top | item 47049426

CBS didn't air Rep. James Talarico interview out of fear of FCC

535 points| theahura | 12 days ago |nbcnews.com

261 comments

order

sega_sai|12 days ago

It is a great illustration of how transition to the authoritarianism happens (I've seen it happen in Russia in 2000s). At first you don't even need censorship, you just need to scare owners of channels/newspapers enough, so that they self-censor.

dsl|12 days ago

Fear is the enforcement mechanism because it can't be challenged in court.

It is long past time for everyone in tech to take a long hard look at the current situation and stop doing anything that financially benefits Musk, Ellison, or Thiel.

CGMthrowaway|12 days ago

Indeed. Mark Zuckerberg has long said the administration pressured Facebook to censor COVID-related content, including satire and humor. And now the administration has ended public funding for NPR and PBS. Chilling effect

It goes back even further, just see the 1941 FCC “Mayflower Decision” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_doctrine

cyberge99|12 days ago

Didn’t Putin then run for a third term and because he corrupted the voting machines, remain in power? He started having dissenters abducted by plainclothes masked men in vans for the fear factor. Quietly, dissent stopped and everyone learned that when you go against Putin, you face defenestration.

primaryplease4|11 days ago

Does this illustration include the law that was passed an about century ago? Or does time start at a different point in the horizon?

hn_throwaway_99|11 days ago

My question is are there any historical parallels for the slide toward authoritarianism being reversed without a major catastrophe/war.

There were many "ground rules" in American society and politics that Trump has just proved can be thrown completely out the window, and it feels like there is no unringing that bell.

jimmydddd|12 days ago

I think the FCC is just enforcing the rule that you have to give equal time to all candidates. The late night talk shows used to get around this policy by using the exception given to news agencies. The FCC is just saying that the late night talk shows aren't really "news" shows. Probably should have been doing this the whole time. They also noted that it would not be a problem on cable or internet broadcasts. Not saying it's not politically motivated though.

MyHonestOpinon|12 days ago

sixsevenrot|12 days ago

Barbara Streisand

lyu07282|12 days ago

It's kind of ironic, so much drama all for a safe centrist corporate democrat. Although perhaps that's why it's such a big deal for liberals, it's oligarchical infighting. It's even more confusing that he's funded by the same billionaires that trump is.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/21/james-talarico-miri...

mcs5280|12 days ago

Weird how Larry Ellison manages to do this to everything he touches

biophysboy|12 days ago

If its any consolation, I think CBS news will fail miserably. The new captains are at the helm of a sinking ship, which has been taking on water for decades.

Maybe a cynic will say "this was the plan", but if it was, its not a very good plan? If anything, tech executives benefited enormously from their opponents being overly attached to legacy media communication strategies. When Bezos kills the Post or Ellison kills CBS, the talent doesnt magically disappear.

jajuuka|12 days ago

Not Larry, David his son. For some reason people want to keep pretending that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree though. Seen multiple puff pieces about how David just loves movies so much and his dad is the political one.

Centigonal|12 days ago

“They were careless people, David, Megan, and Larry- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

web-cowboy|12 days ago

Rough spot in time to be:

- Once print newspapers were no longer a thing, even local news outlets are struggling to stay alive, and are resulting to sensationalism and entertainment as news - Corporate sponsors retain a huge influence in mainstream news (or have outright purchased it and use it for partisan politics). - "Social" media resides in (you guessed it) corporate-owned walled gardens. - Even those willing to speak out are being targeted by federal agencies

Wondering where others are finding great places to learn what's going on, what's actually relevant to me, and what I can actually do about it.

nebula8804|12 days ago

This is just an opinion.

Follow trusted journalists that have a history of superb journalism. You have to decide what is good for yourself. Also industry specific journalists for deeper insight into industry you care about. Many of the greats realize that all the news companies are sinking ships and are trying to establish their own thing before things completely collapse.

Focus on what each journalist specializes in and don't read too much into it when they report on topics that are not their forte (like Breaking points talking about AI). Many journalists stay in their lane but the groups covering all the news don't. I wish all journalists would stay in their lane but this is not the world we live in anymore.

For everything else that you are not willing to invest the time in, just accept you are not going to get great coverage.

My (typically far left) biases are comfortable with the following (these are not all far left)

Zeteo + dropsite for foreign middle east leaning coverage

Breaking points for daily news

Ken Klippenstein, Glenn greenwald for national security state/us government news. Klippenstein is more fun (when he gets an FBI email asking for info but also politely asking to not release it, he goes ahead and provides a download link). Greenwald feels a bit more dry.

Industry specific: autoline (youtube+website) for automotive, semianalysis for semi.

Again this is just my opinion, please decide for yourself.

tdb7893|12 days ago

There's a decent amount of non-profit news. I read NPR a lot and donate to them and Propublica. I think one of the big issues is advertising so news you actually pay for is a lot less likely to clickbait you.

pico303|12 days ago

Someone already mentioned NPR. BBC also does a great job reporting on US and international issues. New York Times still does strong reporting. And there are local sources too, such as the Colorado Sun, LA Times, SF Chronicle, or SF Gate (obviously I’m in the US).

biophysboy|12 days ago

Not all the legacy newspapers are failing; NYT is doing well. There are other news sources beyond legacy newspapers, broadcasters, local news, and social media. There are wire services (AP, Reuters), insider access journalism (Axios, Punchbowl, Semafor), public media (NPR, PBS, BBC), investigative journalism (ProPublica), digital-first outlets (Politico, Vox), and the growing wave of small, indie , creator-led media (YouTube, Substack, Patreon).

DeepYogurt|12 days ago

Smacks of state media control don't it?

scoofy|12 days ago

It's a corrupt patronage system out in the open, not actually "state control," it's major companies (oligarchs) willingly being controlled.

CBS doesn't "fear the FCC"... who didn't even have a rule. It's just open corruption.

The administration wants to signal what it wants to CBS, without actually doing anything that they could lose in court.

CBS wants to signal they are willing to help the administration by doing the censorship "out of fear" when really they just want a friendly relationship with the administration.

It's exactly the way oligarchs will give patronage to maintain their position in the hierarchy where the leader gives the orders.

It's what happens in Russia. It's literally how the mob does shit: "I didn't tell anyone to pay me any bribe. I just said that I'm in need of money and I'm kind to my friends. They chose to pay me of their own volition."

drooopy|12 days ago

We had little marco rubio (not capitalised on purpose) over here in Europe lecturing us about freedom of speech. Every accusation is a confession.

pphysch|12 days ago

Recall it was the same lawnmower^W Ellison-owned CBS that last minute pulled a 60 Minutes report on CECOT. They didn't blame that one on the government.

Given that, I believe the higher ups at CBS wanted this to happen, but are colluding with the executive branch or misrepresenting the situation to shift responsibility.

loeg|12 days ago

[deleted]

calgarymicro|12 days ago

> Carr suggested the exemption should no longer apply to programs he characterized as being “motivated by partisan purposes.”

I know the timing makes this seem cravenly partisan, but revoking an exemption like this could be motivated by a desire to ensure fairn-

> while the FCC chair was targeting late-night talk shows, he had made clear that right-wing talk radio would not be subject to the equal time notice.

Ah, well.

rconti|12 days ago

The right has an extremely large chip on their shoulder when insisting that the their _more popular media outlets_ do not count as "mainstream media" because... reasons.

juliusceasar|12 days ago

USA turned into China, Russia and soon N-Korea.

You are not allowed to say anything bad about the current administration and Israel. Little country pulling the strings here.

martythemaniak|12 days ago

I know things may look bleak, but America has a large, loud, well-funded contingent of free-speech advocates. As soon as Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Thomas Chatterton Williams hear about this, there'll be hell to pay!

renegade-otter|12 days ago

And Elon Musk will absolutely lose it on Twitter.

anderber|12 days ago

That's insane. We're talking about the government threatening a station if they air an interview with a political rival.

Jordan-117|12 days ago

Tbh, in this case the fault lies more with CBS for obeying in advance. The FCC hasn't actually made the rule change yet.

steve1977|12 days ago

Normal authoritarian state behavior, no?

claytongulick|12 days ago

My understanding (please correct me if it's incorrect) is that the "worst-case" scenario for a broadcaster is that they may have to upload a record of political air time to a public file.

If an opposing candidate sees this, they can then request equal air time from that broadcaster.

The rule is in place so that one party or viewpoint can't dominate broadcast media. That's a good thing right?

The rule change here is that traditionally "bona fide" news programs have been, by default, issued an exception to the rule. That has spawned a bunch of "pseudo-news" shows that have also been claiming this exception. Here, the FCC is now saying "hey, you don't just automatically get granted an exception to the rule and get to call yourself a bona fide news program if you're not actually one"". That seems completely reasonable to me.

Broadcast media is held to this FCC standard because they are granted a monopoly for a broadcast spectrum, and it isn't physically possible for a competitor to broadcast on the same spectrum. Streaming etc... doesn't need to follow these rules.

I do think it's wrong that talk radio doesn't seem to be held to the same standard, though.

devmor|12 days ago

This is a terrifying level of chilling effects. What are we to consider about our nation at this point? "Free speech" has long been a term with contested definitions, but this certainly sounds like its death in every sense.

legitster|12 days ago

From Umberto Eco's essay on Fascism:

> On the morning of July 27, 1943, I was told that, according to radio reports, fascism had collapsed and Mussolini was under arrest. When my mother sent me out to buy the newspaper, I saw that the papers at the nearest newsstand had different titles. Moreover, after seeing the headlines, I realized that each newspaper said different things. I bought one of them, blindly, and read a message on the first page signed by five or six political parties — among them the Democrazia Cristiana, the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the Partito d’Azione, and the Liberal Party.

> Until then, I had believed that there was a single party in every country and that in Italy it was the Partito Nazionale Fascista. Now I was discovering that in my country several parties could exist at the same time. Since I was a clever boy, I immediately realized that so many parties could not have been born overnight, and they must have existed for some time as clandestine organizations.

What I think is fascinating here in this case isn't just the suppression of any old free speech, it's trying to hide the presence of political options.

PearlRiver|11 days ago

America has only two parties instead of a dozen. This makes political options disappear. Everyone had to rally behind Biden or Trump last time.

Herring|12 days ago

Reminder that the most reliable way to prevent the rise of the far right is to implement robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance.

Support for such measures (welfare, healthcare, unionization, high taxes etc) is usually low among Americans.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/welfare-cuts...

lII1lIlI11ll|11 days ago

That is not a reminder, that is just, like, your opinion, man. Many countries with robust safety nets in Europe have far right parties rising in popularity significantly or already in the government/ruling coalition (Italy, Sweden, Germany, etc.).

lyu07282|12 days ago

That's why the rightward shift is unavoidable and corporate Dems like Talarico only further this shift into fascism. Even if liberals win it only means the next right-wing candidate is going to be even more extreme than the last.

People think that's crazy talk, even though it's happening right in front of their faces since Obama, we're cooked.

lenerdenator|12 days ago

Well, what can the average person do to get CBS to air it?

munk-a|12 days ago

CBS is responding rationally (cowardly, certainly, but also rationally) to an administration that is misusing the tools of state.

Change the administration.

davidw|12 days ago

I think corporate media is mostly lost. We need to build something new. Pay attention to things like The Bulwark or Liberal Currents. It's really early days for all that, so who knows where things go, but people like Bezos would rather destroy media outlets than sell them to someone who would allow them to speak out against the regime.

justin66|12 days ago

They'll respond to a loss of business or reputational damage.

Reputational damage is a less useful tool today, when so many of the people in power at CBS have personal reasons for wanting to curry favor with the administration. So, loss of business: simply boycotting or changing the channel can help.

etchalon|12 days ago

You can't get CBS to air it, but you can let people know not to watch CBS.

1vuio0pswjnm7|12 days ago

Airing on broadcast TV (cf. publishing on YouTube) does not offer the same opportunity for surveillance of the audience

bfbcu763|12 days ago

The prob has always been the FCC didnt recognize the internet as a Broadcast Medium. Which it is. Anyone can get their message out to a billion people if the algos deem its going to make the platform money. This means the platform support 1 to All messaging ie Broadcast. Thanks to Claude Shannon we know if everyone is given free broadcast capability like giving everyone a mic connected to the same sound system, without a coordination mechanism we get massive noise. How do ppl react to not being heard? They shout louder and louder or keep repeating their message. Amplifying the noise even more. Thats exactly whats happening on the internet today. We had the same issue with radio back in the day when anyone could stick tower on their roof and start broadcasting. This is why Spectrum gets licensed to solve the interference and noise problem. Americans are fed from birth that Free Speech is a right. But no one tells people before the internet Broadcast was not free. You either owned a newspaper, radio station, TV/sat spectrum to broadcast. There is a serious category error happening because the FCC didnt recognize the platforms are really broadcast mediums.

jahsome|12 days ago

The difference is the airwaves are a limited transmission method. A broadcast medium is not regulated because it's dangerous, it's regulated because it's scarce.

thaumasiotes|12 days ago

None of the statements in your comment support the idea that the internet is a broadcast medium in the sense relevant to the FCC. It's a medium made entirely of 1-1 connections.

Note that newspapers are an older technology than radio, and they function in exactly the same way that the internet does, and there's never been a question of whether they are secretly "broadcast media".

bentt|12 days ago

This is how you get a candidate’s name out there. Master stroke by CBS. :/

csours|12 days ago

Unlimited Free Speech, itty bitty living space. - Aladdin's Genie

pimlottc|12 days ago

I have no idea what this means

Rover222|12 days ago

"In an emailed statement, CBS said: “THE LATE SHOW was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview with Rep. James Talarico. The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled. THE LATE SHOW decided to present the interview through its YouTube channel with on-air promotion on the broadcast rather than potentially providing the equal-time options."

Show me the Fascism, please.

throwgrammar|12 days ago

[deleted]

mindslight|12 days ago

All marketing is meant to induce feelings that compensate for reality's deficiencies.

I use cat litter that is "99% dust free". I'll give you one guess what that remaining 1% by weight is.

CGMthrowaway|12 days ago

[deleted]

Jordan-117|12 days ago

It's a change Carr has publicly contemplated making, but hasn't yet. This is more about CBS under Ellison-controlled Paramount (who is on a quest to consolidate a conservative media empire) to curry favor with the administration by obeying in advance. (The CBS policy is new.)

ratmice|12 days ago

In FCC DA 26-68 they gave public notice of their change of interpretation/enforcement of the equal time rules to apply to this situation.

toraway|12 days ago

Uh, why exactly are we inventing a completely speculative alternate possibility when this is perfectly in line with Brendan Carr's multiple public statements and recent examples wielding FCC regulatory power to strong arm media organizations that he claims have a pattern of liberal bias, as well as the recent actions of CBS.

pseudalopex|12 days ago

The words after FCC crackdown were including opening a probe into ABC’s “The View,” after Talarico appeared on the show.

unethical_ban|12 days ago

It is far more likely for this to be CBS falling in line rather than some method of boosting Talarico.

Heck, if CBS hadn't shown itself to be in Trump's pocket, I would say this is malicious compliance to draw attention to the FCC's skullduggery.

throw7|12 days ago

[deleted]

nkozyra|12 days ago

> The change here is that late night interviews are not "bona fied news"

Not always the case with Section 315, and late night and talk shows have been exempted in the past. The problem here is that this is on a case-by-case basis, and we have a particularly politically-charged executive agency.

Larrikin|12 days ago

They cite that this goes against the long standing rule and they cite the selective enforcement against Colbert and Kimmel before the interview. Two people the president has directly attacked.

They also cite that they have elected to not enforce the rule against conservative radio hosts.

tclancy|12 days ago

>The change here is that late night interviews are not "bona fied news" so equal time rule kicks in

I'll give you "fear" is the wrong word for a company openly courting the administration, but if the equal time clause applies here because CBS is over-the-air using "a public good", it feels like we're long past a time where it should apply to _at least_ cable stations. Ideally, the whole thing would be put back in place how it was before the Regan or Rush Limbaugh era decimation of it (IIRC), but with the net and podcasts and youtube, et al, this is just me getting old and seeing some weird value in locking the splinters of the barn door.

JackFr|12 days ago

It's a terrible look for CBS. At the same time, I find it unbelievable that they don't fire Colbert. This is obvious gross insubordination, and he is an employee.

His final show is coming in May, and I'm sure that they can expect Colbert to continue to embarrass them (as the spineless sycophants they are) every week until then. It's a tremendous self own.

wildzzz|12 days ago

Colbert is not a CBS employee. He runs Spartina Productions which, along with Busboy Productions, produces The Late Show for CBS. It's a coordinated project of the three companies, he's not their employee and likely can't just cancel the show except for very specific circumstances.

ImPostingOnHN|11 days ago

"insubordination" is such a weird term:

If you don't like a coworker questioning your behavior, maybe don't engage in questionable behavior;

If you just want them to do what you say unquestionably, maybe you should have been born during a time when slavery was more common;

If you are having trouble getting good output out of a direct report that previously has produced good output, chances are you are currently a failure of a boss; and if you use terms like "insubordination" instead of asking "what am I doing wrong?", you probably have pointy hair, too.

hn_acker|12 days ago

> This is obvious gross insubordination

Really? CBS's lawyers cited the equal time rule, which only applies to broadcasts sent over limited airwaves. I think the equal time rule doesn't actually apply in this case (because why couldn't CBS provide equal time in the near future? who even requested equal time and was denied it?), but more relevantly the equal time rule does not apply to publishing the same interview over the internet instead of over the "air".

msie|12 days ago

Ha, it's spineless that they are self-censoring themselves. Whatever happened to Freedom of the Press?

gz5|12 days ago

we'll need more facts but if there is substance to this then the reaction from Bari Weiss (now cbs news editor-in-chief and a long-time public advocate of free speech) and team will be interesting.

Avshalom|12 days ago

It will not be interesting because she has never been an advocate of free speech.

hypersoar|12 days ago

Bari Weiss cut her teeth in college trying to get professors fired for criticizing Israel. She's hardly an advocate for free speech.

adamors|12 days ago

Bari Weiss is not a long-time anything, she ran a blog for a couple of years and has been appointed head of CBS to run it into the ground.

giraffe_lady|12 days ago

Will it? Weiss seems to understands her role here very well. Her competence at it is still in question but she is consistent. CBS is state media now, she'll say what she's expected to say.

Hikikomori|12 days ago

So she'll allow criticism of Israel then?

coldpie|12 days ago

> a long-time public advocate of free speech

What? I thought she was associated with & supported by Republicans.

1970-01-01|12 days ago

"Didn't air" doesn't mean what you think it means. It means the interview didn't go over the airwaves via broadcast towers. The full interview is online, which thanks to the Streisand effect already has millions of views and therfore helped CBS in terms of funding. This can be seen as a 4D chess move by CBS. They'll certainly do this again if they're hitting millions of views.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiTJ7Pz_59A

fwip|12 days ago

The youtube video currently has ~1.4 million views. Colbert averages 2 to 3 million television viewers per night, plus some number of youtube views that I haven't looked up the stats for.

That is, this interview has been seen by fewer people than it would have, had it been on television.

jasonlotito|12 days ago

> "Didn't air" doesn't mean what you think it means. It means the interview didn't go over the airwaves via broadcast towers.

That means exactly what I thought it meant. It's still just as bad.

patmorgan23|12 days ago

It's 4D chess by Colbert and his producer, not the network.

hackyhacky|12 days ago

> This can be seen as a 4D chess move by CBS.

It isn't. CBS is owned by the Ellisons, who are big Trump supporters. They are absolutely complicit in attempts to quash dissenting voices.

You're right that the Streisand effect is in play here, but it's not 4D chess. It's garden-variety incompetence, because the policy makers in the government are too old to see anything other than broadcast TV as the most valuable medium.