Petition to Revoke Radio Sputnik License Doesn't Meet Evidentiary Standards, Says Way

A petition seeking revocation of the station licenses of a broadcaster that airs content from Russia-controlled Radio Sputnik (see 2203230054) on a Washington, D.C., area station doesn’t satisfy evidentiary rules, violates the First Amendment, and ignores a 2020 Enforcement Bureau investigation that concluded the FCC couldn't act against the stations involved, said an opposition filing Monday from Way Broadcasting, which owns WZHF(AM) Columbia Heights, Maryland. Other companies also owned by Arthur and Yvonne Liu are also parties to the filing. “It’s about what I expected,” said Arthur Belendiuk, the Smithwick & Belendiuk attorney representing petitioner the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. Belendiuk said the Media Bureau told him the matter can’t proceed unless the petitioners challenge a specific application, and it shifted the matter to the Enforcement Bureau. Belendiuk expects to file challenges soon to Liu stations that are currently up for renewal, he said. WZHF is the only Liu station that airs Sputnik; its license doesn’t expire until 2027. The denial of a station’s license renewal can’t be based on another station’s violations, said Way’s filing Monday. The revocation petition also doesn’t have the required specificity for the allegations against even WZHF, said Way. “It does not provide dates or quotes of the alleged false programming,” and doesn’t present evidence to prove the inaccuracy of WZHF’s content, the opposition filing said. Radio Sputnik is not “a Kremlin public relations outlet beamed in from Moscow” but instead similar to programming on the BBC, the filing said. “Unlike in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Americans enjoy the bedrock freedoms of speech and of the press,” Way said. The FCC also investigated WZHF in 2018 and declined to act in 2020, Way noted. Then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai ordered that investigation in response to requests from Congress. The EB sent several letters of inquiry to the licensees and determined “there is no enforcement action that could be taken against the licensees in question,” wrote Pai in a 2020 letter to Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. The petition to revoke “fails to demonstrate that licensees breached any of their duties as public trustees and the petition must be denied,” Way said.