“I have sat across from station owners who have told me that they are genuinely afraid of being dragged before the FCC simply for doing their jobs.”
Commissioner Anna Gomez made that remark in accepting an award from UnidosUS, a Latino civil rights and advocacy organization.
Gomez was honored during its conference in Austin, Texas, “for her leadership in protecting free speech and expanding broadband access.”
An outspoken critic of the Trump administration and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, Gomez is the only current Democrat on the FCC, where two of the five usual seats have been vacant for an extended period.
She noted that the UnidosUS award usually has been given to journalists, who are “often the real heroes in moments like the one we are living through right now, when the First Amendment itself is under sustained attack.” The award is named after Ruben Salazar, an activist and reporter who was killed during a march against the Vietnam War in 1970.
Gomez said she had not expected that speech concerns “would become one of the central fights of my career. But that is exactly where we find ourselves today.”
She reiterated her criticisms of the administration for conducting what she called a campaign of censorship and control against broadcasters and journalists.
“I have sat across from station owners who have told me that they are genuinely afraid of being dragged before the FCC simply for doing their jobs. I have heard from a respected journalist whose own broadcaster told him his contract would be ended early, not because of his ratings or his conduct, but because his past coverage had angered this administration and they did not want to risk angering it further,” she said, according to a transcript released by her office.
“This administration has become remarkably skilled at building that kind of fear, and not just with journalists and broadcasters. Universities, law firms and countless other institutions have faced the same pressure to fall in line rather than risk becoming the next target.”
Gomez repeated her oft-made comment that if she is removed from the commission, “it will not be because I failed to do my job. It will be because I insisted on doing it.”
She called on journalists to have courage. “Find that courage and use it. Push back, stand up, and defend the First Amendment as if our democracy depends on it, because it does.”
In an interview with Politico last week, Chairman Carr defended his actions and rejected arguments that he seeks to punish critics of the president.
“I don’t view the FCC as the speech police,” he told the publication. “I think in the media space in particular, the FCC over the last 20 or 30 years really backed away from the regulatory framework that Congress put in place.”
