Slate - "Trumps Threats Against NBC Are Totally Empty. But Theyre Still Frightening."

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://slate.com/business/2017/10/donald-trumps-threats-against-nbc-are-empty-yet-frightening.html

by Jordan Weissmann

After NBC News reported on Wednesday morning that President Donald Trump had shocked his military advisers by demanding “a nearly tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal,” our commander-in-chief did what he does best and lashed out at the press via Twitter.

With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2017
Shutting down critical TV networks is, of course, a favorite move of would-be strongmen the world over—Hugo Chávez was particularly fond of it—and many were aghast to see a U.S. president musing about such an idea on social media. Just in case he hadn’t made his point clearly enough, though, Trump told reporters later in the afternoon that he thought it was “frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write.” The man is not a fan of the First Amendment.

Which raises the question: If Trump grows angry enough, could he try to exact revenge on NBC, or any other news networks, by stripping their parent companies’ of their broadcast rights?

Thankfully, the answer is almost certainly no. But if you’re worried about the authoritarian streak rapidly engulfing the American right, Trump’s empty threats are still plenty chilling.

Trump’s threat is a bit awkward since, technically, NBC does not have a single broadcast “license.” That’s because it’s a television network—it creates programming, which mostly airs across affiliate stations around the country run by other companies. However, NBC’s corporate parent Comcast does own 10 NBC stations in major markets, which the company says reach 27 million households, or a little more than a quarter of the American TV viewers. And just like every other broadcaster on the public airwaves, those very valuable stations need to periodically renew their licenses with the Federal Communications Commission


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