Anna Gomez is the only Democrat at the current FCC because Republicans simply refuse to seat any new ones (or even formally renew her term, which technically was supposed to end over the summer). And while Gomez may not have much voting authority, she’s done a good job criticizing the Brendan Carr-run agency for its endless First Amendment-trampling censorship efforts.
As we’ve all seen in vivid detail, America’s corporate media giants have been utterly feckless cowards during America’s dance with authoritarianism. Most media giants are far more interested in tax cuts, deregulation, and getting their giant and pointless mergers approved than they are in pesky things like human lives, public safety, civil rights, and democratic norms.
But as Trump’s health and political power have begun to fade, you’ll occasionally see media giants show some backbone (see: ABC’s lawsuit against the FCC for repeated First Amendment violations).
Last week, Brendan Carr began threatening media outlets with costly investigations should they simply report on polls the thin-skinned president doesn’t like. In response, Gomez has sent a letter to the National Association of Broadcasters’ (NAB) president and CEO Curtis LeGeyt, urging him to find his spine:
News coverage of a poll that doesn’t favor a political party is not an invitation to meddle in an election through intimidation.I'm urging the National Association of Broadcasters to stand up to this pressure and make sure every station knows what the law actually requires.
— FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez (@agomezfcc.bsky.social) 2026-10-23T17:24:33.808Z
Gomez’s letter reiterates that Carr’s threats are illegal and empty. The rule Carr is citing is the “broadcast news distortion rule.” It was created in 1949 and gives the agency the power to punish media companies for clear ethical violations involving an intentional, misleading distortion of “a significant event and not merely a minor or incidental aspect of the news report.”
The president being upset because his polling is cratering does not qualify, Gomez notes:
“Absent that level of clear evidence, this commission has no authority to act. Reporting the results of a poll this administration happens to dislike does not come close to meeting those standards.”
Gomez also penned letters to giant broadcasters like Disney, reminding them that the law is very much on their side:
It remains unclear if Carr will ever see any meaningful accountability for his extremist censorship campaigns while at the FCC. The most likely outcome remains a comfortable high six figure think tank job in media and telecom industries that — should we actually survive authoritarianism — will be very keen to pretend absolutely none of this ever happened.
