Arizona senate president calls on FCC to revoke state’s PBS license over ‘viewpoint discrimination’

The president of the Arizona state senate is asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate Arizona’s PBS station (KAET) for “viewpoint discrimination” over claims it wrongly influenced the state’s contentious 2022 governor’s race.

“As President of the Arizona State Senate, I write to request an investigation into the broadcast license for Arizona PBS,” Arizona state senate president Warren Petersen said in a letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr obtained by Fox News Digital. 

“Recently uncovered documents show that 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,” Petersen added. 

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“Just like its investigations into ABC News’ slanted 2024 debate moderation and CBS News’ hidden 60 Minutes interview of then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the FCC should investigate whether Arizona PBS violated its duty to act in the public interest when it engaged in viewpoint discrimination against a candidate for governor,” he said.

In 2022, during the Arizona gubernatorial race between Democrat Arizona gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs and Republican Kari Lake, Hobbs declined an invitation to debate Lake.

Hobbs and Lake did participate in a town hall-style event where each candidate was questioned separately during a forum hosted by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, but Hobbs subsequently refused to debate her opponent. She cited concerns that a debate with Lake would become similar to the Republican primary debate, and would support erroneous claims that the 2020 election was rigged.

Lake, a former TV news anchor, had also expressed fears that Democrats would cheat in the 2022 election.

The Arizona PBS station gave Hobbs what Petersen called “an unprecedented 30-minute interview” but Lake’s solo interview with the outlet, set for Oct. 12, 2022, was canceled hours before it was set to begin. 

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AZ Central reported that “The Arizona Citizens Clean Election Commission backed out of the event that was to be hosted in partnership with Arizona PBS (KAET) after the television station agreed to a separate, similar interview with Democrat Katie Hobbs.”

Petersen alleged that the day after Arizona State University’s president “questioned the long-standing tradition that would have provided Kari Lake with a solo interview because of her positions on election integrity, university officials internally predicted that Hobbs would win the election.”

The letter quotes emails between Arizona State’s Media Enterprise head, Mi-Ai Parrish, who said, “Katie is getting roasted hard, but I don’t think it will matter,” and a response from the university president’s chief of staff, which said, “I don’t think it matters either.” 

In his letter, Petersen said that it took Arizona State University “more than two years—743 days—to produce the internal emails exposing these partisan conversations.” 

“Based on the emails between top university officials, Arizona PBS made broadcast decisions based on how it viewed Kari Lake’s positions on election integrity and Katie Hobbs’ electoral prospects,” Petersen wrote. 

“Arizona PBS did not act in the public interest because it exhibited ‘broadcaster favoritism’ for Hobbs and acted ‘in a partisan, discriminatory fashion’ that was ‘designed to serve the political advantage of a candidate,’” he added. 

The Arizona state senate president is asking the FCC to investigate KAET for “PBS’ blatant viewpoint discrimination against Kari Lake and partisan calculations designed to benefit Katie Hobbs,” and the revocation of their license. 

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Fox News Digital reached out to the Arizona PBS station and Arizona State University for comment. 

Arizona State University directed Fox News Digital to this webpage addressing Arizona PBS, which said, in part, “As one method of delivering information on candidates, Arizona PBS had an arrangement with Arizona Clean Elections Commission to host and broadcast debates among candidates for state offices. While the Clean Elections Commission was the producer of the debate, Arizona PBS continued to maintain its responsibilities under its license and to its viewers by providing coverage of the elections separate from and in addition to the debates. Debates are not the sole mechanism for informing the public about elections.”

It added that, “In 2022, one of the planned debates was for the office of Governor of Arizona between Republican nominee Kari Lake and Democratic nominee Katie Hobbs. When Hobbs decided not to debate Lake, the Clean Election Commission’s plan to proceed with a one-party debate conflicted with Arizona PBS’s licensing requirements. Arizona PBS was prepared to move ahead with a different format with the Clean Elections Commission to allow each candidate to speak and be interviewed about their candidacy on Arizona PBS. Hobbs chose to accept the interview invitation. Lake ultimately decided not to do so.”

Earlier this month, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides funding to PBS and NPR, announced it would be shutting down following Congress passing legislation to revoke taxpayer funds from CPB.