Trump wants to use the FCC to silence Philadelphia’s 6abc. We must reject this attack on the First Amendment.

A pending FCC broadcast license review now targets eight ABC television stations owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company — among them WPVI Philadelphia, known to most viewers as 6abc. It has been said that “all politics is local.” Here in Philadelphia, this truism has applied with growing frequency to clear and present threats to the First Amendment — recently in our public parks and monuments, and now on our airwaves.

In 1934, years before the advent of commercial broadcast television, the Federal Communications Commission was established by an act of Congress to help govern the burgeoning American radio industry.

Among its roles, the FCC now regulates the granting of broadcast licenses controlling which television stations can or cannot access a finite spectrum of public airwaves. Both by law and by long-standing precedent, broadcast license review is typically an independent, pro forma exercise. Before the current administration — under 14 previous presidents, seven Democrats and seven Republicans — the television licensing process had been largely nonpartisan and operated in the public interest.

In fact, the need for broadcasters using public airwaves to operate broadly in the public interest is the very definition by which the FCC is meant to grant television station licenses. The FCC is required to renew a broadcast license if it finds that, “The station has served the public interest, convenience, and necessity.” Philadelphia’s 6abc and its 55-year-old Action News programming embody this principle.

Unfortunately, under President Donald Trump the FCC has become — unabashedly — a partisan attack dog rather than the guardian of the public interest.

On May 29, the FCC launched the first stage of a potential challenge to the licenses of ABC owned and operated stations around the country, including 6abc, Philadelphia’s leading local news broadcaster and a strong pillar of our community. The FCC ordered eight ABC stations — in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Raleigh-Durham, and Fresno, as well as Philadelphia — to submit renewal applications years before their original renewal dates, which range from 2028 to 2031.

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This is just one of many fronts in a long-running battle between the Trump administration and a broad array of independent media that has cost the American news industry time, money, and, too often, operating independence at a moment of extraordinary need for a free press. The challenge to ABC broadcast licenses has its most recent origins in the political harassment of late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and the daytime program The View, each periodically critical of the president and other government officials on both sides of the aisle.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is the administration’s front man in the ABC case. Carr, you may recall, tried to intimidate ABC, its affiliate stations, and Kimmel some months ago, referring, like a mob boss, to "doing it the easy way or the hard way." This license renewal harassment, which will cost Disney shareholders millions in legal fees, is presumably the “hard way.”

By law, the government’s filing allows public comment for either renewal or denial of ABC’s licenses. You can make your views known, quickly and easily here: FCC Submit an Express Comment. Responses to the request for comments are due by July 29.

Under President Donald Trump the FCC has become — unabashedly — a partisan attack dog rather than the guardian of the public interest.

We in Philadelphia know that 6abc is an especially inappropriate target for accusations of not operating in the public interest. The station is a longtime ratings leader for news programming serving a geographically broad and politically diverse footprint. It has for decades produced consumer-interest, investigative news, and community-oriented programming that speaks truth to power of all stripes.

At the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, of which I am chief executive, we have worked with 6abc on nonpartisan election coverage (Every Voice, Every Vote) and on fundraising for Philadelphia-area residents in need (Philly Gives). Executives at 6abc have always offered their help, their production skills, and their unrivaled broadcast audience for free — in the public interest.

This month, we celebrated America’s national freedom and independence, born here in Philadelphia. Let it not be a summer in which Philadelphia’s leading local television broadcaster is, with impunity, threatened with the loss of its right to broadcast freely and independently.

Jim Friedlich is CEO and executive director of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, the nonprofit, noncontrolling owner of The Inquirer. @jimfriedlich