Overview
- Brendan Carr told the CPAC crowd on Friday in Grapevine, Texas, that President Trump is winning a fight with the “fake news media,” casting recent industry changes as proof.
- He pointed to PBS and NPR losing federal funding, the exits of Joy Reid, Chuck Todd, Jim Acosta, John Dickerson, and Stephen Colbert, and ownership shifts at CBS, with a possible CNN change tied to a still-pending Warner Bros.–Paramount deal.
- The speech came after Carr warned TV networks they could lose broadcast licenses for what he called hoaxes in Iran war coverage, a threat critics said was meant to chill reporting.
- Backlash spread online and in coverage from Mediaite, TheWrap, and TV Insider, while the conservative outlet Newsbusters defended Carr’s framing and dismissed worries about FCC partisanship.
- Legal checks are active, as Forbes reported a California federal judge issued a 14-day order blocking Nexstar’s planned purchase of TEGNA after state attorneys general sought to halt the deal.