FCC commissioner joins Disney’s free-speech fight
Walt Disney Co. has picked up a vocal ally in its fight against the Federal Communications Commission: one of the panel’s three commissioners.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez — the panel’s lone Democrat — took a rare step of sending a letter to Disney Chief Executive Officer Josh D’Amaro Monday to describe what she sees as a pressure campaign to weaken not just Disney’s ABC network — but all media outlets that provide critical coverage of President Trump.
“What Disney and ABC are facing is not a series of coincidental regulatory actions but a sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control, carried out through the weaponization of the FCC’s authority as a federal regulator,” Gomez wrote.
The FCC’s efforts were all about “pressuring a free and independent press and all media into submission,” Gomez wrote in the four-page missive to D’Amaro — Disney’s recently installed chief executive.
Her outreach comes after the FCC, in a highly unusual move, initiated an early review of the broadcast licenses for ABC stations that Disney owns, including KABC-TV Channel 7 in Los Angeles. Disney owns eight stations and its licenses were not set to expire for another two to five years.
The FCC also demanded that Disney’s Houston television station explain why the ABC daytime show, “The View,” should be entitled to an exemption from providing equal time rules for politicians whose opponent appears on a program.
Disney has said “The View” was granted an exemption — which is widely used among news programs — in 2002. Last Thursday, Disney sent a blistering letter to the FCC, challenging its inquiry on “The View.”
Gomez has been outspoken about the tactics of her colleague — FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee — and the dangers she said that certain FCC actions represent to 1st Amendment freedoms. Monday’s letter escalated her criticism and gives Disney potent ammunition to use in its legal battle against the FCC.
Disney and the FCC did not immediately comment.
Gomez, a telecommunications attorney, listed four key events, which began when Disney decided to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump one month after he was reelected for a second-term. Some free speech experts felt Disney had a chance to win that case, based on erroneous statements made by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos.
However, Disney agreed to pay $15 million in late 2024 to make the case go away.
“Whatever the legal calculations behind that decision, its effect was immediate and unmistakable,” Gomez wrote. “It told this administration that pressure works. It told every other company watching that capitulation was an option. And it opened the door to every action that has followed.”
Gomez said the administration’s goal has not been to bring challenges that the FCC would have to defend in court, but rather, to prompt TV networks to self-censor and tone down their news coverage as a way to avoid getting pulled into fights with the president and Carr.
“Most [FCC investigations] are destined never to be brought to any enforcement conclusion that could face judicial review,” Gomez wrote. “That is because the threat is the point.”