FCC Chair: Media Is Being Misled in Colbert Dispute

Stephen Colbert's clash with CBS over an interview he says was blocked just got a sharp rebuttal from the nation's top media regulator, the Guardian reports. FCC chair Brendan Carr on Wednesday accused news outlets of being "lied to" by the Late Show host, insisting there was "no censorship here at all" involving Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico's interview with Colbert.

CBS says it didn't forbid the interview but warned it could trigger the FCC's "equal time" rule, which can require broadcasters to give comparable airtime to other qualified candidates. Carr said the agency was simply applying that law and noted that neither CBS nor Disney, which owns ABC, had sought a news-interview exemption. Late-night and daytime talk shows have long operated on past precedent, under which hosts interviewing politicians qualify for the exemption, but Carr issued guidance in January saying the shows should no longer be eligible for exemptions. Colbert's move highlights a loophole in the FCC rules, Axios reports, since the interview was still able to be posted online.

The dustup has boosted Talarico, whose campaign reports $2.5 million raised in one day, and his Colbert interview, posted online, has drawn more than 6 million YouTube views. Meanwhile, the FCC has opened an enforcement action into Talarico's earlier appearance on ABC's The View, prompting the commission's lone Democrat, Anna Gomez, and former FCC official Gigi Sohn to warn of what they see as politically slanted, proactive enforcement aimed at liberal media. Gomez said Carr's threats are pushing media companies to "self-censor" before they're actually made to by the government, the Washington Post reports.