How an AM radio station in California weathered the Trump administration's assault on media

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.

'''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.

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, a conservative activist. ABC and CBS settled what some experts said were long-shot libel lawsuits by Trump at the same time their parent companies had significant interests before the FCC. NPR and PBS affiliates came under scrutiny over whether they were crossing the line into commercial advertising.

When the FCC later approved a merger involving CBS' parent company, the network's new owners committed to making ''significant changes'' at the broadcast network — a move the FCC chairman praised in his statement approving the deal. And in November, Carr reshared a Trump social media post that called for comedian Seth Meyers to be fired from NBC.

Al Sikes, a Republican former FCC chairman who served under President George H.W. Bush, said Carr was using ''mobster'' tactics.

''What we're seeing right now is new boundaries that are being set on the exercise of authority: punishing those that you don't like and ensconcing those that you do,'' Sikes said in an interview.

Since February, the White House has blocked The Associated Press' access to events after the wire service said it would continue referring to the Gulf of Mexico in some of its copy. Trump had signed an executive order renaming the body of water the Gulf of America. The AP filed suit over the restrictions, and a federal judge ordered the White House in April to restore the AP's full access to cover presidential events as part of the press pool. The judge's order was put on hold while the White House appeals it.

KCBS in the crosshairs

KCBS has a storied history. It was one of the earliest radio stations ever licensed. Owned by CBS for nearly 70 years, it helped pioneer the 24-hour news radio format. CBS sold its radio properties in 2017 to Entercom, which later renamed itself Audacy. KCBS remains a broadcast affiliate of CBS News Radio.

The proliferation of digital content has hit the radio industry hard. Audacy recently survived Chapter 11 bankruptcy and had only been saved by a major investment from a firm owned by George Soros, a liberal donor and frequent Republican target. That investment was approved by the FCC under President Joe Biden's Democratic administration. Some conservatives, including Carr, had criticized the previous FCC leadership for failing to scrutinize the deal more closely.

In going after KCBS, Carr relied on a letter of inquiry, the first formal step in opening an FCC investigation. Broadcasters are regulated by the agency, and it has the authority to issue admonitions, or fines. In rare cases, it can revoke broadcast licenses.

The station's news director, Jennifer Seelig, sits on the board of the Radio Television Digital News Association, which gives out a prominent First Amendment award. She told people that business considerations required the station to avoid angering the FCC, current and former staffers said.

Seelig did not respond to requests for an interview.

Veteran reporter demoted

Bret Burkhart, who first read the report on the immigration action over the air, was demoted from his anchor position to a less prestigious reporting gig. After a few months, he left the station for a new job, according to current and former staffers. Burkhart was a well-regarded Bay Area radio personality, with more than a dozen top journalism awards over the course of his long career.

Burkhart's colleagues were perplexed that the station would discipline anyone for reporting on the raids, especially because the federal agents were not operating undercover and the information they based the report on came from several local politicians.

Sovern, an award-winning political reporter who worked for The New York Times and the AP, said he struggled to get stories published.

In the weeks after the immigration story, Seelig asked Sovern to cancel an interview he had set up with California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter out of fear she would say something negative about Trump, he said.

''I'm disappointed that a news organization once renowned and acclaimed for its diligent pursuit of the truth, no matter where it led and no matter whose feathers it ruffled, backed away from its core mission out of fear and economic insecurity,'' Sovern said. ''That's not the KCBS I knew, and gave 35 years of my professional life to, and it's a shame the last months had to end in such ignoble fashion.''

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