ABC sued the FCC on Tuesday, accusing the agency of violating its First Amendment rights and waging a “retaliatory campaign” against the network, according to The New York Times.
The lawsuit comes after the FCC launched an early review of ABC’s local broadcast licenses, citing the network’s internal diversity and inclusion practices. The FCC’s review also followed Trump’s repeated criticism of ABC programming including Jimmy Kimmel Live and The View, and a pressure campaign to even take these shows off the air.
“The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: accommodate the Administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price,” ABC’s lawyers wrote in the suit. “Across the government, regulatory and contracting carrots and sticks have been trained on other disfavored speakers. The tools vary; the objective does not: a media industry too fearful of official reprisal to report the news freely.”
