By Nadia Dreid

Law360 (April 6, 2020, 6:59 PM EDT) -- The Federal Communications Commission had harsh words on Monday for a petition asking the agency to look into whether broadcasters are spreading disinformation about the novel coronavirus pandemic by airing misleading statements made by the president.

The agency characterized its decision as one made "in favor of the free press," rejecting the petition from a media advocacy group — coincidentally named Free Press — to dig into whether broadcasters have been flouting FCC rules by airing misinformation via presidential press conferences.

Based on a misunderstanding of the FCC's rules, the agency said that the remedy sought by the group would "dangerously curtail the freedom of the press embodied in the First Amendment."

"The decision also makes clear that the FCC will neither act as a roving arbiter of broadcasters' editorial judgments nor discourage them from airing breaking news events involving government officials in the midst of the current global pandemic," it said in a statement.

In the order, the agency takes aim at the petition as "at worst, a brazen attempt to pressure broadcasters to squelch their coverage of a president that Free Press dislikes and silence other commentators with whom Free Press disagrees."

But Free Press, which advocates for open internet and against corporate media ownership, says it is the one who has been misconstrued.

What the group said it actually wants is for the FCC to use its authority to investigate whether news organizations have been breaking an agency rule against broadcasting hoaxes — defined as something that could cause "substantial public harm" and that the broadcaster knows to be false — by broadcasting coronavirus taskforce press conferences.

"Specifically, Free Press is concerned about several instances in which broadcasters knowingly aired false information concerning a catastrophe that causes, according to the FCC's own rules, 'substantial public harm,'" the group said in a statement on Monday.

In its petition, Free Press argued that false statements made by President Donald Trump have "materially contributed" to the current public health crisis and that "wide broadcast of [them] ... also contributed to the cavalier attitude some have taken toward containing coronavirus and mitigating its spread."

Journalists have been publicly discussing the ethics of airing press conferences live and without context if there is a likelihood it may include false information, and those conversations have ramped up alongside the pandemic as misinformation becomes a potential public health concern.

But Free Press' petition took that conversation several steps further by asking for government intervention to stop television and radio stations from doing so by requiring them to add a disclaimer to any false or misleading information.

In late January, Trump dismissed the possibility of a pandemic during an interview at the World Economic Forum, saying that the U.S.' sole case was limited to "one person coming in from China" and that the situation was "totally under control."

As late as Feb. 28, he called the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, the Democrats' "new hoax." And a few days before, he had promised that the then-confirmed 15 cases in the U.S. would be "down to close to zero" in "a couple of days."

But on March 29, the president said that if the U.S. saw between 100,000 to 200,000 deaths, then the government could be considered to have done "a very good job."

More than 10,500 people in the U.S. were confirmed to have died from the disease as of Monday afternoon, and more than 350,000 have tested positive for COVID-19.

--Editing by Nicole Bleier.

Correction: The story has been corrected to clarify that Free Press asking only for disclaimers on any misleading information.  

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