{"id":2647253,"date":"2026-08-20T08:09:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T12:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignthe-view-cant-be-both-a-neutral-newscast-and-a-leftist-propaganda-foghorn\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T08:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T12:14:12","slug":"utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignthe-view-cant-be-both-a-neutral-newscast-and-a-leftist-propaganda-foghorn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignthe-view-cant-be-both-a-neutral-newscast-and-a-leftist-propaganda-foghorn\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;The View&#8217; Can&#8217;t Be Both Neutral And A Leftist Propaganda Foghorn"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Futm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignthe-view-cant-be-both-a-neutral-newscast-and-a-leftist-propaganda-foghorn%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2647253&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article discusses a legal confrontation between Disney, ABC, and the FCC, highlighting concerns over government attempts to influence broadcast content and licensing. Disney and ABC filed a lawsuit in a Washington federal court, accusing the FCC of retaliatory actions, <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >including early license renewal reviews<\/a> following a controversial comment by a TV host and an inquiry into the show&#8217;s political neutrality. A key issue is whether ABC\u2019s programme &#8220;the View&#8221; qualifies for a &#8220;bona fide news&#8221; exemption under FCC rules, given its heavily slanted liberal guest lineup and partisan tone, despite its claims of being a neutral news program. The author emphasizes that this situation underscores broader issues about government overreach,speech rights,and the importance of clarity,urging for openness in the FCC\u2019s actions and a clear distinction between genuine journalism and advocacy. The piece concludes by criticizing the manipulation of licensing rules to suppress disfavored viewpoints and advocates for honesty and clarity from both regulators and broadcasters.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Disney and ABC <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/disney-abc-sue-fcc-early-license-renewal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">walked into a federal courthouse<\/a> in Washington on Tuesday and asked a judge to save them from the Trump administration. The network\u2019s 45-page complaint accuses the FCC of running a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/disney-abc-sue-fcc-early-license-renewal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cretaliatory campaign\u201d<\/a> against ABC for broadcasting content the White House dislikes. <\/p>\n<p>In a separate FCC docket, Disney lawyers have spent months arguing that a panel show anchored by Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg is functionally indistinguishable from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/Top_News\/US\/2026\/05\/22\/disney-fcc-petition-the-view-equal-time-exemption\/7881779482227\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Meet the Press<\/em><\/a>. Both arguments cannot be entirely true at once, and after a decade testifying on fiduciary duty and evidentiary standards, I have developed an ear for a witness who wants the jury to believe two contradictory stories depending on which room they are standing in.<\/p>\n<p>That is the real story buried under Tuesday\u2019s headlines. <em>The View<\/em>, for anyone who has never watched it, is an ABC daytime opinion and entertainment program, a politically left-wing panel where celebrity guests, cultural chatter, and news headlines all run through the co-hosts\u2019 strongly held personal views. There is nothing illegal about that. <\/p>\n<p>Yes, government leaning on a broadcaster\u2019s license because it dislikes the coverage should worry every American who still owns a copy of the Constitution. But ABC\u2019s own legal position, that this program is simultaneously a target of unconstitutional persecution and a neutral bona fide news program, does not survive first contact with its own guest list.<\/p>\n<p>Start with what actually happened. In April, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/business\/business-news\/abc-disney-sues-fcc-trump-administration-first-amendment-rcna593088\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ordered early license renewal reviews<\/a> for Disney\u2019s eight \u201cowned-and-operated\u201d ABC stations, in markets from Los Angeles to New York, years ahead of their normal 2028 through 2031 schedule, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.detroitnews.com\/story\/business\/2026\/08\/18\/disney-abc-federal-communications-commission-lawsuit-broadcast-licenses\/91350057007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the first time in more than 50 years<\/a> the agency had done that. <\/p>\n<p>The timing followed a dust-up over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/business\/business-news\/abc-disney-sues-fcc-trump-administration-first-amendment-rcna593088\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Jimmy Kimmel saying Melania Trump<\/a> \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c04x40d4424o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">had a glow like an expectant widow<\/a>,\u201d and it landed on top of an existing FCC probe into Disney\u2019s diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. ABC\u2019s lawsuit, filed before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.detroitnews.com\/story\/business\/2026\/08\/18\/disney-abc-federal-communications-commission-lawsuit-broadcast-licenses\/91350057007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan<\/a>, asks for a temporary restraining order and argues the administration waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for disapproving what it broadcasts. Commissioner Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat on the FCC, publicly cheered the lawsuit, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/08\/18\/disney-abc-first-amendment-lawsuit-fcc.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">calling the renewal process a \u201ccampaign of censorship and control.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Separately, and this is the part most coverage buries, the FCC has spent months examining whether the show is still eligible for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wiley.law\/alert-FCC-Seeks-Comment-on-Whether-ABCs-The-View-Qualifies-as-a-Bona-Fide-News-Interview-Program\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cbona fide news interview\u201d exemption<\/a> to the equal time rule, a Section 315 provision that forces a station to give rival candidates equal airtime once it lets one candidate on the air. The Media Bureau <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wiley.law\/alert-FCC-Seeks-Comment-on-Whether-ABCs-The-View-Qualifies-as-a-Bona-Fide-News-Interview-Program\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">put broadcasters on notice in January<\/a> that segments \u201cmotivated by partisan purposes\u201d do not get the exemption. ABC insists the show operates just like network Sunday shows, resting on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/Top_News\/US\/2026\/05\/22\/disney-fcc-petition-the-view-equal-time-exemption\/7881779482227\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a 2002 FCC letter<\/a> that has remained untouched for close to a quarter century.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yalejreg.com\/nc\/the-fccs-public-notice-on-bona-fide-news-by-daniel-r-suhr\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Congress built the \u201cbona fide news\u201d exemption in 1959 so no station hosting one candidate would owe every rival equal minutes<\/a>, which would have turned local news into a scheduling nightmare and discouraged campaign coverage altogether. Lawmakers carved out four categories \u2014 newscasts, news interviews, documentaries where a candidate\u2019s appearance is incidental, and live coverage of events like debates, trusting a broadcaster\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fcc-official-cbs-harris-interview-should-probably-be-investigated\/\" title=\"... Official: CBS Harris Interview Should Probably Be Investigated\">good-faith editorial judgment<\/a> over government second-guessing. That theory holds only if the programming is doing journalism rather than advocacy with a rotating cast of interviewers, and the guest ledger below makes that call easy.<\/p>\n<p>Here is where the expert witness in me leans forward. If you are going to ask a federal judge to treat you as a martyr for independent journalism, you should probably not also ask a federal agency to treat your panel show as a hard news broadcast while it tells viewers to \u201cvote Democrat\u201d in the next election, which is exactly what co-host Ana Navarro <a href=\"https:\/\/pjmedia.com\/david-manney\/2026\/08\/01\/the-view-wants-a-news-exemption-while-telling-viewers-to-vote-democrat-n4955683\">told her a<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/pjmedia.com\/david-manney\/2026\/08\/01\/the-view-wants-a-news-exemption-while-telling-viewers-to-vote-democrat-n4955683\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">u<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/pjmedia.com\/david-manney\/2026\/08\/01\/the-view-wants-a-news-exemption-while-telling-viewers-to-vote-democrat-n4955683\">dience on air this year<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbusters.org\/blogs\/nb\/nicholas-fondacaro\/2026\/07\/29\/views-number-conservative-guests-swells-5-compared-87\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">NewsBusters count of the show\u2019s full 29th season<\/a>, running from last September through July, found 87 guests expressing a liberal opinion against 5 conservative ones, a split of roughly 95 percent to 5 percent. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbusters.org\/blogs\/nb\/nicholas-fondacaro\/2025\/12\/22\/2025-view-chatted-politics-128-lib-guests-2-conservatives\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">prior full calendar year was worse<\/a> at 128 to 2, better than 98 percent one-sided, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tvinsider.com\/1235737\/the-view-liberal-conservative-guests-2025-whoopi-joy-behar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">one of the two conservative bookings only occurred<\/a> because Marjorie Taylor Greene was feuding with her own party\u2019s leadership that week. <\/p>\n<p>That is not a rounding error. It is a programming decision, repeated for years, by a staff that knows exactly what it is doing. <em>Meet the Press<\/em> does not have that problem, because it functions as a news interview program rather than a daytime rally with commercial breaks.<\/p>\n<p>None of that makes the FCC\u2019s conduct defensible. I am a card-carrying skeptic of government power, and a president musing publicly about pulling a license because its comedians are mean to him is exactly the content-based leverage that should make conservatives nervous, not gleeful. Justice Antonin Scalia spent a career reminding us the First Amendment protects speech we hate as fiercely as speech we love, and a broadcast license is not a leash the White House gets to yank whenever a punchline stings. <\/p>\n<p>If the FCC can find a viewpoint-neutral basis for accelerated review, tied to the DEI investigation rather than the jokes, let it make that case on the merits. If it cannot separate the two, it should lose.<\/p>\n<p>But conservatives do not have to pick a side between \u201cthe FCC is right\u201d and \u201cABC is the victim here.\u201d Both institutions can be behaving badly at once. Government should not weaponize licensing against disfavored speech, and a network dressing up a partisan talk show as neutral journalism to dodge a fairness rule is also misleading the public, just with better lawyers and worse math. <\/p>\n<p>Justice Louis Brandeis had the right prescription more than a century ago: sunlight is the best disinfectant. Publish the guest logs. Publish the FCC\u2019s actual legal theory for a renewal that was not due for two more years. Let both records speak, because each side is betting the public will only read the press release its own side wrote.<\/p>\n<p><em>The View<\/em> was created to showcase women of \u201cdifferent generations, backgrounds, and views,\u201d according to its own founding premise. Somewhere between Barbara Walters and Ana Navarro, the \u201cdifferent views\u201d part fell off entirely, which is the network\u2019s prerogative under the First Amendment and also the reason its equal time petition deserves the skepticism it is demanding for its own claim. <\/p>\n<p>A program booking political guests at a 95-5 ratio is not a discussion; it is a caucus meeting with better lighting. Free speech protects ABC\u2019s right to run an all-left-wing panel every weekday morning. It does not entitle ABC to call that panel a news program when convenient and a protected editorial product when it is not. Pick a lane. The rest of us are trying to drive.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Jay Rogers is a financial professional with more than 30 years of experience in private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and wealth management. He has a B.S. from Northeastern University and has completed postgraduate studies at UCLA, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard. He writes about issues in finance, constitutional law, national security, human nature, and public policy.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Disney and ABC sue FCC over retaliatory license review<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4386,"featured_media":2647254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Copy-of-Untitled-2026-08-19T162229.318.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[5050,6672,4188,4902,5894],"class_list":["post-2647253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-bias","tag-commentary","tag-media","tag-opinion","tag-politics"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Copy-of-Untitled-2026-08-19T162229.318.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4386"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2647253"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2647257,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647253\/revisions\/2647257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2647254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2647253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2647253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2647253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}