Sep. 7, 2023: Glenn Daigon published an analysis of the petition in The Progressive

On Sept 7, 2023, Glenn Daigon published a substantial report on media analysts’ views of the WTXF license-renewal story in the Madison, WI-based grassroots progressive magazine The Progressive.

“In the past, with a few exceptions, television license renewals by the FCC have been almost routine,” wrote Daigon. But with the revelation that the network knowingly spread lies about the 2020 election, “media reformers are viewing the verdict as a potential game changer.”

“This is not political. This is about presenting false news,” former Fox executive Preston Padden told The Progressive. “Can you picture Walter Cronkite sitting there night after night telling lies to the American people?”

Former FCC Chair Reed Hundt notes that the allegations about Fox entities’ lies are not about the exercise of protected free speech or about voicing unpopular opinions, but about the decision to lie in order to profit financially.

“What we are talking about is an alleged corporate conspiracy to enforce misinformation and lying as the company behavior in order to capture the attention — and the passionate attention of a certain audience for the purpose of selling advertising,” Hundt, who chaired the FCC from 1993 to 1997, told The Progressive.

Many media commentators have joined MAD in urging the FCC to hold hearings on the WTXF matter. Former FCC Chair Alfred Sikes, who served under President George H.W. Bush, argues that a hearing should be held because, whatever its outcome, the hearing process alone “would give integrity to those allegations and to the FCC itself.”

“The FCC has rules for a purpose,” says former FCC chair Tom Wheeler, who served from 2013 to 2017. “[It] has processes to determine whether those rules are being followed. And that, I believe, is what’s the issue here.”

“My position, at least, isn’t that the FCC has to yank the station tomorrow from Fox, but that it is perfectly reasonable to be concerned post-Dominion, and so the FCC should address those concerns,” said conservative commentator and former Fox News analyst William Kristol.

Glenn Daigon’s article in The Progressive can be found here.