Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen is calling on the Federal Communications Commission to revoke Arizona PBS’s broadcast license over what he claims was “viewpoint discrimination” during the 2022 gubernatorial race between Kari Lake and Katie Hobbs.
In a letter to the FCC, Petersen alleges “Arizona PBS violated legal rules, contractual requirements, and long-standing traditions to improperly put its thumb on the scale of the 2022 Arizona governor’s race.”
The complaint stems from a report from The Arizona Republic, in which the outlet published internal emails from Arizona State University leadership, including university President Michael Crow, that highlighted concerns over the “brand” and Lake’s opinion that the 2020 election was rigged. The emails between Crow and his staff seemed to influence programming decisions at Arizona PBS.
"Whatever the format there remains the fact that it is our venue and brand. We need structure and format and people who believe in elections as participants," an email from Crow read, according to the Republic.
“They were concerned about this one candidate’s views being on the air and seemed surprised that we were not—didn't see it as our role to be concerned about that.” Tom Collins, Executive Director of the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission told ABC15.
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The commission partnered with Arizona PBS to facilitate the debates. According to the rules, if a candidate declines to debate the other is offered a solo interview. In this case, Hobbs declined but was still offered a solo interview. The commission told ABC15 that it was never informed of the decision until it was announced publicly.
"Two things that are that are odd about this are, one, there was no reason for ASU not to communicate with us about what their plans were,” Collins, said. "And two, there was no reason for them to announce, or have announced the second interview with the other candidate on top of our product, right? I mean, that's what blew apart the trust.”
But, Kelly McBride, head of ethics and senior vice president at Poynter, said she doesn’t think it amounts to enough to revoke the license.
"I don't think this rises to the level of something that you would revoke a license over,” McBride said. “And that's where this becomes a First Amendment issue, because it really is about can this broadcaster provide, using its own judgment, the best product that it can for the audience? They were clearly trying to do that.”
When asked for a statement on Petersen’s request to revoke the license, ASU pointed ABC15 to an online website that states why the Arizona PBS chose to offer Hobbs an interview as well.
