FCC chief defers to Pentagon on airing US execution on TV networks

The chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said on Friday that he would defer to the Pentagon on whether US networks could air a planned December 3 military execution, which would be an unprecedented broadcast.

Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a senior counselor at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and expert on FCC issues, said there is no legal basis for the commission to intervene in a broadcaster’s decision on whether to air a live execution.“There is absolutely no justification in the Communications Act or the Constitution that would allow the FCC to tell broadcasters to carry or not carry an actual event,” he said, adding, “there is no basis for the FCC to dictate content or to prohibit content short of obscenity.”