Mediaite ONE SHEET: ABC Sues the FCC, WH Attacks CNN Reporter, and More!

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TOP STORY

ABC SUES THE FCC

A massive new lawsuit tops today’s One Sheet — as ABC has filed a First Amendment case against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Tuesday morning, the result of months of what the network has described as a “retaliatory campaign” for its coverage, including that of President Donald Trump. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

In April the FCC announced a years-early review of ABC’s broadcast station licenses. That probe came soon after Trump and members of the GOP responded to comments made by Jimmy Kimmel on his late night show on the network. ABC is calling for, among other things, the FCC to immediately end the probe.

Notably, the FCC’s Chairman Brendan Carr is a  Trump appointee — and per our stack’s authors today, the ongoing beef between the network and the theoretically independent government agency has everything to do with that relationship.

THREE TAKES

CNN’s Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter — The lawsuit against the FCC “opens with a foundational principle,” Stelter wrote. The lawsuit “has been expected for some time, given the government’s highly aggressive actions against Disney.” Stelter cited three “key” parts of the filing to pay attention to: 1) the campaign against ABC is “retaliatory” in nature and the FCC “disapproves of what ABC broadcasts;” 2) ABC filed the lawsuit “reluctantly with no alternative means to eliminate these ongoing and immediate threats;” and 3) the FCC’s “campaign is also calculated to operate in terrorem upon the rest of the industry.”

Axios Alerts, Sara Fischer — The lawsuit filed Tuesday is a “major escalation” of the network’s fight with the FCC, Fischer wrote this morning. ABC “argues is motivated by broader efforts to silence a free and independent press.” The filing additionally indicates ABC is prepared to continue to fire back “at the FCC.” The network has “pointed to the thousands of public comments filed to the agency in defense of the broadcaster as evidence that Carr is committed to politics over the public’s consensus on the broadcaster’s First Amendment rights.” Also at issue is ABC’s belief the FCC is “targeting” shows like The View. “ABC is the latest in a string of broadcasters to file lawsuits against the administration for targeting media companies with regulatory efforts that they argue are designed to silence critical coverage,” Fischer concluded.

The Wrap’s First Take JD Knapp — Knapp also pointed out that the filing came after Carr “publicly targeted ABC programs including Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The View, and after he “subjected ABC’s eight owned-and-operated stations to an accelerated license-renewal review, which the FCC has linked to Disney’s DEI practices.” Notably, Knapp added, Carr’s efforts don’t seem to be too popular: the “final replies in the FCC’s license renewal proceeding closed on Aug. 5,” and ABC and Disney received “thousands” of comments of support from the public.

TAKEAWAY: Today’s authors have all made one thing clear today: For ABC, the lawsuit is a long time coming. The network believed they had to make a stand after months of what they believe is a deliberately plotted crusade against them on behalf of the White House. After numerous cases of the president and his top officials going after media outlets (Trump v. BBC, Trump v. WSJ, Kash Patel v. The Atlantic), the administration now finds itself playing defense. And ABC has clearly concluded the best defense is a good offense.

📰 TOP SCOOPS & ANALYSIS 📰

SCOOP 🍨 POLITICO Playbook, Dasha Burns, Will Steakin, and Adam Wren — Iowa’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn, who is “running for governor on a MAHA platform,” told POLITICO he “gets an annual exemption to indulge in fair food” while attending the Iowa State Fair this week. When asked just how far that exemption goes, Lahn commented, “I’m gonna pull an Anthony Fauci here and plead the Fifth. I can’t disclose that information.” Lahn, who “defied a Trump endorsement in the primary,” is “offering perhaps the clearest evidence yet that the MAHA pilot is becoming more than just a MAGA spinoff.” He also “helped prove MAHA can shape GOP primaries, give candidates rare permission to break with Trump and potentially become a decisive constituency in the 2026 midterms and beyond.”

SCOOP 🍨 Punchbowl News AM, Max Cohen — Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) has issued a warning: Trump “will do everything in his power to ‘prevent electoral loss,’” Cohen wrote Tuesday. “I have enormous confidence in election officials at the local level, Democrats and Republicans,” Morelle told Punchbowl. “But we’re trying to take the burden off them because some of them recognize that the president is going to try to be disruptive in the final weeks leading up to the election.” Morelle, who is a “close ally” of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, added the latter “understands and believes … the only thing that can stop our success, frankly, is the president knowing that the verdict from the American people is not going to be kind.”

ANALYSIS 👀 Status, Oliver Darcy — Trump “erupted” at CNN’s White House Correspondent Kristen Holmes during an Oval Office press event on Monday, Darcy wrote. The event was “ostensibly held to honor a heroic teen lifeguard,” but Trump flew off the handle after Holmes “pressed Trump for details about his communications with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.” He “repeatedly” told her to “be quiet” and “accused her of being disrespectful” as Holmes “tried to ask whether the North Korean leader had asked Trump to scale back the exercises.” CNN leapt to Holmes’ defense, and called her one of the “most respected and accomplished journalists covering the White House.”

ANALYSIS 👀 POLITICO, Erin Doherty and Alec Hernandez— Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) is running a “meticulously viral campaign” ahead of the 2026 midterms, Doherty and Hernandez reported Tuesday. The senator is “hands-on in all aspects of his campaign, including messaging,” and Democrats who have worked with him all say he is “meticulous about how he communicates and the details of his campaign’s work.” For example, Doherty and Hernandez wrote, Ossoff’s decision to call out Trump’s aide Natalie Harp on Sunday was “part of a larger prepared speech that hammered Trump over the war in Iran — and part of a larger strategy to raise his profile in a critical Senate race.”

ANALYSIS 👀 The Bulwark’s Morning Shots, Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger— Political polling “is in dire straits for a bunch of reasons,” Kristol and Egger insisted today. One reason is that it’s increasingly difficult to “figure out how to get surveys in front of representative samples of voters now that people don’t pick up cold calls from unknown numbers anymore.” Another reason? Some polling companies are “downright frauds.” One such fraud is Median Polling, the pair claimed. That’s the group that “supposedly conducted a couple polls this month, including one in Wisconsin supposedly showing Francesca Hong up 20-plus points on David Crowley and another in the L.A. mayoral race showing incumbent Karen Bass leading challenger Nithya Raman by double digits.” The group admitted on Monday the polls were fake.

ANALYSIS 👀 The Poynter Report, Tom Jones— The White House Correspondents’ Association is still looking into Trump’s plane swap, Jones said. It’s difficult to expect a result the WHCA will be happy with whatever they find, he noted, because the switch is “just the latest sign of the deteriorating relationship between the White House and the White House Correspondents’ Association, which has largely been defanged under Trump.”

ANALYSIS 👀 The Free Press, Jacob Siegel — The “special” relationship between the United States and Israel is increasingly less so, Siegel wrote today, and the two countries are “are drifting further and further apart.” This is apparent “in how American public opinion has soured on the Jewish state” and “in the tension between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.” Siegel also pointed to a third source: “the views of the rising stars in both of America’s political parties.” Supporters of Israel are “dismayed” by this turn of events, but for Siegel, “widening divide between America and Israel isn’t just inevitable … it’s for the best.”

📈BUSINESS OF MEDIA 🎥

Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter, Simon Owens — Almost 40 years after Sony purchased Columbia Pictures (and got dragged for it), the company’s entertainment divisions are thriving. That sure vindicates the company’s long-term plan to focus on content creation and licensing. QUOTE 📣 “Sony’s entertainment divisions — spanning video games, movies, and music — are thriving while its devices business has steadily shrunk.”

Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter, Simon Owens — The long-postponed film Coyote vs. Acme has had a grueling decades-long journey from magazine page to the screen. Based on Ian Frazier‘s 1990s New Yorker story, its theatrical release this year marks the culmination of thirty years of development. QUOTE 📣 “In 2023, WBD CEO David Zaslav drew widespread condemnation from Hollywood after shelving Coyote vs. Acme, even though the film was already mostly completed.”

Digiday, Sara Jerde — Digital media executives are already planning for a future where they no longer rely heavily on Google’s search algorithms for traffic. To survive the threat of AI search overviews and zero-click search, The New York Times is investing in video, while News Corp is prioritizing premium subscriptions and B2B products. Additionally, BuzzFeed is slashing operational costs and transitioning to a more flexible contributor model to weather the traffic decline. QUOTE 📣 “Will it work?

Poynter, Alex Mahadevan — Prism News, a highly publicized AI-generated local news startup that promised “zero humans” and “infinite scale,” has abruptly gone offline. The site’s collapse follows investigations by local journalists and researchers who exposed Prism for widespread plagiarism and fabricating local reporting. The failure highlights growing industry-wide skepticism regarding the viability of fully automated journalism platforms. QUOTE 📣  “We have currently completed our initial experiment. A big thank you to all who participated and gave their feedback. All activity is suspended for the foreseeable future.”

Awful Announcing, Drew Lerner — Sports announcer Ian Eagle is set to take over as CBS’s No. 2 NFL booth announcer alongside Ross Tucker following the post-arrest exit of Tony Romo. Beyond his CBS promotion, industry watchers are eyeing Eagle as the obvious candidate to succeed Al Michaels as the lead voice of Amazon’s Thursday Night Football. With both Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit nearing the end of their current contracts, Eagle is well positioned. QUOTE 📣  “Ian Eagle says he’s not trying to predict what’s next for his career, but plenty of other people are doing it for him.”

Status, Oliver Darcy — Norah O’Donnell is experiencing a massive career resurgence at CBS News under the leadership of new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss. Sidelined by previous management, O’Donnell has been given prominent roles on 60 Minutes and a new health podcast, and may now even be nearing a return to the CBS Mornings host desk. Morning execs are eager for a permanent third host to inject much-needed new energy and stop an audience bleed that has seen ratings collapse to all-time lows since Tony Dokoupil left for the evening slot. QUOTE 📣 “She is a reliable hand with strong range and significant anchoring experience. And, importantly, Weiss is said to very much like O’Donnell.”

Poynter, Amaris Castillo— The BBC has petitioned a Florida federal court to subpoena Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner for testimony and records in Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit. The broadcaster argues that Trump’s adult children and son-in-law likely possess direct, personal knowledge of the events surrounding the January 6th Capitol attack. The BBC is seeking the court’s intervention after previous independent attempts to subpoena the family members were unsuccessful. QUOTE 📣 “The BBC case is one of several lawsuits Trump has pursued against news organizations and publishers. He has pressed cases against the BBC, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and CNN.”

OTHER COOL STUFF

Morning Brew: Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan quirkily sneaks unusual, SAT-level words into his quarterly earnings calls with analysts. Prepared scripts have randomly featured heavy-hitting words like “gainsay,” “fantods,” and “anfractuous.”

Feed Me: A bizarre squid spill temporarily shut down a road in Narragansett, Rhode Island, after thousands of pounds of the sea creatures spilled out of a tipped-over truck. Could get stinky. Something about this is just so quintessentially Rhode Island. Carry on.

👀 WHAT GOT MISSED? 👀

Morning Brew, Abby Rubenstein — David Ellison’s latest plan is to require the states that filed a lawsuit against Paramount’s attempted merger with Warner Bros. Discovery to pay a $1.18 billion bond “due to the delay” the filing caused. “Paramount is taking an aggressive stance in the litigation and asking the court to require the states to provide a bond to cover the hefty fees it’ll owe Warner Bros. for the delay,” Rubenstein pointed out. But for all the coverage the lawsuit has gotten, this latest development should have gotten more attention — because it could have a serious impact on how the case proceeds… or doesn’t.

🏆 NEWSLETTER OF THE DAY 🏆

CJR’s Near and Far, Bill Grueskin — What happens when a 50-year journalism veteran joins a newspaper as a junior editor? For starters, Grueskin wrote, “My first day on the job, I f*cked up.” Though he said the instance was not “a call-the-libel-lawyers-ASAP f*ckup” or “a who-spelled-Trump-as-Trummp-on-the-homepage f*ckup,” it was a “rookie mistake.” The problem: “in this case, the rookie was sixty-nine years old and had been editing news copy since he was nineteen.” Grueskin’s newsletter today is about his decision to join the newsroom at the Salt Lake Tribune as a visiting editor, and the moment he told a new colleague, who had just “patiently” walked him through a CMS problem, that his lede was “clunky.”

“In the process,” of the gig, Grueskin added, “I learned a lot about what has changed in local journalism since I was in the thick of it, three decades ago. Even more interesting, I saw what stayed the same.” He pointed out, “When I left local journalism, we were still using X-Acto knives to trim stories on the pasteup floor” – these days, journalism is all about numbers and analytics. Grueskin offers a unique take on the journey newsrooms have taken over the decades, and a look at where things might be going. A fascinating, informative read to claim today’s top honors.

This newsletter was produced by Lindsey Ellefson.