Fox Calls Push to Block FCC Broadcast License for Deliberate Election Lies Violation of Free Speech

Fox News is arguing that blocking the renewal of a broadcast license for its Philadelphia TV station because of deliberate lies about the 2020 presidential election would be a "violation of the First Amendment."

The non-partisan watchdog Media and Democracy Project (MAD) last month filed a petition calling on the  Federal Communication Commission to refuse to renew the broadcast license for the Fox 29 Philadelphia station.

It cites Dominion Voting System’s defamation suit against Fox over deliberate election lies, which Fox settled earlier this year for nearly $800 million.

The suit exposed Fox's continued lies claiming election fraud — even though internal communications demonstrated that Fox personalities and managers knew the statements they pushed out to the public were false.

Fox attorneys on Wednesday warned the FCC in a filing Wednesday that if the commission adjudicated a "broadcast license renewal on the basis of cable network content [it would be] in violation of the First Amendment and the authority delegated to the Commission by Congress.”

The Dominion suit and settlement have “no bearing” on the license, the attorneys insisted.

Outlets granted FCC broadcast licenses to operate on public airwaves are constrained by standards intended to serve the public interest.

MAD's petition argues that senior management of the Fox Corporation broadcast "knowingly false narratives" about the election.

Furthermore, Fox's "intentional and chronic news distortion further divided the country, sowing discord that was a contributing factor to the attack on our nation's Capitol on January 6, 2021," the petition adds.

Yet media operations granted an FCC broadcast license have a "statutory duty to conduct its operations in the public interest," which Fox 29, and other Fox stations, have failed to do, MAD argued in its statement.

Neoconservative Bill Kristol, who worked for Fox News for a decade, has also called on the FCC not to renew the station's license.

"Media companies ... granted the privilege to serve the public through the operation of FCC-licensed television stations have a corollary duty to facilitate and strengthen democracy," Kristol, a Republican, wrote in a letter to the FCC, along with former PBS president Ervin Duggan.

That requires "adhering to the highest journalistic standards in reporting and distributing news to ensure that the public has solid facts upon which to make the decisions that are essential to our society's future as a democracy," the men added.

The license for Fox's Philadelphia station is apparently being targeted because it's the first Fox license to come up for renewal since the Dominion suit.

MAD is calling on the FCC to hold a hearing on Fox's "severe breach [of] qualifications" to be granted a broadcast license.