There was a time when conservative views were woefully underrepresented in the media, but that all changed from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s with the rise of talk radio and the establishment of Fox News. Through these pioneering endeavors, conservative voices carved out a strong position in the American media landscape. Fox remains, by far, the nation’s most popular cable network and the advent of podcasting has created an explosion of popular new content for conservative audiences. But all of this progress could be under threat because of the decision by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr to investigate CBS News for its 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President and presidential candidate, Kamala Harris.
I will be the first to tell you how pervasive bias can be in the mainstream media. It remains true that the vast majority of those in our media today carry with them a liberal slant, and we saw it with how the press covered Joe Biden and his administration. In recent years, the power of the free market has repudiated that coverage in favor of Fox News and its soaring ratings, along with others who have seen their presence grow in recent years. And while Fox and other conservative media outlets may be on top right now, especially with Republicans presently in control of the White House, that pendulum can swing back in the other direction just as quickly.
The unedited video and transcript that were ultimately released by the network from its interview with Harris proves CBS did none of the splicing or manipulating of content that would traditionally be required for FCC intervention.
Yet, Chairman Carr recently opened an investigation into the interview anyway. While some conservatives have expressed support for the move, an assessment of the facts and unintended consequences make clear the end result will not be the victory Republicans are hoping for. I’m no fan of the network given its undeniable history of anti-conservative bias, but, as John Adams once said, “facts are stubborn things.” It is troubling to me that Chairman Carr, a conservative, has opened the door to punishing CBS for exercising editorial discretion under the First Amendment, thereby exposing conservative news outlets in all media to the same sort of attack in the future.
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If CBS is punished for the 60 Minutes fiasco, it would create a precedent for government action against opposition cable networks, broadcast television, talk radio, podcasts, social media and more. And as we well know, precedents are notoriously hard to reverse in Washington once they’re set. If the federal government undermines the First Amendment rights of one news outlet, all other news outlets will be on edge, waiting for the day they find themselves in the crosshairs of an administration they cover in an adversarial nature. We are all threatened because as Elon Musk famously says, “You are the media now.”
The next time there’s a Democrat in the White House, networks like Fox News and Newsmax or popular podcasters such as Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, and others could be subject to similar interrogations about their editorial judgments. Broadcasting licenses may be revoked, content may be taken down, and non-conformity may become a legal liability. Suddenly, the media censorship conservatives have railed against for years will be coming not from liberal outlets, but bureaucrats in Washington at the taxpayer’s expense.
I respect conservatives’ work to root out anti-conservative bias in news coverage. But that will not be done by scapegoating CBS. We will not suddenly see a reversal from the media on their entrenched political views. The FCC attempting to make an example out of CBS will be a major long-term problem for conservative media masquerading as a short-term victory.
Is it worth barreling down such a dangerous path all because of one harmless, if poorly edited, interview? Conservatives have spent almost 40 years building a successful alternative to the left-leaning media establishment. Let’s not cripple those foundations, and roll back the fundamental right of free speech, just for the sake of “owning the libs.”
Matt Mackowiak is the president of Potomac Strategy Group, served in the Bush administration, at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, on the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, and was a senior communications aide to two U.S. Senators and a Governor.
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