Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr made a social media post on March 15 that free speech advocates say will go down in history as a blatant attempt at wartime censorship.

Instead of warning consumers about current efforts by billionaire oligarchs to consolidate cable news broadcasters under their control, the FCC chair threatened the broadcasters by suggesting they could lose licenses over coverage of the war on Iran that the Trump administration dislikes.

Congress created the FCC to manage limited airwaves on behalf of consumers independently from the White House, but critics say Carr consistently conflates the “public interest” with Donald Trump’s desire to control the media.

“Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not,” Carr wrote on social media.

Carr included a screenshot of a post from Trump complaining about news coverage of damage sustained by the U.S. military in the war. A day earlier, Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth attacked CNN for reporting that the White House underestimated Iran’s willingness to close the critical Strait of Hormuz and cut off global energy supplies. The next day, Trump baselessly accused news outlets of running AI propaganda and said they should be tried for treason.

Trump’s FCC Considers Supercharging Corporate TV Consolidation

Trump’s initial post singled out The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, but Carr’s threat was clearly aimed at the newsrooms of cable broadcasters such as CBS, CNN, and NBC. The FCC controls licensing for the local stations operated by major broadcasters, giving regulators serious leverage over their ability to reach viewers and sustain local newsrooms.

Looming over Carr’s threats is the proposed $110 billion merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, which would put the newsrooms at CNN and CBS under control of the same media empire owned by Larry Ellison — a billionaire oligarch, Trump ally, and Republican mega-donor.

In 2025, the FCC approved a $8 billion merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media only after CBS made very public concessions to Trump — including agreeing to pay $16 million to his presidential library to settle a lawsuit over edits to a “60 Minutes” interview with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Free speech advocates said CBS should have fought the case and would have likely won under the First Amendment.

CBS also essentially agreed to air more conservative viewpoints while installing right-wing pundit Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief, which Carr trumpeted as a........

© Truthout