compliance purchased through fear.

You don’t have to revoke a single license to get results. You just have to make broadcasters wonder if you might.

We’ve seen this movie before

In Hungary, Viktor Orbán didn’t need to nationalize the press outright. Friendly oligarchs bought up independent outlets one by one, while regulators made life difficult for the ones that remained. Within a few years, the vast majority of Hungarian media was either state-owned or reliably pro-government. Technically, it was all “private.” In practice, it was all state media. This is happening in America today.

In Turkey, Erdoğan used regulatory agencies and tax authorities to squeeze critical outlets until their owners — nervous about their other business interests — sold to government-connected buyers. The journalism didn’t disappear overnight. It just gradually became... safer. Less curious. Less confrontational. This is also happening here.

In Russia, the process was faster and less subtle. But the result was the same: a press that reported what the government wanted reported, and called everything else a “hoax.”

The pattern is always the same. You don’t have to ban the news. You just have to make independent reporting expensive enough — financially, legally, professionally — that outlets start doing the math. And some of them will decide the math doesn’t work in their favor.

The chilling effect is the weapon

The Radio Television Digital News Association called Carr a “bully with a briefcase,” and that’s exactly right. The briefcase is full of legal threats that probably can’t be enforced. But the bullying works anyway, because not every news director has the stomach for a multi-year federal licensing battle. Not every parent company wants that fight while simultaneously trying to close a merger that needs FCC approval.

Carr’s strategy, as media advocacy groups have pointed out, is to pressure outlets into self-censorship. You don’t need explicit government action if the press does the work for you.

The First Amendment doesn’t just protect against outright censorship. It protects against a government that uses the machinery of regulation to intimidate journalists into silence. As the RTDNA put it: “The First Amendment does not have a carve-out for news the FCC chair finds inconvenient.”

So what do we do with this?

The good news — and there is some — is that a lot of journalists are not backing down. Local news reporters are still covering the Iran war. Networks — at least, some of them — are still asking hard questions. The RTDNA said their members “have faced far worse and kept reporting.”

But we should be clear-eyed about what’s being attempted here. Brendan Carr isn’t just venting on social media. He’s the chair of a federal agency, and he’s using that platform to tell American broadcasters that their job is to agree with the government. Not fact-check it. Not hold it accountable. Agree with it. Cheerlead it. Praise it.

That’s a loyalty test.

And the moment we start grading broadcasters on whether they pass it, we’re not really in America anymore.

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I'd love to know what you think. Is there still hope for a free press? Or have too many mainstream media outlets already bent the knee? Leave a comment below.

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