“Cinnabon has made the decision to terminate its collaboration with ‘The Bachelorette’ and ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,’” a spokesperson for the company told Entertainment Weekly on Tuesday. “Recent developments and allegations surrounding the lead cast member led us to reassess this collaboration as it no longer aligns with our brand values.”
A source told Varietythat the Draper City Police Department in Utah is investigating the allegations from Paul and Mortensen after a recent incident. Season 5 of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” has been paused due to the investigation. The pause is likely to be relatively brief, the source added, and production is expected to resume soon with little impact on the Season 5 release timeline.
On March 9, Cinnabon unveiled a new Swirled Soda, which was “inspired by the viral beverage trend popularized” by the cast of “Mormon Wives.” The company carried cup sleeves and packaging themed around “The Bachelorette” and “Mormon Wives.”
Paul has led the cast of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” since its debut in 2024. She also stars in Season 22 of “The Bachelorette,” which debuts on ABC on March 22 and is currently in New York City promoting the season ahead of a premiere event in Los Angeles this weekend. The investigation will not impact the release schedule or promotional campaign for “The Bachelorette.”
This is not the first time Paul and Mortensen have been in such a dispute. In Season 1 of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” Paul was arrested for allegedly hitting, choking and throwing metal chairs at Mortensen, with one of the chairs allegedly hitting one of her children from a previous relationship. She pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated assault. The charges of domestic violence in the presence of a child, child abuse and criminal mischief were dismissed. Paul’s arrest and probation caused major delays in filming between the first and second episodes of “Mormon Wives” Season 1.
Applause Entertainment, the Aditya Birla Group content studio behind “Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story” and “Criminal Justice,” has struck an exclusive partnership with Indian microdrama platform Story TV to co-produce and distribute a new slate of short-form content for mobile audiences.
The collaboration will span multiple genres, with Story TV also acquiring rights to Applause’s romantic-thriller series “Hello Mini” to adapt into a vertical microdrama format.
Launched in July 2025 by the Eloelo group, Story TV has grown rapidly in India’s nascent microdrama sector. The platform, which publishes episodes roughly one minute in length, says it has drawn more than 50 million users and built a catalogue of over 1,000 titles in the Hindi, Tamil and Telugu languages. Sensor Tower data cited by the company places it second among entertainment apps by global downloads.
“As an early entrant into microdramas in India we are at the forefront of blending storytelling and technology to expand this emerging format into mainstream territory,” said Saurabh Pandey, founder and CEO of Story TV. “Our partnership with Applause Entertainment will further expand the audience of microdramas with a focus on premium storytelling that is yet to be seen in the India microdrama and entertainment industry.”
Prasoon Garg, chief business officer at Applause Entertainment, described the tie-up as a measured entry into a format the studio is still evaluating. “As newer storytelling formats like microdramas gain momentum, we see value in engaging with them through meaningful collaborations,” he said. “Our unique partnership with Story TV enables us to explore this emerging space alongside a platform that has demonstrated strong understanding of the format and its audiences, while we continue to assess its creative and viewer potential.”
Applause, led by media veteran Sameer Nair, has established itself as a premium drama producer for platforms including Netflix, JioHotstar, Prime Video, Sony LIV and ZEE5, with credits including “Black Warrant,” “The Hunt” and “Undekhi.” The studio has also moved into theatrical films and documentaries, and recently launched a children’s animation channel, “ApplaToon,” on YouTube.
Hed: AI, Cross-Border Collaboration and Global Content Strategies Explored at FilMart Forum Dek: Industry executives from Huace, Youku and TVB discuss cross-border storytelling, technology integration and shifting audience dynamics. Art: 0317 Forum@ FilMart
Industry executives and producers gathered at Hong Kong FilMart for the Forum on International Communication Cooperation and Innovation for a New Vision, held on the market’s opening day. Organized by the International Cooperation Department of China’s National Radio and Television Administration and co-hosted by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, the session focused on strategies for expanding content distribution, scaling production and positioning Asian projects for international audiences.
Karen Fu, CEO of Huace Group, addressed the growing role of artificial intelligence in film and television production, noting that while Hollywood continues to prioritize a content-driven model, Asian creators may benefit from combining Eastern and Western storytelling approaches as they develop more globally oriented strategies.
The session, titled “Dual-Track Breakthroughs in Content,” brought together speakers from TVB, Youku, Trinity CineAsia and other media companies to discuss evolving industry dynamics.
Panelists pointed to a shift from traditional cultural export toward more integrated global content ecosystems, where scale, audience reach and platform traffic are increasingly tied to long-term value. Co-production models and technological integration were highlighted as key to building sustainable international partnerships and expanding storytelling possibilities.
Across the discussion, speakers also emphasized the importance of emotional resonance in cross-cultural communication, noting that successful international storytelling depends on identifying shared human experiences while navigating differences in cultural context.
Lina Zhang, chief editor at Youku, said the use of artificial intelligence is currently most effective in optimizing production workflows and technical processes, but emphasized that content remains the primary driver.
“As long as the story is strong, AI can support creators in connecting with audiences,” she said. Cedric Behrel, director and co-founder of Trinity CineAsia, the leading European distributor of Asian cinema, added, “Audience behavior has changed significantly since the pandemic. Screen consumption now extends beyond film and TV to gaming and social platforms, reshaping how we engage audiences.”
Rajesh A. Krishnan directs from an adapted screenplay he developed with writer Kapil Sawant, based on an original script by American writer Paul Soter. Hrithik Roshan and Eshaan Roshan produce under HRX Films – a division of FilmKraft Productions – alongside Krishnan’s Soda Films Lab.
The film follows a gang of robbers who break into the home of a man with OCD, only to find themselves fighting for their own survival over the course of a single night.
Krishnan built his reputation directing some of India’s best-known television commercials before moving into long-form work. His feature credits include the 2019 heist comedy “Lootcase,” which he co-wrote, co-produced and directed, and the 2024 release “Crew.” His earlier series work includes “Tripling” Season 1 in 2016.
“A key marker of a good story is if it takes you by surprise and keeps you entertained throughout,” said Nikhil Madhok, director and head of Originals, Prime Video India. “The movie has a refreshingly original premise and a unique set of delightful characters. Hrithik and Eshaan, through HRX Films, bring a strong creative instinct and a genuine passion for storytelling, and after ‘Storm,’ we are delighted to deepen our partnership further with this film. Rajesh A. Krishnan is brilliant in this genre and ‘Mess’ has all the makings of a film that we believe will be loved by audiences in India and across the world.”
HRX Films was founded by Hrithik Roshan in 2019, drawing on a filmmaking lineage that stretches back through Rakesh Roshan’s FilmKraft Productions and J. Om Prakash’s FilmYug. Eshaan Roshan serves as the company’s CEO.
“‘Storm’ marked the start of something special with Prime Video, and ‘Mess’ feels like a natural next step for us at HRX Films,” said Hrithik Roshan. “Our partnership with Prime Video has allowed us to explore bold, innovative storytelling, and this project embodies that spirit perfectly. Rajesh brings a distinctive voice both as a producer and director, with a rare ability to blend comedy with compelling narratives. His creative vision for ‘Mess’ has been extraordinary from the start.”
“Developing ‘Mess’ alongside Kapil has been a truly rewarding experience,” Krishnan added. “The world of this film is a thrilling amalgamation of comedy and chaos, and unusual enough to keep one at the edge of their seats. Hrithik and Eshaan have brought their expertise and conviction to the film, and together, we have a dream cast to work with.”
The film is set to begin production imminently, with casting and further details to be announced.
Amongst growing conversation on conglomeration, the shifting landscape of global media and restrained freedom of speech, the leading documentary festival CPH:DOX chose “Media Sovereignty: Rethink, Envision, Redefine” as the theme for its second-ever CPH:SUMMIT. This year’s event gathers politicians, innovators, researchers and documentary professionals to discuss the future of the audiovisual industry, focusing specifically on the state of information, technology and shifting notions of truth. In the opening keynote, president of public broadcaster Arte France Bruno Patino provided a bleak yet piercingly precise evaluation of the industry today.
During the Summit’s welcome speeches, Doc Society’s Beadie Finzi presented the audience with a report generated by AI bot Claude predicting what the industry would look like in 2030. The result was ghastly: public broadcasters would become “a shadow” of what they once were to evolve into “merely commissioning entities”; documentary would be split between costly prestige and cheap creator-led, with no in-between; and the information environment would become flooded, with “tiny audiences who care” clustering “tightly around a tiny number of deeply trusted brands.”
Most worryingly, the “real loss by 2030” would be that of “shared commons.” Finzi’s AI-generated report warned that, in just four years, the idea that a society could have a common information experience would be “largely gone” and rebuilding it “will take longer than losing it did.”
Patino was then invited on stage to directly respond to Claude’s predictions. As a seasoned journalist, writer, media analyst and a close observer of recent developments in AI, the exec offered a sharp insight into how rapidly developing technology is contributing to the crumbling of our understanding of media. Below, you will find the keynote speech’s main points:
Pull behavior replaced by push era
Patino says that, for a long time, citizens went “directly to the media,” which he called a “pull behavior.” People online would actively seek information, accessing online newspapers and trusted sources in search of whatever was going on in the world. With the advance of social media and algorithm-based platforms, the exec said we have now entered a “push era.” “People wait for content to reach them, not the other way around. This is a major change.”
Power and saturation
In that push landscape, what has evolved is a scenario in which there are two main industry dynamics: saturation and power. “The very notion of scale is changing,” said Patino. “Global players are gaining weight and [becoming] more powerful than ever. Just look at the recent acquisition of Warner Brothers by Paramount in the United States. Everybody is competing to become the global interface and control the relationship with saturation.” Thanks to AI, the expert said that our content production is now “nearly limitless.” “Content can be produced faster, cheaper and in greater quantities than ever before.”
“These two dynamics could have similar consequences,” he went on. “First, the industrial standardization of content due to the power increase. Second, the technological standardization of content due to less diversity. And that leads us to the paradox of our industry: We’re producing more content than ever before, but diversity is shrinking at the end of the day.”
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Fragmentation as our primary relationship to reality
Patino alerted audiences to how three crucial ideas in our understanding of modern culture are now threatened: “First, the idea that culture is the source of both individual and collective emancipation. Second, the idea that fact-based information shared with the widest audience contributes to the democratic [process]. And third, the idea that public broadcasting is a form of collective solidarity.”
He said that the third transformation is “not only about our industry” but the “very world we’re living in, in which the legitimacy of the European social and cultural model fought for after World War II is being questioned.” To Patino, the worst case scenario is “a world in which AI determines the citizen’s place in society, deciding the information, the culture and the entertainment [they] have access to. In such a world, fragmentation becomes our primary relationship to reality.”
The relationship economy
That risk of fragmentation did not come from nowhere, added the exec. It’s the direct consequence of the “broader history of the digital revolution.” Patino outlined three ages since the revolution, with the Age of Access coming first with the advent of the internet, then the Age of Propagation, which started in 2007 and introduced notions such as “algorithm, viral, visibility, social media,” and “the rise of the attention economy.”
With the introduction of AI, we have now entered the Age of Implication. “An era where everything becomes blurred between human and machine, authentic and synthetic, reality and fiction.” “The age of social media changed the place of truth,” continued the expert. “Media no longer speak directly to citizens; they speak to an agent who then speaks to citizens. The risk is that these agents become the primary mediator of our relationship to society, to information, to culture, to entertainment.”
This, Patino said, is what he calls the Relationship Economy. “There’s a growing risk of invisibility for diverse voices or narratives about the real world, either because those narratives will never be proposed to audiences or because they will be drowned in the age of content.”
David Borenstein accepts the Documentary Feature award for “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” onstage during the 98th Oscars at Dolby Theatre on March 15. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
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Coalition: the future of Europe
The Relationship Economy creates “a major consequence for our professions,” said Patino. “There is a growing risk of invisibility for diverse voices and for narratives about the real world, either because those narratives will never be proposed to audiences or because they will be drowned in the flood of content. For us in Europe, this created a whole challenge.”
“The first challenge is discoverability: How can our content be found in the age of AI when AI is controlled by U.S.-based giants? The second challenge is production itself. Our very logic of production is increasingly tied to U.S.-based platforms. Europe cannot produce acts of comparable power in these fields.”
The question, Patino said, is simple: Is there another logic besides sheer power? “Faced with the power of these platforms, Europe must rely on the strengths of coalitions.” “This is, overall, a political choice. Europe remains the most effective geopolitical, social and cultural framework for rethinking identities, narratives and spaces.”
Speaking on that, Patino said he believes Arte can become “the missing name in the European broadcasting system.” The exec brought up how Arte federates a network of 14 public broadcasters, has programs available in seven languages, and maintains strong ties with the creative ecosystem across Europe. Giving his speech the day after the Oscars, Patino brought up Arte’s hand in two big winners: “Mr Nobody Against Putin” and “Sentimental Value.”
“Our ambition is not to build a mega structure, not even to create a European Netflix,” he added. “Our goal is much simpler: to give real substance to the European network. An alternative built on curiosity, discovery and openness.”
Sen. Adam Schiff will hold a field hearing on Friday in Burbank with “The Pitt” star Noah Wyle and IATSE President Matt Loeb, as he looks to build support for a federal film incentive.
Schiff is also expected to focus on the job impact of the merger of Paramount and Warner Bros.
“There are many pressures facing the entertainment industry workforce – from generous tax incentives offered by other countries, to the potential merger of two of Hollywood’s biggest studios,” Schiff said in a statement.
“The Pitt” is often highlighted as a success story for California’s production incentive. The show is set in Pittsburgh but films on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, and has received $24.5 million in state tax credits to do so.
For the last year, Schiff worked to gather sponsors in Congress for a federal production incentive that layers on top of state-level subsidies. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents 160,000 entertainment workers, is also a key supporter of increased tax incentives to preserve domestic production.
The hearing also includes Jax Deluca, executive director of the Future Film Coalition, a group of independent film professionals. The group has launched a website, BlocktheMerger.com, that urges state attorneys general to seek an injunction to prevent the Paramount-Warner Bros. deal from going through.
In a press release, Schiff argued that the U.S. film and TV industry is facing intense competition from foreign countries’ incentive programs.
Schiff raised the issue with Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, at a Senate hearing in February. Sarandos was on Capitol Hill to defend his company’s $83 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros., which has since fallen apart. Paramount is now in line to acquire the studio in a deal valued at $111 billion.
As of now, no one from either Paramount or Warner Bros. is slated to testify at the hearing in Burbank.
“I look forward to hearing directly from industry leaders and experts on the state of the industry, what we need to do to compete, and how this proposed deal would impact workers as we seek to strengthen film and television production in California and the United States,” Schiff said.
Jim Acosta, the former CNN correspondent who now runs an independent media platform, is also expected to testify. Acosta has been highly critical of the Paramount deal, calling it a “MAGA-friendly” corporation and warning that CBS and CNN could end up “pumping out propaganda every day saying how great Donald Trump is.”
At SXSW, Noah Kahan debuted a beautiful and revealing documentary about his struggles with fame, depression and body dysmorphia.
“I recommend sandwiching it between a couple MrBeast videos to soften the blow,” he joked after the screening. “It’s pretty depressing. It’s definitely not like a party piece.”
That being said, the film — titled “Noah Kahan: Out of Body” and out on Netflix on April 13 — is surprisingly funny, with the Austin audience at the Paramount Theatre laughing out loud throughout the screening. Director Nick Sweeney captured the singer-songwriter from playing tiny venues before the pandemic to writing “Stick Season,” an ode to his home state of Vermont that made him so famous he headlined Fenway Park in 2024.
“Out of Body” sees Kahan opening up about his disordered eating and body dysmorphia, saying he has struggled with his body image for 15 years. He admitted after the screening that it was “really difficult” for him to watch the film.
“They asked questions that I was really scared to ask myself for a long time,” Kahan said of Sweeney and the producers. “It’s easy to shut these things away and to compartmentalize them. And when you have a documentary made about yourself, you have no choice but to confront those really secret fears.”
He hopes to destigmatize talking about mental health, and he started the nonprofit The Busyhead Project to make therapy more accessible.
“When I was a kid, I would look up ‘artists with antidepressants,’ ‘artists with depression,’ and I’d be so disappointed because I couldn’t find anybody that said, ‘Hey, I’m struggling with this too,’” Kahan said. “So when I would find an artist that was talking about what they were going through that I was going through at the same time, it felt like I just found religion. And my ultimate hope was that somebody watching this movie could feel like they have never heard somebody say that before, and they can start to confront that with themself.”
The film sees Kahan traveling between cities on tour, as well as his native state of Vermont and his current home in Nashville with his wife, Brenna. Before playing Fenway Park and Madison Square Garden, the artist gets vulnerable about his fears that his career might have already peaked. After the surprise smash success of “Stick Season,” where does Kahan go next? The film answers that question by leaving off on footage from the recording studio, with Kahan laying down vocals on the 2026 single “The Great Divide,” which earned him his first No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart.
And “Out of Body” pulls on heartstrings as it shows the Kahan family watching their own home videos and confronting family trauma. In one particularly devastating scene, Kahan sings “Forever” backstage for a teen girl undergoing leukemia treatment. Her name, Zuza Beine, appears in the credits under “In Loving Memory Of.”
Much of the documentary, too, focuses on Kahan’s family life and his relationship with his divorced parents and siblings.
“After we watched this documentary as a family, we all grew so much closer,” he said. “It brought us together, and that first week after watching it, every conversation that we were weren’t able to have before became commonplace.”
In the film, Kahan talks about having guilt for being “selfish” toward his parents, and he apologizes to them for airing their family’s “dirty laundry” in his song lyrics. The documentary forced him to have difficult conversations with his family that he otherwise might not have had.
“It’s really cathartic to see that maybe I’m not as bad as I think I am, and maybe I didn’t do as wrong as I thought I did. That was really important to go through,” Kahan said.
“I wish that everyone in this room could have a documentary made about their lives,” he added, causing the audience to laugh. “I really do. It’d be a very expensive exercise, but it just brought us together.”
He continued, “You never really question how you treat each other and what your family looks like and what the context of your life means. Getting a chance to see it like this is a miracle. It’s an amazing opportunity to grow closer to people that you love and that you want to understand more.”
If there’s one thing he hopes audiences take away from “Out of Body,” it’s this: “You might never have that conversation with your mom or dad. You might never get that chance to say sorry or I love you, or any iteration of those comments. … I hope that you guys have those hard conversations, because we don’t have a lot of time here. It’s really important that the people we love know how we feel.”
Leading Middle East broadcaster MBC Group reported a 28.5% year-on-year increase in revenue to SR 5.4 billion ($1.43 billion) for the full fiscal year 2025, and an 8.1% yearly net profit to SR 437.5 million ($116.66 million) boosted by double-digit growth of its Shahid streaming service.
MBC, which besides Shahid operates 19 free-to-air channels across the Middle East and North Africa, came under direct Saudi ownership last September when Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) acquired a 54% stake for roughly $2 billion.
In a statement, MBC Group chairman Waleed Al Ibrahim called the deal, under which PIF has become its majority shareholder, “a defining milestone in the Group’s evolution, reinforcing alignment with national priorities and establishing a stable, long-term ownership framework anchored in the Kingdom’s long-term economic vision.” He also said the group’s 2025 results reflect “the strength and resilience of our operating model and the relevance of our assets across broadcasting, digital platforms and production.”
MBC’s Broadcasting and Other Commercial Activities (BOCA) segment, which is its largest earner, saw revenues of SR2.83 billion ($750 million) in 2025, an increase of 16.8% year-on-year. But BOCA net profit dropped to SR492.9 million ($131 million) in 2025 from SR533.2 million ($ 142 million) in 2024, “partly due to non-core content write-downs and the absence of non-recurring income recorded the previous year,” the statement said.
Shahid, which in 2025 benefited from a password-sharing crackdown and a groundbreaking bundling deal with Netflix, delivered a 28.2% year-on-year revenue rise to SAR 1.38 million ($360,000) supported by unspecified subscriber growth across the MENA region and in international markets.
On the production side, MBC Studios had a prolific scripted and unscripted slate throughout the year, boosting its position as the region’s leading content producer. A significant portion of its 2025 slate was produced in Saudi Arabia. Key productions included Arabic adaptations of “The Voice” and “Top Chef,” as well as Pan-Arab series “Aser,” “Al Dariya,” “Trad,” “Aysheen Ma’Ana” and “Share’ Al A’sha.” MBC were also among the producers of Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated feature “The Voice of Hind Rajab.”
“Despite ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, our business continues to demonstrate the resilience of our operating model as we manage with discipline while investing selectively in content and platform,” said MBC Group CEO Mike Sneesby in the statement. “With strong audience momentum entering Ramadan and a more integrated operating model now in place, we remain well positioned to navigate near-term uncertainty while delivering sustainable long-term value.”
“One Battle After Another” star Teyana Taylor had an argument at the Oscars with a man she claims shoved her. In a viral video, the best supporting actress nominee is seen scolding a man in a crowd of people.
“You’re a man putting your hands on a female,” she says in the video, then repeatedly tells the man that he’s “very rude.” She told someone next to her that “he literally shoved me” and “he damn near shoved” another woman.
“Everybody’s having a good time. But when you shove me, it’s a different story,” Taylor explains to a woman next to her. “Do not touch me, do not shove me.”
TMZ spoke with Taylor later in the night, and she explained that the man was a security guard but the situation is “all good.”
“Security was just doing a lot,” she said. “There’s always that one, but I’m perfectly fine. I’m happy. There’s nothing to wonder. The first thing people do is definitely make assumptions. But at the end of the day I just don’t tolerate disrespect, especially when it’s unwarranted and unprovoked.”
Taylor lost the best supporting actress category to “Weapons” star Amy Madigan, but “One Battle After Another” was the big winner at the Oscars, taking home a leading six awards. The Paul Thomas Anderson film won best picture, director, casting, adapted screenplay, editing and supporting actor for Sean Penn. In addition to her Oscar nomination, Taylor also picked up supporting actress nods at the Actor Awards, BAFTAs, Critics Choice and won at the Golden Globes.
Over the weekend, Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed FCC chair, scored another win in an area he seems to believe is a key part of his job: rage-baiting the libs.
Carr on Saturday posted a message on X that he knew would stir outrage on the left. He strongly implied the FCC would not renew licenses of broadcasters that perpetrated “hoaxes and news distortions” in their coverage of the Trump administration’s Iran war. Carr quoted Trump’s complaint about media reports that five U.S. Air Force plans were struck and damaged at a base in Saudi Arabia by an Iranian missile strike.
“Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up,” Carr wrote on March 14. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”
Carr continued: “And frankly, changing course is in their own business interests since trust in legacy media has now fallen to an all time low of just 9% and are ratings disasters. The American people have subsidized broadcasters to the tune of billions of dollars by providing free access to the nation’s airwaves. It is very important to bring trust back into media, which has earned itself the label of fake news.”
Never mind that the news about the five damaged Air Force planes was first reported by the Wall Street Journal — a news outlet the FCC has no jurisdiction over. Forget for a moment that the FCC does not regulate national TV networks or their news programming: The agency has the narrow authority to license local broadcast stations. Also, disregard the reality that any charge the FCC lodged against a local broadcast company about alleged “news distortion” would be tied up in bureaucratic proceedings for months or even years — before it even reached a court, where it would be presumably vigorously challenged, as explained in this CNN article.
Meanwhile, the FCC’s “news distortion” rule is inarguably outdated. It was first adopted in 1949, when broadcast radio and TV were dominant gatekeepers in the distribution of news. Today, that is certainly not the case. And “broadcast” networks today are multiplatform publishers — whatever they publish and stream on the internet is not even under the FCC’s direct authority. (Note that “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” released its interview with Texas State Rep. James Talarico on YouTube after CBS didn’t broadcast it on local TV airwaves because the network’s lawyers feared retribution from Carr’s FCC over the “equal time” rule — resulting in the Talarico interview receiving massive views.)
So why is Carr, who knows all of this, putting forth a straw-man argument threatening unspecified broadcasters about unspecified “fake news” reports, as determined by Carr’s perception of what that means?
Carr is doing this kind of saber-rattling, even if it amounts to empty threats, to provoke those on the left into frothy outrage over government censorship — and thereby reinforce the narrative that he and the FCC are doing their job to reshape media coverage in a way that discourages what the MAGA-sphere sees as left-wing bias. Carr revels in the characterization that he is Trump’s “attack dog” against the media.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was among those who took Carr’s bait. “Constitutional law 101: it’s illegal for the government to censor free speech it just doesn’t like about Trump’s Iran war. This threat is straight out of the authoritarian playbook,” she wrote Saturday on X.
In response, Carr again adopted the posture that he’s not censoring anybody and that he isn’t against free speech — he’s just against “fake news,” and he’s just doing his job to hold spectrum licensees accountable to the “public interest” standard. Carr, replying to Warren, wrote, “No one has a First Amendment right to a license or to monopolize a radio frequency; to deny a station license because ‘the public interest’ requires it ‘is not a denial of free speech,’” citing a Supreme Court decision quoting its 1943 ruling in NBC v. United States. Does broadcasting news that five U.S. planes were damaged by an Iranian attack run counter to “the public interest”? Carr suggests that it is because the president claims it’s false.
“The Left Explodes after Carr Warns Broadcasters about ‘Hoaxes and News Distortions,’” says the headline on the Monday edition of Policyband, penned by longtime D.C. communications policy watcher Ted Hearn. Undoubtedly, this is just the sort of things Carr was hoping for.
Of course, it’s another case of a Trump appointee catering to an audience of one: Donald Trump.
Trump, in a post Sunday on Truth Social, gave an atta-boy to Carr about the FCC chairman’s threat to rescind the licenses of “fake news” broadcasters — and for good measure he threw in a jab at another favorite target, late-night TV hosts.
“I am so thrilled to see Brendan Carr, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), looking at the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations,” Trump wrote. “They get Billions of Dollars of FREE American Airwaves, and use it to perpetuate LIES, both in News and almost all of their Shows, including the Late Night Morons, who get gigantic Salaries for horrible Ratings, and never get, as I used to say in The Apprentice, ‘FIRED.’”
Trump claimed that “The five U.S. Refueling Planes that were supposedly struck down and badly damaged, according to The Wall Street Journal’s false reporting, and others, are all in service, with the exception of one, which will soon be flying the skies.” (The Journal did not report that the planes were “struck down”; it said they were “struck and damaged.”)
Trump also alleged that “Iran, working in close coordination with the Fake News Media,” produced and distributed AI-generated imagery showing the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier “burning uncontrollably in the Ocean. Not only was it not burning, it was not even shot at — Iran knows better than to do that!” Trump didn’t indicate which news outlets were allegedly guilty of falsely reporting that; it is unclear whether any U.S. outlet did inaccurately report that the carrier had been hit as initially suggested by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Navy. But, Trump said, “those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!”
