USAupdated 1h ago2 min read
Brendan Carr Warns Broadcasters Not to Air Fake Polls After Wedgewood Fabricated Results
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FCC Chair Brendan Carr warned broadcasters not to air 'fake polls' or suppression polls. Carr warned such coverage could violate license terms and public-interest obligations.
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FCC warns on fake polls
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr warned broadcasters not to air “fake polls” and said broadcasters are “prohibited by the terms of their federal licenses from engaging in News Distortion or promoting Broadcast Hoaxes.” Carr wrote that “Many journalists and broadcasters have been amplifying or airing these Polls without regard to basic journalistic ethics,” and he urged broadcasters to provide “additional context and information about Polls they have covered.”
Carr’s warning came as Wedgewood Polls released a statement admitting it had fabricated results, even though its data had been used in polling averages by a number of outlets. The New York Times said it included 15 polls released by Wedgewood from June to October, and the paper described its vetting process in an editor’s note.
Gomez pushes back
Anna M. Gomez, the lone Democrat on the FCC, wrote on X that “Pollsters who intentionally mislead the public should answer for it, but broadcasters who report publicly available polling data should never be punished when a poll is wrong.”
Gomez added that “FCC rules on news distortion or hoaxes do not apply to a station that reports this data in good faith,” directly disputing Carr’s framing of broadcaster risk.
A group of former FCC officials including Mark Fowler and Tom Wheeler called Carr’s warning “yet another truly outrageous attempt to censor and control the information available to Americans as they prepare to vote.”
Enrique Armijo, a law professor at Elon University, said a federal judge had rejected President Trump’s claim against Iowa pollster Ann Selzer and that “there is no such thing as a ‘fake poll.’”
What happens next
The FCC’s authority over news content was described as “narrow,” with the agency stating broadcasters are “only subject to enforcement if it can be proven that they have deliberately distorted a factual news report.” The FCC’s broadcast hoax policy was described as prohibiting stations from broadcasting false information about a crime or catastrophe, with the licensee needing to have known the information was false.
The Washington Post reported that it was unclear whether any broadcasters regulated by the FCC covered the Wedgewood polls, while Carr said broadcasters could take actions consistent with FCC regulations by adding context. The Washington Post also reported that Carr had opened numerous investigations into media companies and criticized content he deemed a “distortion” of the news, as it described his role as President Donald Trump’s media enforcer during his second term.