Washington DC - ABC accused the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of using its license renewal process to retaliate against negative coverage of the Trump administration.
The FCC is being urged to drop its challenge to the licenses of eight ABC television stations in a new legal filing from the Disney-owned network.
"The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: Accommodate the administration's view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price," ABC's lawyers wrote in a 109-page filing on Wednesday.
"The tools vary; the objective does not: A media industry too fearful of official reprisal to report the news freely."
FCC Chair Brendan Carr has said the commission's decision to put ABC under an expedited license renewal process is meant to enforce federal laws and regulations, and has nothing to do with the network's editorial decision making.
The decision had been taken in April when Carr ordered that the stations be put into the license renewal process years earlier than necessary. The move came amid calls by President Donald Trump for ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel.
Throughout the FCC's public comment period, which ended on Wednesday, it received more than 150,000 comments. These messages were reportedly overwhelmingly pro-ABC, per CNN.
ABC acknowledged this in their filing, writing: "The outpouring of support for the stations has been unprecedented for a license renewal proceeding."
"When given the chance to weigh in on whether to allow the FCC to continue its campaign of censorship and control, the American public showed up in a big way," said Anna M. Gomez, the only Democrat on the FCC.
"They believe in the value of their local news, they trust those who cover their communities, and they understand that the FCC has no business deciding who is a journalist and what counts as real news."