ABC Asks a Judge to Stop an Early Review of Its Broadcast Licenses
A lawyer for ABC asked a federal judge on Tuesday to prevent the Trump administration from conducting an early review of the network's broadcast licences, likening it to a looming guillotine execution that was already chilling the network's editorial decisions weeks before the midterm elections, according to PBS NewsHour. Two things sit side by side here: a legal request that a judge block the review, and an argument about atmosphere — that the mere prospect of licence scrutiny alters what gets broadcast. The guillotine image is advocacy, not a finding. The timing, an election season, is the part that makes the argument land.
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The strongest part of ABC's case is the calendar: weeks before an election, licence review stops being abstract.
But a lawyer's guillotine metaphor is rhetoric, and chilling effects are notoriously hard to demonstrate in court.
True — which is why the request is for a judge to step in now rather than wait to measure damage after the fact.