News organizations and other media outlets play an important role in informing the public. Journalism also involves uncertainty, developing information, editorial judgment, disagreement, and occasional mistakes.

Those realities should not be confused with deliberate deception.

The government should not become an arbiter of truth or punish journalists simply because officials disagree with their reporting. Freedom of the press and freedom of speech are fundamental protections that must remain secure.

At the same time, existing laws and regulations should be effectively enforced when media organizations knowingly engage in conduct that crosses established legal boundaries.

We call on Congress, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Justice, and other appropriate authorities to strengthen accountability for deliberate and demonstrably harmful media deception while protecting the First Amendment.

Reforms should focus on:

• Enforcing existing laws against fraud, defamation, unlawful deceptive practices, and other legally actionable misconduct where applicable.
• Maintaining appropriately narrow safeguards against knowingly fabricated broadcast hoaxes that create direct public harm.
• Ensuring complaints alleging deliberate broadcast news distortion receive fair and evidence-based review under applicable FCC standards.
• Requiring clear distinctions between paid advertising, sponsored material, opinion, entertainment, and journalism where existing law requires disclosure.
• Encouraging prominent and accessible corrections when media organizations discover significant factual errors.
• Supporting independent fact-checking, media literacy, and access to reliable primary sources.
• Improving transparency around corrections and editorial standards without allowing government officials to dictate legitimate editorial viewpoints.
• Protecting journalists, commentators, satirists, whistleblowers, independent creators, and ordinary citizens from censorship based merely on controversial or unpopular speech.

Any enforcement mechanism should require clearly defined standards and appropriate evidence. A good-faith factual mistake should not be treated the same as deliberate fabrication, and disagreement over politics, interpretation, or opinion should not become grounds for government punishment.

This petition does not ask the government to decide which political viewpoints are true or acceptable.

It asks for accountability when demonstrable deception crosses boundaries already recognized by law, alongside stronger voluntary standards for accuracy and correction throughout the broader media ecosystem.

A free press and an accountable press are not opposing goals.

We can protect both.