Stephen Colbert is neither being persecuted by the Trump administration, nor targeted for a Federal Communications Commission witch hunt, contrary to the bad reporting and general ignorance of many reporters and pundits.
The story is, as they say, fake news.
The FCC, which was formed in 1934, has long been tasked with the duty of regulating interstate communications broadcast over television, radio, wire, satellite and cable. It also reviews the thousands of complaints it receives from viewers about profanity and indecent content broadcast over the public airwaves.
Last week, CBS’ Stephen Colbert made a series of lousy jokes aimed at President Trump. Most notably, Colbert ended his tirade with this kicker: “[T]he only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c—k holster.”
His remarks ruffled a few feathers, and viewers complained to the FCC, which zealously enforces its standards regarding inappropriate materials aired during primetime hours, as well as so-called obscene materials shown between 10:00 pm and 6:00 am.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai remarked offhandedly in an interview last Thursday that his agency would review Colbert-related complaints, which is 100 percent standard operating procedure for the 83-year-old federal agency.
“[A]s we get complaints, and we’ve gotten a number of them, we are going to take the facts that we find and we are going to apply the law as it’s been set out by the Supreme Court and other courts and we’ll take the appropriate action,” Pai said.
This is where the story turns into white-knuckled, anti-Trump scaremongering, thanks to the general ignorance of a great many people in news media.
It started first with a reported published by the Hill, which has been shared more than 100,000 times, headlined, “FCC to investigate, ‘take appropriate action’ on Colbert’s Trump rant.”
Reporters and pundits reacted with their normal iterations of “this is not okay,” and “this is not normal.”
“This is what government censorship looks like,” said Teen Vogue’s Lauren Duca.
Politico’s Eric Geller said, “Good thing there’s no way this could have a chilling effect on speech critical of the president.”
“1. This is f—king insane. 2. Everything they accuse others of doing, they do 3. Where’d all the freespeechboiz go 4. This is f—king insane,” Task And Purpose senior editor Adam Weinstein added.
None of these characterizations are accurate, of course, and reporters’ fear over the Hill’s loaded headline can be attributed almost entirely to people in media not understanding what the FCC does.
There are plenty of arguments to be made against the agency, but they existed long before Trump came along. That this many people in the news industry appeared to be totally clueless is nothing short of embarrassing. Of all people, you’d think members of the press would be familiar with the FCC’s major functions and duties.
Silver lining: Criticism for media for bungling its Trump coverage over and over and over again is starting to catch on, as people within the news industry are waking up to the reality that this sort of ham-fisted jackassery undermines both the press’ reputation and its ability to be an effective truth-teller.
“There are lots of legitimate reasons to criticize the Trump administration’s relationship to free press and the First Amendment – this FCC story is not one of them,” wrote Vice’s Eve Peyser. “And in an age of mass misinformation, especially from the conservative media, it’s bad for the public to have these false stories circulating. Fighting fake news with more fake news only creates mass confusion.”
