Well, now I have heard it all.
The Media and Democracy Project is working to have Fox 29 taken off the air since its broadcasting license is up for renewal.
The project maintains that Fox 29, whose parent company is Fox Corporation, allowed the network to broadcast false narratives during the 2020 election season, reports Yahoo!
Good Luck
A statement by the Media and Democracy Project (MDP) stated, “The intentional distortion of news, authorized at the highest levels of Fox’s corporate structure, and fabricated by management and on-air personalities, represents a severe breach of the FCC’s policy on licensee character qualifications.”
Among the petition’s backers is Preston Padden, a former Fox executive, who stated, “In my opinion, as a result of Fox’s knowingly false narrative, large numbers of that radicalized population ransacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, causing injury, property damage, and attacking the very foundation of our democracy,” reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Fox had to almost wipe the tears away from its eyes from laughing so hard over the charges.
The network responded, “WTXF-TV/FOX 29 News Philadelphia is one of the finest local news stations in the country, broadcasting over 60 hours of local news and locally produced programming every week.”
Unlike major news outlets, local affiliates are subject to the FCC and must renew their license. While it is feasible that the FCC could deny the license, it is not likely to happen simply because of the door it would open.
If Fox 29 gets denied, you better believe conservative groups are going to go all-in on every liberal-oriented local station for their own untruths that were uttered over the last six years, and there are plenty of them.
The only ground this petition has to stand on is the settlement that Fox News reached with Dominion Voting Systems, but I still doubt that would carry that much weight in terms of denying a local station its broadcasting license.
Northeastern University professor Dan Kennedy, a fierce defender of the First Amendment, responded, “They’re going after a local Fox-owned-and-operated station because of what another part of the Fox media empire is doing.
“Fox 29 ought to be held accountable for what appears on Fox 29. It shouldn’t be used as a pawn in a larger war for what’s going on with Fox News Channel.”
I wish I could say that I was 100 percent certain the complaint will fall on deaf ears, but today, we all know this depends on how it plays out legally and if a Democrat or Republican-appointed the judge that is overseeing the case.
Right now, this is nothing more than an ant hill, so let’s hope it does not become a mountain.
