Carr Warns Stations About Polls, Drawing Objection

The nation's top broadcast regulator told TV and radio stations on Wednesday to steer clear of airing fake polls—and was quickly challenged over the warning. FCC Chair Brendan Carr posted on X that license holders are barred from "news distortion" and hoaxes, saying they shouldn't "amplify or air" fabricated election surveys. Anna Gomez, the FCC's only Democrat, publicly pushed back, the Washington Post reports, arguing the rules don't cover good-faith reporting on publicly available polling, even when it turns out to be wrong. Carr gave no examples, per Politico.

"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 posted on X. Carr's post followed Wedgewood Polls' admission that it had deliberately published bogus midterm numbers as an experiment, per the Post. First Amendment scholars and others said Carr is stretching a rarely used policy to chill coverage of politically sensitive data as he pursues investigations into broadcasters, most notably ABC. His complaints about polls echo President Trump's, Politico points out.