When Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr took to X last month threatening license revocations over broadcasters not operating in the public interest, it became a case study for policy experts, educators and journalists alike.

How much government oversight is too much?

Commissioner Anna Gomez, currently the sole Democrat on the FCC, led a panel of experts who offered perspectives on the government’s role in ensuring that news outlets avoid bias, whether real or perceived.

A focal point was the concept of “jawboning” — government officials using informal pressure, public threats or social media to coerce media organizations into changing their coverage.

Threats raised on social media may not result in a direct policy change, said Joe Flint, entertainment business reporter for The Wall Street Journal, but may weigh heavily on a company looking ahead to its next license renewal.

“That’s where I wonder if the ultimate goal is to be in the back of an outlet’s mind, ‘Well, what lawsuit will this bring?’” Flint asked.

Casey Mattox, vice president of legal strategy at Stand Together, said the pressure can build gradually over time.

“People end up being slowly affected by this sort of accumulation of the gravitational force’s power,” he said.

But Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said jawboning historically has been difficult to prove in court.

“It is going to require a licensee that has had enough and said, ‘We are being affected adversely by all of this pressure being brought on broadcasters, and we would like to put that to the test,’” Corn-Revere said.

You cannot completely remove bias from media, Mattox said, because to be human is to have bias.

Flint referenced the controversies around Howard Stern in his Infinity Broadcasting days to show that pressure from regulators is nothing new.

Mara Gassmann, senior staff attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, pointed to two recent court decisions that are relevant though not directly involving the FCC.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled in March that the Trump administration’s executive order to end federal funding for NPR and PBS was unconstitutional.

And District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled last month that the administration’s efforts to dismantle the Voice of America were “arbitrary and capricious.”

It is unclear where those decisions will lead, though Corn-Revere noted that the use of social media by Carr and others has caught the eye of federal courts.

Gomez pointed out that historically, the FCC has justified regulating broadcast content by arguing that spectrum was a scarce public resource and a “pervasive presence.”

Should that apply in today’s fragmented content landscape?

“We’ve got media literacy programs, media education, but at the bottom end of the day, I don’t think it’s the government’s role to sort out what’s true or what’s false,” said Clay Calvert, nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

“If everyone just took a little more time trying to listen and understand each other and not immediately go to ‘what is the agenda,’ I think we’d be a lot better off,” Flint said.

Local broadcasters, the panelists concurred, are uniquely positioned to push back and remain objective.

“All of this is sort of downstream of culture,” Mattox said. “You are in the best position, more than just about anybody, to do what is the most necessary thing to protect First Amendment rights going forward.”

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Though their words may be alternately frustrating, verbose or bombastic, the First Amendment rights of speech and the press must be supported — although, remember (wink-wink) even government officials have the right to call out the press in case of inaccuracy or downright lunacy, said Federal Communications Commission commissioner Michael O’Rielly.

O’Rielly said the functioning of these Constitutionally protected rights (in addition to those of religion, freedom of assembly and the right to redress grievances) epitomize what it means to be an American in a speech to the Media Institute on October 24 in Arlington, Va.

“It is worthy of the strongest defenses against any enemy near or far,” he said during the group’s Free Speech America gala.

O’Rielly began by focusing on the freedom of the press, an issue that he said has generated “significant and proper attention” in recent months.

Not only does a fully functioning press provide the general public with information about our government — “an incredibly valuable function that provides a sharp and accurate picture of the government and the activities it carries out on our behalf,” he said — but it serves as a powerful antidote to any abuses of power by government officials, he added.The press serves to scrutinize governmental activities, exposes instances where employees have exceeded their authority and highlighted those who have caused harm to the public by failing to take necessary actions, he said.

“Granted, most federal departments and agencies have inspector generals to examine these abuses, but those entities rarely have the impact of a well-timed expose? by a serious journalist examining corruption or improper behavior, or a live video or picture of a governmental official trying to defend questionable practices,” he said.“The media provides a vital check on the government on behalf of the American citizenry,” he said.

O’Rielly admitted wryly that it can be difficult to always applaud the press’ record in serving this function. “I have been on the receiving end of some of those stories … and it can be emotionally and professionally trying to defend legitimate actions and decisions,” he said. “Certainly, working in the government is not for the faint of heart, especially in the current environment where certain pejorative words are spewed out so carelessly.”

Despite that, he said, “the value of such efforts by the press are immeasurable, and, even if quantifiable, would far exceed any downsides.”

We in America are fortunate, he said: “These … purposes of the press do not exist worldwide. [T]he world’s jails contain many individuals who were trying to perform these exact functions, but were not protected by a similar First Amendment.”

O’Rielly also touched on free speech as it relates to pirate radio. These stations undermine free speech with their very existence, he said, by interfering with a legal stations’ ability to reach their audiences.

[Read: Smith: Founding Fathers Got It Right On Press Freedom]

“While I am a firm supporter of removing illegitimate restrictions on broadcasters’ speech, I also believe that individuals who use the public airwaves must play by the rules, meaning that, at the most basic level, they must have an authorization.” O’Rielly shared the well-reported story of a local Colorado publication that advocated that townspeople tune into a local pirate radio station before the FCC shut it down. O’Rielly wrote a letter to the editor to share his concerns about a publication’s romanticizing illegal broadcasts.

Here’s a situation where the government official has the right to free speech as well, he said. The First Amendment does not make those who enjoy its protections immune from criticism, O’Rielly said.

“Merely criticizing a publication for having little discretion and promoting illegal behavior is not an infringement of the First Amendment, even if I am a government official,” he said. “The Colorado publication has a First Amendment right to state what it did … but such protections don’t preclude me from criticizing what I see as a misguided or wrongheaded story.”

The First Amendment should never be viewed as a shield against challenges of facts, style or substance, he said.

“While it protects the right of everyone, especially press officials, to state what they would like to state, it does not protect these same individuals from being called out for their inaccuracy, inappropriateness, or lunacy — depending on the circumstances — even if done so by government officials,” he said.

The following is an op-ed by NAB President Gordon Smith that appeared in TV Technology's sister publication, Broadcasting & Cable: 

My friend and former Senate colleague John McCain was asked in 2017 whether he regards the press as the enemy of the people. “I hate the press,” responded McCain, perhaps tongue-in-cheek. “I hate you, especially. But the fact is, we need you. … If you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you need to have a free and many times an adversarial press.”

McCain’s comment on NBC’s Meet the Press symbolized the Arizona senator’s on-again, off-again relationship with “the media.” But more importantly, it reflected the tension and hostility between government and “the press” that was anticipated, accepted and encouraged by our founding fathers when they adopted the First Amendment as the cornerstone of American democracy. As we honor Senator McCain’s life, it is also fitting to reflect on the audacity of the founding fathers in their embrace of free speech as a core principle of a new nation.

As a recovering politician-turned-advocate for local broadcasters in Washington, I come to this debate with a perspective from both sides. In my 16 years as an elected official — the last 12 as a U.S. senator from Oregon — I was occasionally frustrated by “the media.” But I came to understand that unfriendly press coverage, either real or perceived, comes with the territory when you become a public official. And I believed then and believe now that press criticism, fair or unfair, is the essential lifeblood of our liberty.

Disagreeing Agreeably

Today, we watch a scorched-earth battle in Washington between some in the media and the Republican Administration, and between others in the media and Democrats in Congress. Allegations of bias fly in every direction. What the combatants are really underscoring is the point Senator McCain was making, not just with the remarks on Meet the Press, but with his entire life. He understood that it is precisely our ability to freely disagree that underscores the greatness of America. The essence of our democratic experiment is this: It no more matters what the president thinks is news than what other Americans think. When the press is being attacked, its value is being affirmed. And so too are the underlying values of America.

As head of the National Association of Broadcasters, I’ve witnessed firsthand the remarkable work of local radio and TV journalists and their broadcast network colleagues dedicated to fact-based news reporting. Among these journalists are fierce patriots who embed with U.S. troops abroad. They risk their lives reporting on wildfires, hurricanes and tornadoes. They’ve saved the lives of hundreds of children with Amber Alerts and coverage of the opioid crisis. Broadcast groups have doubled down on credible investigative journalism that exposes fraud and corruption at the local, national and international level. I may not agree with every perspective or story, but my consent is not required for free voices to speak out.

Much of what riles passions today is opinion journalism that would remind Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton of the partisan pamphleteers of the late 1700s.

Today, only the platforms have changed. Raucous voices on social media and commentary-based cable programming may pervade and dominate our daily discourse. But viewers and listeners should try, always, to distinguish between fact-based reporting and editorial commentary. They are not the same. The broadcast journalists that I know hold themselves to a higher standard. They report truth as best they see it, without fear or favor. Some of their reporting may not please the president. Some of their reporting may not please Democratic leaders in Congress. Thankfully, the consent of the political class is not required for reporters to do their jobs.

Enduring Principles

That our founding fathers grudgingly accepted withering press criticism and sustained journalism attacks, there can be little doubt. They did so because they understood that government efforts to delegitimize the role of the journalist constituted an attack on democracy itself. For more than two centuries, little has changed in the adversarial relationship between reporters and politicians in power. The enduring constant has been the First Amendment, and our forefathers’ fundamental embrace of free speech principles that preserve America as the last best hope on Earth.

Gordon Smith has been president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters since 2009. He is a former two-term Republican U.S. senator from Oregon.