FCC Commissioner Gomez presses broadcasters on First Amendment at NAB Show

Federal Communications Commissioner Anna Gomez came to the 2026 NAB Show with a question she said the broadcast industry has not yet been willing to answer: where does legitimate government oversight of licensed broadcasters end, and where does unconstitutional interference with editorial judgment begin?

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Gomez, the commission’s lone Democrat, moderated a panel Monday titled “The First Amendment and Press Freedom in Today’s Media Landscape,” framing it around concerns she said have gone unresolved for more than a year. She has spent much of that period conducting what she calls a First Amendment tour, appearing publicly to raise issues she said extend well beyond the FCC itself.

“When I embark on my First Amendment tour and talk to people about this administration’s campaign of censorship and control, I don’t just talk about broadcasters,” she said. “I talk about the entirety of the government trying to control thought, history and what people see and hear, what they consume.”

“Put simply, broadcast journalism has a profound impact on informing the public and fostering civic engagement,” she said in her opening remarks. “This topic is both timely and essential.”

Gomez opened the session by setting out the tensions she said define the current regulatory moment.

“Where do we draw the line between necessary oversight that protects the public interest and overreach that threatens editorial independence?” she said. “And how should changes to the media ecosystem impact constitutional limits on government restrictions over content?”

She also raised what she described as the central problem with government-driven solutions to concerns about bias in journalism: the question of who has the authority to make that determination.

“Some argue that the best remedy for perceived bias is not less speech but more — encouraging a robust debate in a marketplace of ideas where diverse perspectives can flourish,” she said. “Others worry about the potential consequences of unchecked misinformation. But who are the ones making the decisions about what types of information?”

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That question, she said, goes to the core of the First Amendment’s enduring relevance and to the specific circumstances the broadcast industry is now navigating under FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who has opened investigations into broadcast stations over news content, revived previously dismissed complaints against major networks and publicly tied license renewals to coverage he characterized as distorted. Gomez has been among the most vocal critics of that approach within the commission itself.

The legal tools to challenge the FCC’s conduct, Gomez’s panelists argued, already exist. The practical obstacle is finding a broadcaster willing to use them.

Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said the FCC’s actual authority over broadcast programming has always been more limited than Carr’s public statements suggest and that recent Supreme Court decisions make the legal terrain even more favorable for a challenge.

“The FCC’s actual authority over programming is, and in many ways has always been, quite limited,” Corn-Revere said. He noted that even during the 1960s, considered the height of FCC regulatory power, the commission acknowledged it could not dictate programming choices. Since then, he said, the Supreme Court has consistently narrowed the FCC’s presumed authority over content.

“We have all this really relevant and powerful recent precedent that can be brought to bear on even informal actions by the FCC,” he said. “But it’s still going to require someone with a license that has had enough. If you are that broadcaster, I’ll talk to you.”

The reason no broadcaster has stepped forward, Gomez suggested, is not a legal problem but a business one.

Every major licensee has ongoing matters before the commission. The cost of directly challenging a chairman who has demonstrated willingness to use regulatory leverage against companies he views as adversarial is a calculation that has, so far, consistently resolved in favor of accommodation.

Gomez closed the discussion where she began it — with the unresolved question of what the industry is prepared to do. The precedents are there, she said. The legal framework is there. What remains is a broadcaster willing to test it.