The primary U.S. media regulator doesn’t have much it can do to punish Fox News for spreading false claims about the 2020 election.
It could, theoretically, target Fox Corp. Chair Rupert Murdoch and some of his Fox broadcasting affiliates.
The Federal Communications Commission’s oversight of Fox’s broadcast licenses means the regulator could bring its power to bear on Murdoch in his admission that he could have stopped Fox News from spreading misleading claims about Dominion Voting Systems, which by extension helped spread the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
“But I didn’t,” Murdoch said in a deposition for the lawsuit in which Dominion Voting Systems is asking for damages of $1.6 billion.
Experts who spoke with NBC News don’t expect action, citing how the FCC has changed over time and the difficulty in bringing major challenges in a situation where its power is relatively limited.
The FCC’s most relevant power in relation to Murdoch is the granting of broadcast licenses, in which it allows private companies to use public airwaves as long as certain criteria are met. Among those criteria is what it calls “character qualifications,” which can include felony convictions as well as other court rulings.
But the FCC has far less power when it comes to cable TV channels, which don’t use public airwaves for transmission.
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