Confronting America's Historical Narratives

The Federal Communications Commission is currently investigating CBS for “intentional news distortion” for its editing of an interview with Kamala Harris. On this week’s On the Media, what the new chairman of the FCC has been up to, and what led a top CBS producer to quit. Plus, what a growing effort to rewrite the history of Watergate tells us about the American right.

[01:00] The Federal Communications Commission is currently investigating CBS for “intentional news distortion” for its editing of an interview with Kamala Harris. Host Brooke Gladstone talks with Max Tani, Semafor’s Media Editor and co-host of the podcast Mixed Signals, about Brendan Carr’s busy first three months as Chairman of the FCC and the impacts that these kinds of investigations could have on press freedoms.

[15:37] Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Michael Koncewicz, political historian at New York University, about the fight over who gets to tell the story of Watergate and the years-long conservative movement to rehabilitate Richard Nixon’s image.

[29:26] Brooke sits down with Bryan Stevenson, public interest lawyer and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization based in Montgomery, Alabama, to talk about the Trump Administration's war on museums, especially those that deal with our nation's history of racism. 
 

Further reading:

• How Nexstar dodged a Trump lawsuit, by Max Tani
• Shari Redstone kept tabs on ‘60 Minutes’ segments on Trump, by Max Tani
• The Alarming Effort To Rewrite the History of Watergate, by Michael Koncewicz
• The Worst Thing We’ve Ever Done, On the Media (2018)

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