Almost one year to the day that she launched her First Amendment Tour, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez will bring the latest in the debate over constitutional law, editorial independence, and press freedom to NAB Show 2026’s broadcast track.
Gomez will lead “The First Amendment and Press Freedom in Today’s Media Landscape,” on Monday, April 20, from 11:30a to 12:30p in room N254LMR as part of the Broadcast Management and Monetization Conference.
Joining her will be Wall Street Journal Staff Reporter Joe Flint, Stand Together Vice President of Legal Strategy Casey Mattox, American Enterprise Institute Nonresident Senior Fellow Clay Calvert, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Senior Staff Attorney Mara Gassmann, and Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Chief Counsel Robert Corn-Revere.
The panel’s central questions of what role government should play in addressing public concerns about news content, when oversight becomes overreach, and whether the distinct legal standards applied to broadcasters still make sense in today’s media landscape arrive at a moment when Gomez has been among the most vocal critics of the direction the FCC is headed under Chairman Brendan Carr.
Gomez has used nearly every public platform available to her over the past year to sound the alarm, including NAB Show 2025, where she told a packed room that parallel efforts against DEI programs, public broadcasters, and editorial decisions constituted “an absolute pattern of censorship and control.”
The timing of Gomez’s appearance carries another edge, as NAB lobbyists met with Gomez’s staff just last week on a separate issue, delivering fresh audience and revenue data in a renewed push to eliminate the local radio ownership caps she has most publicly and repeatedly opposed. At a congressional oversight hearing in January, she warned that broadcast ownership caps serve a structural democratic function: “The caps ensure that we have multiple voices in every market.”
Whether that surfaces in a room built around questions of government overreach and editorial independence will be determined in the room.
