The Center for American Rights (CAR) filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), accusing a CBS-owned station, WCBS-TV, of distorting recent interviews.
During “Face the Nation” and “60 Minutes” broadcasts, Vice President Kamala Harris was asked a question regarding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. CBS aired two different responses.
According to CAR, the discrepancies in the broadcasts amount to “deliberate news distortion—a violation of FCC rules governing broadcasters’ public interest obligations.”
The organization is demanding that CBS release the unedited transcripts of the interview.
“This isn’t just about one interview or one network,” CAR president Daniel Suhr said in a statement. “This is about the public’s trust in the media on critical issues of national security and international relations during one of the most consequential elections of our time. When broadcasters manipulate interviews and distort reality, it undermines democracy itself. The FCC must act swiftly to restore public confidence in our news media.”
The complaint cites FCC precedent that broadcasters “may not engage in intentional falsification or suppression of news.”
Due to CBS’s failure to release the transcript from the interview, “[s]trong and prompt action by the Commission is necessary to restore public confidence in the broadcast and to clarify this matter of national interest and importance.”
“Face the Nation” showed a clip of Harris’s interview with host Bill Whitaker before it aired on “60 Minutes.” Harris told Whitaker that the “work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by
or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”
In another clip, however, Harris said, “We are not gonna stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
