Fear is the enforcement mechanism because it can't be challenged in court.

It is long past time for everyone in tech to take a long hard look at the current situation and stop doing anything that financially benefits Musk, Ellison, or Thiel.

Didn’t Putin then run for a third term and because he corrupted the voting machines, remain in power? He started having dissenters abducted by plainclothes masked men in vans for the fear factor. Quietly, dissent stopped and everyone learned that when you go against Putin, you face defenestration.

I think the FCC is just enforcing the rule that you have to give equal time to all candidates. The late night talk shows used to get around this policy by using the exception given to news agencies. The FCC is just saying that the late night talk shows aren't really "news" shows. Probably should have been doing this the whole time. They also noted that it would not be a problem on cable or internet broadcasts. Not saying it's not politically motivated though.

Indeed. Mark Zuckerberg has long said the administration pressured Facebook to censor COVID-related content, including satire and humor. And now the administration has ended public funding for NPR and PBS. Chilling effect

It goes back even further, just see the 1941 FCC “Mayflower Decision” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_doctrine

If only they could "slip on some tea"...

Barbara Streisand

It's kind of ironic, so much drama all for a safe centrist corporate democrat. Although perhaps that's why it's such a big deal for liberals, it's oligarchical infighting. It's even more confusing that he's funded by the same billionaires that trump is.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/21/james-talarico-miri...

There's a decent amount of non-profit news. I read NPR a lot and donate to them and Propublica. I think one of the big issues is advertising so news you actually pay for is a lot less likely to clickbait you.

Not all the legacy newspapers are failing; NYT is doing well. There are other news sources beyond legacy newspapers, broadcasters, local news, and social media. There are wire services (AP, Reuters), insider access journalism (Axios, Punchbowl, Semafor), public media (NPR, PBS, BBC), investigative journalism (ProPublica), digital-first outlets (Politico, Vox), and the growing wave of small, indie , creator-led media (YouTube, Substack, Patreon).

Someone already mentioned NPR. BBC also does a great job reporting on US and international issues. New York Times still does strong reporting. And there are local sources too, such as the Colorado Sun, LA Times, SF Chronicle, or SF Gate (obviously I’m in the US).

If its any consolation, I think CBS news will fail miserably. The new captains are at the helm of a sinking ship, which has been taking on water for decades.

Maybe a cynic will say "this was the plan", but if it was, its not a very good plan? If anything, tech executives benefited enormously from their opponents being overly attached to legacy media communication strategies. When Bezos kills the Post or Ellison kills CBS, the talent doesnt magically disappear.

The right has an extremely large chip on their shoulder when insisting that the their _more popular media outlets_ do not count as "mainstream media" because... reasons.

Tbh, in this case the fault lies more with CBS for obeying in advance. The FCC hasn't actually made the rule change yet.

Normal authoritarian state behavior, no?

My understanding (please correct me if it's incorrect) is that the "worst-case" scenario for a broadcaster is that they may have to upload a record of political air time to a public file.

If an opposing candidate sees this, they can then request equal air time from that broadcaster.

The rule is in place so that one party or viewpoint can't dominate broadcast media. That's a good thing right?

The rule change here is that traditionally "bona fide" news programs have been, by default, issued an exception to the rule. That has spawned a bunch of "pseudo-news" shows that have also been claiming this exception. Here, the FCC is now saying "hey, you don't just automatically get granted an exception to the rule and get to call yourself a bona fide news program if you're not actually one"". That seems completely reasonable to me.

Broadcast media is held to this FCC standard because they are granted a monopoly for a broadcast spectrum, and it isn't physically possible for a competitor to broadcast on the same spectrum. Streaming etc... doesn't need to follow these rules.

I do think it's wrong that talk radio doesn't seem to be held to the same standard, though.

This is a terrifying level of chilling effects. What are we to consider about our nation at this point? "Free speech" has long been a term with contested definitions, but this certainly sounds like its death in every sense.

And Elon Musk will absolutely lose it on Twitter.

That's why the rightward shift is unavoidable and corporate Dems like Talarico only further this shift into fascism. Even if liberals win it only means the next right-wing candidate is going to be even more extreme than the last.

People think that's crazy talk, even though it's happening right in front of their faces since Obama, we're cooked.

The difference is the airwaves are a limited transmission method. A broadcast medium is not regulated because it's dangerous, it's regulated because it's scarce.

None of the statements in your comment support the idea that the internet is a broadcast medium in the sense relevant to the FCC. It's a medium made entirely of 1-1 connections.

Note that newspapers are an older technology than radio, and they function in exactly the same way that the internet does, and there's never been a question of whether they are secretly "broadcast media".

You can call your local affiliate to complain:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-tv-stations-affiliates/

Better yet, call their advertisers:

https://stopmediabiasnow.com/cbs-advertisers/

Watch/like/comment/share the YouTube upload:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiTJ7Pz_59A

More indirectly, you can support the Talarico campaign (fueling a financial Streisand effect could help discourage similar moves in the future):

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/jt-tx-web

CBS is responding rationally (cowardly, certainly, but also rationally) to an administration that is misusing the tools of state.

Change the administration.

They'll respond to a loss of business or reputational damage.

Reputational damage is a less useful tool today, when so many of the people in power at CBS have personal reasons for wanting to curry favor with the administration. So, loss of business: simply boycotting or changing the channel can help.

I think corporate media is mostly lost. We need to build something new. Pay attention to things like The Bulwark or Liberal Currents. It's really early days for all that, so who knows where things go, but people like Bezos would rather destroy media outlets than sell them to someone who would allow them to speak out against the regime.

You can't get CBS to air it, but you can let people know not to watch CBS.

Colbert is not a CBS employee. He runs Spartina Productions which, along with Busboy Productions, produces The Late Show for CBS. It's a coordinated project of the three companies, he's not their employee and likely can't just cancel the show except for very specific circumstances.

Ha, it's spineless that they are self-censoring themselves. Whatever happened to Freedom of the Press?

I have no idea what this means

It will not be interesting because she has never been an advocate of free speech.

Bari Weiss cut her teeth in college trying to get professors fired for criticizing Israel. She's hardly an advocate for free speech.

Bari Weiss is not a long-time anything, she ran a blog for a couple of years and has been appointed head of CBS to run it into the ground.

Will it? Weiss seems to understands her role here very well. Her competence at it is still in question but she is consistent. CBS is state media now, she'll say what she's expected to say.

> a long-time public advocate of free speech

What? I thought she was associated with & supported by Republicans.

All marketing is meant to induce feelings that compensate for reality's deficiencies.

I use cat litter that is "99% dust free". I'll give you one guess what that remaining 1% by weight is.

The words after FCC crackdown were including opening a probe into ABC’s “The View,” after Talarico appeared on the show.

It's a change Carr has publicly contemplated making, but hasn't yet. This is more about CBS under Ellison-controlled Paramount (who is on a quest to consolidate a conservative media empire) to curry favor with the administration by obeying in advance. (The CBS policy is new.)

In FCC DA 26-68 they gave public notice of their change of interpretation/enforcement of the equal time rules to apply to this situation.

Uh, why exactly are we inventing a completely speculative alternate possibility when this is perfectly in line with Brendan Carr's multiple public statements and recent examples wielding FCC regulatory power to strong arm media organizations that he claims have a pattern of liberal bias, as well as the recent actions of CBS.

It is far more likely for this to be CBS falling in line rather than some method of boosting Talarico.

Heck, if CBS hadn't shown itself to be in Trump's pocket, I would say this is malicious compliance to draw attention to the FCC's skullduggery.

It is trivial to do both.

> This can be seen as a 4D chess move by CBS.

It isn't. CBS is owned by the Ellisons, who are big Trump supporters. They are absolutely complicit in attempts to quash dissenting voices.

You're right that the Streisand effect is in play here, but it's not 4D chess. It's garden-variety incompetence, because the policy makers in the government are too old to see anything other than broadcast TV as the most valuable medium.

The youtube video currently has ~1.4 million views. Colbert averages 2 to 3 million television viewers per night, plus some number of youtube views that I haven't looked up the stats for.

That is, this interview has been seen by fewer people than it would have, had it been on television.

> "Didn't air" doesn't mean what you think it means. It means the interview didn't go over the airwaves via broadcast towers.

That means exactly what I thought it meant. It's still just as bad.

It's 4D chess by Colbert and his producer, not the network.