Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Republican Chairman Brendan Carr claimed the agency is taking seriously a recent formal complaint about CBS’ alleged “distortion” of its “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
“My FCC colleague, the Republican Commissioner [Nathan] Symington, has been very active in this. What he pointed out is that the news distortion rule is a very, very narrow rule at the FCC. In almost every case, it doesn’t apply because it can get into the kind of editorial decisions that are protected by the First Amendment. But what he said is that CBS should release the transcript,” Commissioner Carr said on “Mornings with Maria” on Tuesday.
“And the reason this complaint is not frivolous is because the rules say, for example, the example we gave is, if you get an answer to a question that’s ‘yes’ and you substitute the answer ‘no.’ from another question… this is something that would potentially fall under the distortion of news rule,” he added.
Last Wednesday, the Center for American Rights, also known as CAR, filed a formal complaint with the FCC accusing CBS News of “significant and intentional distortion of the news.”
CAR argued that the discrepancies “amount to intentional distortion of the news — a violation of FCC rules governing broadcasters’ public interest obligations.”
The complaint insisted that CBS release the unredacted transcript of the interview to set the record straight, echoing calls from former President Trump and many others.
“This is not just about an interview or a network,” CAR President Daniel Suhr said in a statement. “This is about public trust in the media on critical issues of national security and international relations during one of the most important elections of our time. When broadcasters manipulate interviews and distort reality, it undermines democracy itself. The FCC must act quickly to restore public confidence in our news media.”
Carr added Tuesday that he agrees with joint calls to release the full transcript of the interview, following reports that a “Face the Nation” interview teaser showed a different answer to the same question in the “60 Minutes” version.
“I don’t think this should be a federal case because I think CBS should release it … then that would inoculate, entirely, CBS from that FCC complaint,” Carr said.
He added that it is a matter of “journalistic practice and news value”.
“In fact, I know people are contacting their local affiliates right now, asking them if they would release that transcript.”
After weeks of keeping quiet despite mounting criticism of the interview, CBS released a statement Sunday night addressing the outrage that followed after it aired two different answers to the same question in a “60 Minutes” interview earlier this month with the Democratic nominee. .
The CBS News statement said Trump’s claim that “deceptive editing” was used is “false” and explained that producers used a “more condensed” portion of Harris’ response.
Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report.
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