CBS Asks FCC to Dismiss ‘News Distortion’ Complaint Over ‘60 Minutes’ Harris Interview as ‘Blatant Interference With Free Speech’

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor CBS has asked the FCC to reject a complaint by a right-wing public interest law firm alleging a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris represented “news distortion” — with the Paramount Global-owned broadcaster saying the complaint is premised on the notion that the U.S.

government can be a “roving censor.” Last October, the Center for American Rights filed a complaint accusing CBS’s WCBS station in New York of “significant and intentional news distortion” through an interview with Harris on “Face the Nation” and “60 Minutes” that had “two conflicting responses.” Separately, President Trump sued CBS over the same interview, demanding $20 billion in damages and alleging violation of a consumer protection law; Paramount and CBS filed motions March 6 seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, calling it an “affront to the First Amendment.” CBS, in its March 7 response to the FCC over the Center for American Rights complaint, said that “The Complaint filed against CBS for ‘news distortion’ envisions a less free world in which the federal government becomes a roving censor — one that second guesses and even punishes specific editorial decisions that are an essential part of producing news programming.” “The protections of the First Amendment apply to all Americans, including broadcasters like CBS and its stations,” CBS said in the filing. “A broadcaster engages in protected speech activity whenever it ‘exercises editorial discretion in the selection and presentation of its programming.’… Were the Commission to find against CBS, it would open the door to regular and repeated second guessing of broadcasters’ editorial judgments across the ideological spectrum.