Before Jimmy Kimmel, there was KCBS.
Just six days into President Donald Trump’s new administration, the San Francisco Bay-area radio station KCBS-AM reported that immigration agents were in the area — driving “unmarked vehicles including a black Dodge Durango, a gray Nissan Maxima and white Nissan truck.”
The brief story — also reported by other outlets — quickly drew the ire of conservative influencers who attacked KCBS’ report as endangering agents’ lives, sparking a deluge of complaints from listeners and callers.
That was just the start of KCBS’ troubles. The Trump administration’s top broadcast regulator, Brendan Carr, soon accused KCBS of failing to operate in the public interest and said he was opening an investigation.
By targeting KCBS, Carr revealed his willingness to expand the Republican administration’s offensive on perceived media foes beyond major broadcasters like ABC, CBS and NPR. In KCBS’ case, the radio station took steps to mitigate the potential of drawing further attention from conservative influencers or Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, according to eight current and former station employees who insisted on anonymity out of fear of reprisal.
KCBS demoted a well-liked anchor and dialed back on political programming, people said. For months, reporters were dissuaded from pursuing political or controversial topics and instead encouraged to focus on human interest stories, according to the current and former staffers.
When journalists were given permission to pursue politics or Trump administration policies, some of the staffers said, the tone of the stories was heavily scrutinized.
Doug Sovern, a veteran political journalist at the station, said he was sidelined after Carr announced his investigation.
“‘Chilling effect’ does not begin to describe the neutering of our political coverage,” said Sovern, who retired in April. He said his retirement was not related to the controversy.
FCC scrutiny has eased in recent months, and the station has been increasingly willing to tackle more topics that might draw attention from the administration and conservative critics, the staffers said. The station, for example, assigned a reporter in October to cover the No Kings Day protests of the Trump administration, which the staffers described as a welcome change.
In a statement, KCBS said it would not “comment on internal personnel matters.”
“There has been no change in policy or editorial direction at KCBS,” the station added. “We remain committed to providing our Bay Area listeners with trusted news, including our political coverage, that is balanced and objective.”
The FCC did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s enforcer
In Trump’s second term, Carr has emerged as a top enforcer of Trump’s agenda, using his perch to take on one of the president’s favorite targets: media outlets.
His threat to ABC in September that “we can do this the easy way or the hard way” led to Kimmel, a late-night host and comedian, being briefly pulled off the air by parent company Disney over statements in one of his monologues about the political reaction to the slaying of Charlie Kirk,