24 votes

US Federal Communications Commission's Brendan Carr warns broadcasters on Iran reporting

10 comments

  1. MimicSquid
    Link
    He is one of the most poisonous figures in the administration. What he's done to the FCC is so worrying.

    He is one of the most poisonous figures in the administration. What he's done to the FCC is so worrying.

    16 votes
  2. [8]
    thearctic
    Link

    "Broadcasters must ​operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if ​they do not," Carr wrote.

    ...

    On Saturday, he wrote of "hoaxes and distortions" during the 2024 presidential campaign and said "the public has lost faith and confidence ​in the media." ​By including Trump's ⁠post, Carr for the first time extended his own criticisms to wartime coverage.

    15 votes
    1. vord
      Link Parent
      Public interest being a euphemism for reporting civilian deaths as enemy combatants, veterans as heros and not victims, and serving as military porn to fuel public support for foreverwar.

      Public interest being a euphemism for reporting civilian deaths as enemy combatants, veterans as heros and not victims, and serving as military porn to fuel public support for foreverwar.

      17 votes
    2. [6]
      snowgoon
      Link Parent
      Well known play to underminere the free press. Lügenpresse

      Well known play to underminere the free press.
      Lügenpresse

      12 votes
      1. [5]
        hobbes64
        Link Parent
        The fascists aren’t hiding the fascism at all but we still get arguments from people who say it’s not fascism.

        The fascists aren’t hiding the fascism at all but we still get arguments from people who say it’s not fascism.

        9 votes
        1. [4]
          thearctic
          Link Parent
          Fascism is a very specific and debated term, and we could still be headed for an authoritarian nightmare without it necessarily being fascism. It's an important distinction because if we look for...

          Fascism is a very specific and debated term, and we could still be headed for an authoritarian nightmare without it necessarily being fascism. It's an important distinction because if we look for the signs of fascism and don't find them, it doesn't mean we aren't headed for disaster politically. For instance, I don't expect that America will ever fully abandon cultural liberalism. That doesn't mean we won't, say, have the de facto elimination of free speech, a powerful surveillance state, and a military and intelligence apparatus that operates completely outside of democratic control.

          5 votes
          1. [3]
            hobbes64
            Link Parent
            I will appeal to authority with this recent article from The Atlantic which lays out how yes this actually is fascism. And this was written before the attack on Iran and the conviction of...

            I will appeal to authority with this recent article from The Atlantic which lays out how yes this actually is fascism. And this was written before the attack on Iran and the conviction of protestors as "Antifa terrorists"

            Yes It's Fascism - The Atlantic Jan 25 2026

            Until recently, I resisted using the F-word to describe President Trump. For one thing, there were too many elements of classical fascism that didn’t seem to fit. For another, the term has been overused to the point of meaninglessness, especially by left-leaning types who call you a fascist if you oppose abortion or affirmative action. For yet another, the term is hazily defined, even by its adherents. From the beginning, fascism has been an incoherent doctrine, and even today scholars can’t agree on its definition. Italy’s original version differed from Germany’s, which differed from Spain’s, which differed from Japan’s.

            When the facts change, I change my mind. Recent events have brought Trump’s governing style into sharper focus. Fascist best describes it, and reluctance to use the term has now become perverse. That is not because of any one or two things he and his administration have done but because of the totality. Fascism is not a territory with clearly marked boundaries but a constellation of characteristics. When you view the stars together, the constellation plainly appears.

            ...

            Over Trump’s past year, what originally looked like an effort to make the government his personal plaything has drifted distinctly toward doctrinal and operational fascism. Trump’s appetite for lebensraum, his claim of unlimited power, his support for the global far right, his politicization of the justice system, his deployment of performative brutality, his ostentatious violation of rights, his creation of a national paramilitary police—all of those developments bespeak something more purposeful and sinister than run-of-the-mill greed or gangsterism.

            The article then gives details on these many facets of fascism which are happening in Trump's second term:

            • Glorification of violence
            • Might is right
            • Politicized law enforcement
            • Dehumanization
            • Police-state tactics
            • Undermining elections
            • What’s private is public
            • Attacks on news media
            • Territorial and military aggression
            • Transnational reach
            • Blood-and-soil nationalism
            • White and Christian nationalism
            • Mobs and street thugs
            • Leader aggrandizement
            • Alternative facts
            • Politics as war
            • Governing as revolution
            5 votes
            1. [2]
              thearctic
              Link Parent
              I think there's a good argument to say that Trump is a fascist, but I think it introduces a debate that draws attention from the point. He's an authoritarian who's driving the country off a cliff....

              I think there's a good argument to say that Trump is a fascist, but I think it introduces a debate that draws attention from the point. He's an authoritarian who's driving the country off a cliff. I'm hesitant to call Trumpism fascist because its ideology is ad-hoc. Trump is a creature of an infantile psychology and the MAGA movement will retroactively formalize whatever he says into an ideology simply because he said it. If Trump somehow woke up a social democrat, they'd be die-hard social democrats, which I don't think would apply to a truly fascist movement.

              I guess where I see the fundamental problem is that, though there are many parallels to fascism, I just don't see America abandoning cultural liberalism. That's to say, I think there's a strong likelihood that we'll start to mirror many features of fascism in terms of political power, but I don't think we'll have the sort of highly-regimented cultural conservatism that characterized fascist regimes. But there will be a veneer of liberalism, and I think that pseudo-liberalism will actually be instrumental to drawing the "us versus them" distinction needed to take aggressive acts on the world stage.

              3 votes
              1. hobbes64
                Link Parent
                I think we're mostly in agreement but are just debating the terminology. The problem with Trumpism is that it requires support from a lot of people who are either evil or easily manipulated. When...

                I think we're mostly in agreement but are just debating the terminology.

                The problem with Trumpism is that it requires support from a lot of people who are either evil or easily manipulated. When Trump goes away this isn't going to suddenly end.

                Basically the entire Republican party at a federal level has decided that Trump is above the law and the constitution. We are in a situation where a person who openly tried to overturn an election and fomented an insurrection was put back in power by a party that should have never allowed him to run under their banner the first time.
                It should be clear to everyone that all the things we used to think about American culture and democracy are just empty words and window dressing to a pretty large portion of the general population and elected officials.

                As David Frum famously said:
                "If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." I think that's been proven just by the fact that Trump isn't in jail.

                4 votes
  3. KapteinB
    Link
    It's time for the remaining democracies of the world to create Radio Free America; a media outlet broadcasting accurate information to citizens in American countries where the press is censored or...

    It's time for the remaining democracies of the world to create Radio Free America; a media outlet broadcasting accurate information to citizens in American countries where the press is censored or suppressed.

    2 votes