00:00Well, Donald Trump and his administration have ramped up their criticism of the coverage of the war in Iran.
00:06Polls show that a majority of the American public does not approve of the military operation,
00:10and the U.S. president has accused media outlets of not being patriotic
00:14simply because they're not portraying the war in glowing terms.
00:18The Federal Communications Commission has even threatened to revoke licenses of broadcasters
00:23for what the Trump administration has referred to as distortions and lies.
00:27Selena Sykes has the details.
00:31You're a very obnoxious person.
00:34Corrating reporters, accusing American news organizations of disloyalty to their country
00:40and threatening to remove networks' licenses.
00:43The Trump administration is ramping up its attacks on the media over its coverage of the war in the Middle
00:49East.
00:50Last week, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegssef used a Pentagon briefing to scold media outlets
00:55for what he deemed insufficiently positive coverage of the war.
00:59Going as far as making his own suggestions for headlines.
01:03Another example of a fake headline that I saw yesterday.
01:07War widening.
01:09Here's a real headline for you for an actual patriotic press.
01:13How about Iran shrinking, going underground?
01:16Meanwhile, top media regulator Brendan Carr, who was appointed by Donald Trump to the Federal Communications Commission last year,
01:24issued an explicit warning to television networks on social media.
01:29Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions, also known as the fake news,
01:34have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.
01:39A threat that Trump said he was so thrilled to see.
01:42The FCC does not regulate networks like CBS, NBC and ABC,
01:47but it does have the authority to reject licenses of individual affiliates of those networks when they come up for
01:54renewal.
01:55Cable networks such as CNN are not under the FCC's purview.
01:59Though for its critics, Carr's declaration is part of an intimidation campaign by Trump and his allies
02:05against the freedom of the press under the First Amendment.
02:10And for more on this story, I'm joined by Bob Korn Revere,
02:13Chief Counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
02:16He's also a former Chief Counsel, former FCC Chairman James Coelho.
02:20Thanks so much for being with us here on France 24.
02:23You know, for years, Donald Trump has referred to the media as the enemy of the people.
02:28But in the last year, his administration's assault on the American media has really, really escalated,
02:33I think it's fair to say.
02:34He's accused media outlets of sharing lies and even committing treason.
02:39In your view, has the American media been fair when it comes to its coverage of this war in Iran?
02:47I think, well, the media has been covering this war the way it covers any war.
02:52Some of it is more favorable to the administration, some of it less.
02:56But the question of whether or not the government can take direct action against the press
03:01because it doesn't like the way it's reporting, is totally foreign to our system.
03:05It's something that the First Amendment would never permit.
03:08And it's something that the Federal Communications Commission has no authority to do.
03:14Yeah, you mentioned the FCC.
03:15For decades, the FCC has been an independent agency.
03:18But under Brendan Carr, that seems to have changed.
03:21He's threatening to revoke broadcast licenses of media outlets for their war coverage.
03:27I think you're the perfect person to ask this.
03:29Have we ever seen the FCC used in this way?
03:34No, we have not.
03:36We've never seen the FCC be this nakedly political or to define itself as a mere extension of the presidency.
03:45The FCC was created in the 1930s to be an independent regulatory agency.
03:50It's something that the current chairman of the FCC seems to have forgotten.
03:55Do you feel like this is troubling, looking at what we're seeing right now?
04:00Well, it's troubling in that having worked at the FCC, and as with other FCC officials taking an oath of
04:08office to uphold the Constitution of the United States,
04:11I find it painful personally to see the agency prostituted in this way.
04:20I don't think it has much impact in terms of what's going to happen legally.
04:26Television licenses are not even supposed to begin coming up for renewal until after this administration will be out of
04:32office.
04:33So it is simply a threat being wielded by a powerful regulator to try and condition the behavior of broadcast
04:41stations.
04:42The White House has been very critical of how the war is being covered, as we saw in that report.
04:46Donald Trump's Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has really taken this to a new level.
04:51He recently tried to rewrite newspaper headlines from the podium, literally telling journalists how to do their job.
04:59Hegseth seems to think that journalists should be stenographers just writing down whatever he says.
05:06Is that how you interpret this?
05:09That's not how journalism works.
05:12And Hegseth also was reported to have banned photographers from the Pentagon for failing to take flattering pictures of him.
05:19It's really different manifestations of the same malady, the same problem.
05:24You have powerful people in government thinking they can control what the coverage is and how the press is supposed
05:30to report about them and about the events that they're responsible for.
05:34Now, we recently saw a journalist who was arrested while doing his job, Don Lemon, a former anchor at CNN.
05:40He was reporting on a protest at a church in Minnesota.
05:43He was arrested.
05:44He now faces criminal charges.
05:47Of course, Don Lemon was a former target of Donald Trump during Trump's first term.
05:52How is this any different from an authoritarian like Vladimir Putin targeting and prosecuting journalists that he sees as a
06:01threat?
06:02Well, this is how authoritarian governments operate.
06:05They target either individual reporters, as the president has done, or they target the press in general.
06:11Whenever it is perceived to be unfavorable to them, they will take whatever action within their authority, which they think
06:19is within their authority, to take.
06:22Now, there is a difference between Vladimir Putin, who has murdered journalists, and the kinds of things going on here.
06:29But what is happening in this country right now is, as I mentioned before, foreign to our system of free
06:37press.
06:38Now, there have been changes at CBS since Barry Weiss took over, the former head of the free press.
06:44Perhaps changes will be coming to CNN with David Ellison at the helm with that deal in its final stages.
06:50How would you evaluate the general health of journalism, of the journalism landscape in the U.S. at the moment?
07:00Well, I think we're in the middle of a significant challenge.
07:04Part of the problem is that when you have these efforts by government to put pressure on media institutions,
07:10it is incumbent upon those institutions to stand on their rights and to assert their independence.
07:17There have also been a troubling number of private lawsuits brought by the president against news organizations,
07:27private lawsuits that have no legal merit whatsoever, but have resulted in settlements because of the pressure that the president
07:36has been able to bring through his regulatory agencies.
07:41Now, the White House has posted a number of what you'd have to say are propaganda videos to its official
07:47social media sites with music, explosions, portraying the war as a video game.
07:52How do you square that with the administration's criticism of responsible messaging when it comes to a war where people
08:01are losing their lives?
08:05Well, I think in general, when you have coverage that doesn't attribute the seriousness to being at war that is
08:15demanded of that kind of national act,
08:18that is a concern, and it's a concern in the way that it is being portrayed, and it's a concern
08:26for how news organizations view their ethical obligations.
08:33Do you think there are reliable sources of information, you know, media?
08:37I know there are reliable sources of information in the U.S., but do you think that information is getting
08:41to the general American public?
08:44I think there are reliable sources of information, but because we have so many sources from online sources, broadcast sources,
08:53and on cable,
08:53all of that requires people to be more vigilant to try and vet the information that they get.
09:00Fortunately, there are also evolving various kinds of organizations to help people evaluate whether or not a news source is
09:07trustworthy or not.
09:08But it does require citizens to exercise more vigilance in trying to determine what is reliable news and what isn't.
09:17The one thing that is certain is that you can't really trust the government to say whether something is, as
09:22they would say, fake news or legitimate news.
09:25That's something that we have to evaluate for ourselves, and that's what a free press demands.
09:30And certainly we invite anyone to watch France 24.
09:33We're always striving to be a reliable source of information.
09:35Bob Korn-Rivere, Chief Counselor for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
09:40Thanks very much for joining us tonight on France 24.
09:42We appreciate it.
09:44Thanks so much.
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