Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr defended his leadership of the agency during an interview as he claimed the mainstream news industry was “drastically out of touch with where the American people are.”
Carr spoke at Semafor’s “Restoring Trust in Media” summit on Wednesday, a media conference focused on how news executives and personalities are navigating an industry battling abysmal trust levels. Other speakers include Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner, “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker, Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie and Knight Foundation CEO Maribel Pérez Wadsworth, among others.
During the interview, Semafor editor in chief Ben Smith brought up criticism from former President Ronald Reagan’s FCC chairman Mark Fowler that Carr was making use of the agency’s public-interest rules as a “made-to-order jawboning instrument” against media companies,
“This isn’t Ronald Reagan’s FCC,” Carr shot back. “I think that’s a good thing.”
Carr spent much of his roughly 20-minute interview attacking media outlets, using an over two-minute riff to criticize publications like the Washington Post and Time magazine to broadcast news organizations like ABC News to independent journalists such as Jim Acosta and Don Lemon for what he claimed was dishonest reporting.
“Part of the way that I think restoring trust is going to work is for journalists to be honest with the American people,” he said, complimenting Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan’s transparency about his political opinions on President Donald Trump.
“When he tells you that, you can factor that in, you can read it,” he said. “I think that’s much, much better than what journalists have been doing for decades, which is pissing on your leg and telling you that they’re weathermen.”
“That was a great monologue,” Smith quipped. “That was impressive.”
He did compliment David Ellison’s leadership of Paramount and CBS News, months after Ellison’s quest to control the company remained tied up with the agency. “I like the fact that they’re experimenting with new formats,” he said.
“They’re trying different stuff,” Carr added. “What do you guys have to lose?”
Carr’s tenure as the Trump administration’s top media enforcement officer has largely consisted of putting media and entertainment companies on guard, both through verbal threats and investigations. He launched an investigation last week into ABC’s “The View” for potentially violating its equal-time rule over its interview with Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, and he has said a longstanding precedent affording shows like “The View” and “The Late Show” exceptions to the rule may no longer hold.
The investigation came months after ABC’s parent company, Disney, suspended Jimmy Kimmel in September after Carr threatened the company over comments he made around the killing of Charlie Kirk.
Carr has launched probes into NPR, PBS and others since he became the agency’s chairman last year.
