Left–Right Coalition Files Petition to Strike 'News Distortion' Rule
Advocates said the policy created risks for newsroom independence and speech.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2025— A cross-ideological coalition of former Federal Communications Commission leaders, public interest advocates, and free market groups filed at petition Thursday urging the agency to repeal its “News Distortion policy, arguing the rule is unconstitutional, vague, and unnecessary.
The official "petitioners" on the brief were seven former FCC chairs and commissioners, plus four former top agency aides: Andrew Barrett, Rachelle Chong, Ervin Duggan, Mark Fowler, Dennis Patrick, Alfred Sikes, Thomas Wheeler, Christopher Wright, Kathryn Brown, Jerald Fritz and Peter Pitsch.
The coalition wrote that the policy “casts an omnipresent shadow” over editorial decisions despite being enforced only eight times in sixty years, almost exclusively for intentional hoaxes.
Signing on to the brief were Conor Gaffney and Rachel Goodman of the anti-authoritarian Protect Democracy Project; Berin Szóka of Tech Freedom, a libertarian-leaning technology-policy group; longtime public interest advocate and former FCC nominee Gigi Sohn; and veteran public interest advocate Andrew Jay Schwartzman. They asked the FCC to eliminate the doctrine in full.
The groups said the rule conflicts with modern First Amendment limits on government oversight of news content and no longer fits the structure of today’s media environment. The petitioners said the policy cannot be reconciled with Supreme Court precedent, including Moody v. NetChoice, which held that the government may not attempt to “un-bias” media coverage.
The News Distortion policy, first articulated in 1949, allows the FCC to revoke or deny a broadcaster’s license if the agency finds “deliberate distortion” of the news. The doctrine survived the FCC’s repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 and requires extrinsic evidence that newsroom leadership intentionally falsified or staged coverage.
In the filing, the groups also referenced how Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr “has invoked the News Distortion policy and the public interest obligations of broadcasters.”
Origins of ‘News Distortion’
In the petition, the groups said the rule originated in an era when Congress believed regulators should ensure “reasonably balanced” use of the public airwaves, a view they argue is incompatible with modern First Amendment doctrine. “The FCC has no legitimate interest in correcting or punishing what it it considers to be slanted news coverage,” the petition said, adding that the policy had “already shown itself vulnerable to partisan weaponization.”
Although separate from the petition, other free market advocates have been critical of the way that Carr has purported to apply the “public interest” standard to broadcasting.
Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation, recently recounted and critiqued the FCC’s use of pre-20th Century statutes written to regulate monopoly railroads, telegraph lines, and nascent radio systems. Those laws required operators to serve the “public interest, convenience, and necessity.”
Congress carried those provisions into the Communications Act of 1934 with little change, and May said that in today’s marketplace, the public interest standard remains “malleable” and “susceptible to abuse.”
Others critical of ‘News Distortion’
The coalition of groups filing the petition said that the FCC’s hoax rule already covers the “outright fabrication” of news involving public safety, eliminating the need for separate “News Distortion” authority.
They said recent investigations and reopened complaints showed how easily the doctrine could be used against disfavored speakers, and they cited instances in which the agency revisited complaints tied to political disputes, warning that such actions raised “grave risks” to free press and expression.
Commissioner Anna Gomez held a parallel critique in a separate statement Thursday, saying the FCC “does not have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to go after broadcasters for their news content.”
Gomez said regulators “must respect the rule of law” and “uphold the Constitution” when evaluating broadcast material, adding that “a free press is never subjected to regulatory interference by the FCC.”
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