On September 12, Pacifica Network was proud to sponsor Federal Communications Commissioner Anna Gomez as she keynoted the 2025 Grassroots Radio Conference with KYRS radio in Spokane, Washington. New crackdowns on freedom of speech, the need to fight against self-censorship, and the role of community media were all on the table.
This is a transcript of the remarks by Commissioner Gomez and a few questions from the audience.
The opening welcome from Pacifica Network Manager Ursula Ruedenberg:
Ursula Ruedenberg: Commissioner Anna Gomez has been with the Federal Communications Commission since 2013. She is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the National Communications and Information Administration. She went to George Washington University Law School and was a partner at the law firm Wiley Rein. Commissioner Anna Gomez is, since 2023, a Commissioner with the FCC, nominated by President Biden.
We sincerely appreciate and are grateful for the Commissioner who is a voice of reason and an advocate for the First Amendment. We think she’s a kindred spirit with us at community radio, and we really appreciate her courage and tenacity in her work at the FCC.
Anna Gomez: Thank you so much for inviting me to speak with you today. As you heard, I’m Anna Gomez, and I’m currently the sole Democratic Commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission and one of the few remaining minority voices at independent regulatory agencies.
Now, some of you may know, earlier this year, I launched a First Amendment tour to fight back against this Administration’s campaign of censorship and control. The First Amendment has protected our fundamental right to speak freely and to hold power to account since 1791. It is foundational to our democracy, and today that foundation is trembling after constant attacks by our own government.
Across 16 stops, across DC, California, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland and now Washington State, I have been focused on shining a light on the ways in which this FCC’s actions have been threatening freedom of speech and freedom of the press. I’ve been listening to voices across the country that do not usually engage in FCC proceedings and encouraging others across the ideological spectrum to speak out and to push back.
Months later, I’m still on the road because what we are witnessing is this Administration in an ongoing and escalating effort. The threats from this coordinated campaign of censorship and control are far from over. Here are just some of the most egregious examples.
This Administration has initiated investigations and floated debilitating rate regulation regimes targeting the national broadcast networks for their newsrooms’ editorial decisions; harassed private companies because of their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts; and threatened tech companies that respond to consumer demands for content moderation and fact checking. They have attempted to shutter the Voice of America and sought retribution against lawful residents that peacefully protest Administration policies. They are banning books and attempting to erase history from the public record and from our national museums; and they are targeting law firms, unions and all those who have the skills and the will to stand up for the victims of this campaign of censorship and control. And, of course, I cannot leave out the fact that they have been firing potential Presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed minority commissioners of multi-member independent agencies.
The Administration seems intent on using its vast power to punish anyone who dares to speak up and disagree with its extreme agenda. Broadcasters across the country are facing an impossible choice: comply with the Administration’s demands or risk a financially debilitating investigation and the threat of a license revocation.
The power to revoke a broadcast license, a power meant to ensure service to local communities and technical compliance, is being weaponized to punish stations that dare to report news in a way that this Administration doesn’t like. That is not regulation. That is punitive censorship and a regulatory reprisal against free speech.
When licenses become tools of coercion rather than stewardship, the concept of a free press, the so-called fourth estate that holds government accountable, is washed away. We have seen this FCC use frivolous news distortion complaints and the power to derail corporate mergers to pressure news entities to abandon their editorial independence and to scrap their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion practices.
The best example of this type of abuse is the approval of the Paramount/Skydance merger, an $8 billion deal green-lit only after the companies agreed to unprecedented concessions, including subjecting their newsroom to editorial oversight that conforms with this Administration’s views and priorities. That goes directly against the First Amendment.
So, I dissented, and here’s why. After being sued for its use of a standard editorial judgment in a 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, Paramount opted for a payout instead of fighting the case in court, a case they would have won on the facts and on the law. After months of cowardly capitulation to this administration, Paramount got what it wanted, the approval of its multibillion dollar merger. Unfortunately, it is the American public who will ultimately pay the price for its actions. Paramount also accepted this Administration’s radical notion that discriminatory behavior should be tolerated and even embraced, while efforts to expand opportunity for everyone should be rejected.
More alarmingly, the company agreed to never before seen forms of government control over newsroom decisions and editorial judgment, actions that violate both the First Amendment and the Communications Act. A government-sanctioned truth monitor is now in place at CBS to ensure that journalists at CBS do not criticize this Administration or express views that conflict with its agenda. It is a dark chapter in a long and growing record of abuse that threatens democracy in this country.
In the next few months, everyone should be watching their actions closely and urging CBS to find its courage by reclaiming the independence that once made it a trusted voice in American journalism.
The Paramount payout and this FCC’s reckless demands have emboldened those who believe that government can and should abuse its power to extract financial and ideological concessions, demand favored treatment and secure positive media coverage. That should alarm anyone who understands that the First Amendment is foundational to our democracy.
Now, despite this regrettable outcome, this Administration is not done with its assault on the First Amendment. In fact, it is only beginning. So I want to take a few moments to discuss what I fear lies ahead with this Administration’s campaign of intervention in media and to silence critics, to gain favorable coverage, and to impose ideological conformity.
The FCC has been taking action under the guise of combating so-called media bias, an undefined term which, in practice, appears to encompass anything or anyone who disagrees with this Administration. Never mind that those now feigning control over media bias are the same individuals that spent the past decade attacking the press and sowing public distrust in journalism. Notably, the public trust in government is at an all-time low. But, despite this fact, the Administration would have us believe they should be empowered to determine what constitutes bias and to police the truth.
Remember, the point of the First Amendment is to prohibit the government from restricting free speech and a free press. So, even if media bias did exist to the extent that this Administration claims, the last entity the American people should trust with defining or policing it is the Federal government.
This FCC asserts authority for these actions based on broadcasters’ public interest obligations; and, much like the phrase media bias, what this means is open for the current government’s arbitrary interpretation. The FCC is being weaponized by using an undefined and distorted public interest justification for targeting government critics and censoring disfavored content. Now, it is true that broadcasters have an obligation to operate in the public interest; but the FCC’s authority under the public interest is constrained by the scope of its authority under the Communications Act. That law which governs everything we do at our agency specifically prohibits the FCC from censoring broadcaster content. So, regardless of how often or how loudly the Commission asserts that it has the right to police media bias because broadcasters have a public interest obligation, that is simply not true.
The long defunct Fairness Doctrine is the closest thing to the vague standard being asserted. But the Commission eliminated the Fairness Doctrine in the 1980s under President Reagan, something many libertarian and conservative thinkers celebrated at the time.
Accordingly, before initiating any more retaliatory investigations or politically motivated actions, the FCC must initiate a proceeding to define what the public interest means. It has undertaken such issues in the past; and, given the weight of what is at stake, it must do so now,
I also want to talk about what I believe is coming next.
Thus far, this Administration and this FCC have worked together to go after individual companies and broadcast stations. Their actions have targeted entities and policies one by one. What the FCC is planning to do next is change the rules of the game entirely.
We are seeing the Agency gear up to take major actions that will drastically alter the national media ecosystem and the number of voices that are a part of it.
The FCC is considering overriding Congressionally-established ownership caps that for decades have preserved the Agency’s pillars of media policy, localism, competition and viewpoint diversity.
Congress placed limits on broadcast ownership precisely so that one entity would not control the majority of the content we all consume. That’s the essence of viewpoint diversity. Today, that principle is at risk. Efforts to dismantle ownership caps and allow greater consolidation are advancing. Each merger or acquisition reduces the number of voices that may be heard. Each closure of a local newsroom makes our discourse narrower and our communities weaker. The FCC’s proposal to lift the caps isn’t about innovation or competition. It’s about consolidation of viewpoints solely for financial gain.
Billion-dollar companies do not need our help competing with even larger and more powerful national networks. This will do nothing to help the small, independent and local broadcast stations that are at risk of closing shop. The FCC has a duty to ensure our media system serves the public, not billion-dollar companies; not to mention, this form of media consolidation will further push independent local newsrooms to answer to corporate masters who are already under political pressure from this Administration. The FCC won’t need to threaten to investigate individual stations. Journalists won’t need to be censored directly. They’ll censor themselves to avoid conflict with regulators or losing government favor.
The result will be a chilling effect on coverage, fewer jobs and less diversity of viewpoints. Similarly, I also worry about the emerging trend in the government effort to pick winners and losers in the media ecosystem.
I don’t have to remind you how public broadcasting in particular has been singled out by this administration. NPR and PBS stations are under siege. They have defunded institutions that millions of Americans rely on for trusted local information. But defunding them won’t be the end of this effort. I believe their goal is to completely eliminate them.
In the next couple of months, I urge you to pay close attention to the steps this Administration might take to further threaten the existence of these stations. I hope I am overreacting here; but this is what I fear, that they would remove them from the list of stations that are part of our nation’s alerting system or escalate investigations and threaten to revoke their licenses. We cannot sit idly by as they tear away a piece of our national civic infrastructure.
On the other hand, I suspect we will see further efforts to subsidize or dismantle barriers to entry for media that is seen as favorable to this administration, whether that includes the consolidation I already mentioned, imposing new rules on virtual cable providers, or steering the next wave of broadcast technology in their favor.
In the end, this was never about preserving diversity of voices. It’s about narrowing them. While one set of outlets is defunded, stripped of licenses or excluded from public service responsibilities, another set is quietly promoted, subsidized and cleared of regulatory obstacles. The goal is not to reduce bias or to ensure balance but to engineer a media environment that echoes only one worldview. That is not viewpoint diversity. It is viewpoint control. And, if we allow the government to decide which voices survive and which are silenced, we lose the very foundation of a free press and with it the democratic principles it seeks to protect.
I apologize if all of this sounds dire, but rest assured we are not powerless to change the course of history. As I’ve said before, unchecked and unquestioned power has no rightful place in America.
That is why grassroots radio is so important. You are committed to serving your communities. You bring a voice, a diverse viewpoint, to your communities.
And I’ve asked companies, journalists and citizens alike, to stand up and speak out. It’s time for everyone to find their courage, and I will continue to call out cowardly corporate capitulation for what it is: a betrayal not just of journalistic independence but of the public trust because, if the First Amendment is to mean anything at all, it must mean that no government, regardless of party, gets to decide what is true, who gets heard, or which voices are silenced. Thank you.
Question from Journalist Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe : Ms. Gomez, the change in the EEO [Equal Employment Opportunity] audits caught a lot of this community off-guard. So, I’m curious: Does the Chairman and the Enforcement Bureau have this much discretion, or does the rest of the Commission have a role to play in such a major shift in the way policy is acted on? And also, if cases come out of this, will you guys be reviewing them publicly?
Anna Gomez: I think it’s important to keep in mind something that I said before, which is that we are constrained by our remit under the statute, under the Communications Act.
And, while it is true that we have EEO rules, those rules are designed to ensure that broadcasters are recruiting from a diverse set of candidates. Why is that? Why do we have that? Because for localism purposes, you want to make sure that local broadcasters are serving their local communities; and the way to do that is to ensure that they have a diverse staff. But what we don’t do is police violations of the nation’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission laws or Civil Rights laws. That is done by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Justice, usually.
And so I think, obviously, and I don’t think this is going to surprise you, this is all a part of eradicating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion throughout the country.
The problem with enforcement at the FCC, and I shouldn’t call it a problem with enforcement itself, the problem with this Administration is it is using proceedings like enforcement in order to get its licensees to alter their behavior in a way that is not reviewable because, until there is final Commission action, there is no review by the court. So for example, when you initiate an enforcement proceeding against, I don’t know, CBS, and you demand concessions out of CBS, none of that is reviewable in court until there is a final Commission determination.
So to me, what you are seeing is a harassment, an unauthorized assertion of authority in order to get licensees to alter their behavior. Now your question was, ‘Will the full Commission do something in public?’ I don’t see things unless they arise to our level. What causes that? Certain levels of forfeitures are done at the Commission level–the Bureaus only have so much authority to take actions on their own–or a license revocation. I don’t think this is going to lead to license revocations. That would be so quickly reversed.
But the point is, it’s the process that is the point, not the final outcome. And so the likelihood that I will have an opportunity to vote and dissent, I’m sure, is very low on something arising out of this. And, as I’ve said before, I really think that the goal is to alter behavior before it gets to something like that because that would be reviewable by court. The courts have been different as of late, but, even they, I think, would be hard pressed to find that it’s Constitutional for the FCC to revoke licenses because of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. But, nonetheless, it’s an absolute twisting of our Civil Rights laws.
But in the end, what your community radio does is so important for your communities. And, in order to serve your communities, you have to understand your communities and you have to meet them where they are. And that is why, whether you call them Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies or you just call them understanding your communities…I’m not telling you to rename things because that gets this administration triggered too.
But, you know, I don’t see how you can do your jobs without understanding your communities; and I don’t see how you can understand your communities if you are not, in fact, focused on very diverse segments of your communities. But, again, I gave you some very, very dark remarks there on my concerns about what’s happening with commercial broadcasting and the future of diversity of viewpoints.
It is community radio that is going to help us keep that diversity of viewpoints, and that is why it matters so much; and I hope and pray that it continues to be successful and growing,
Journalist Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe: So, if the license fights and the harassment are, I guess what I’m hearing from you is that we’ve got to find the courage if the pressure comes to our station. We’ve got to figure out how to do that.
This is going to be my last question. I thought about this one a lot.
This room is filled with people deeply connected to their community and who are a voice for their community. So, you’ve spoken to it, and I think these questions have also spoken to a considerable amount of angst in this room. So, is there something that, as a group this people, this group of people, can do that will be useful or will apply points of pressure in the right places to preserve and grow community radio?
Anna Gomez: I feel your pain.
Keep doing what you do. I think what really worries me is capitulation in advance. And education, speaking, you know, speech is important.
And, you know, I talk a lot about capitulation breeds capitulation, but courage breeds courage; and we really need to continue to stand up. These actions being taken are so frequent and they’re so constant that they become noise and we become numb to it. We cannot let this become the status quo. So let’s all find our courage and let’s speak up and push back.
Question from LaGanzie Kale KLEK 102.5: Commissioner, you mentioned about the Trump Administration trying to do away with DEI. But how would that necessarily affect broadcasters like myself and probably some others in the room who are minority broadcasters, just by our nature? How would that affect us? And I just had a quick comment. One thing that we did here in Jonesboro, we’ve done this since day 1, 10 years ago, is, even though Jonesboro is majority conservative, we have made extra effort to try to be balanced with as many liberal and conservative voices as possible. That’s kind of like in response to your knowing your community, and that is something that has worked for us in the past; but now there is the concern that everything’s changing. So I just wanted to get your thoughts on that.
Anna Gomez: What concerns me is that these allegations of media bias are manufactured, and they really are a desire to control how news is reported and what information gets out to communities.
And, as I mentioned earlier, the FCC should not be policing bias. It is not our job to balance the marketplace of ideas. It is our job to ensure that there is a lot of viewpoints out there. So how is it going to affect you? I’d be surprised if it personally affects you,
And I say that because the actions that are being taken are meant to chill, not to get to a final outcome. They are not to get to a license revocation, I hope, because, the more that they can get people to capitulate in advance, the more they don’t have to face the threat of going to court and defending what they’re doing. And what they’re doing is indefensible under the First Amendment.
Question from Pacifica Network Manager Ursula Ruedenberg: Thank you for coming, Commissioner. My question is a little bit of an extension of LaGanzie’s question.
Much has been said about how the administration has been targeting NPR and PBS. How much is community radio as a medium on the radar of the administration? How aware are they of us?
Anna Gomez: It’s a very good question. I have to admit, I have not seen any targeting. What you want to watch out for is whether there’s a complaint filed against a particular station.
That’s when we’ll know if you’ve drawn attention, but I have not seen it. So, hopefully, keep doing what you’re doing. Thank you. Thank you all for your questions
Photo of Commissioner Gomez taken by Pacifica Network Manager Ursula Ruedenberg at the event.