• by Wendy Davis , February 23, 2026

A coalition of 17 advocacy groups and media organizations are asking a federal appellate court to prohibit the Federal Trade Commission from resuming its investigation of the nonprofit watchdog Media Matters for America.

In a friend-of-the-court brief filed Monday, the groups argue the FTC's probe of Media Matters reflects the Trump administration's effort to force businesses -- including the ad agency holding company Omnicom -- into making policy concessions.

"Opening and prolonging vexatious investigations has become a popular tool for coercion across the federal government," the Center for Investigative Reporting, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, Reporters Without Borders and others argue.

"The FTC is not acting alone in sidestepping limits on its authority through coercive tactics. Indeed, the actions of the federal government over the past year show that this technique --launching an investigation (however dubious), keeping the investigation open, and using this regulatory surveillance to extract concessions it could not accomplish through the law -- has become increasingly popular," the groups add.

They cite several examples, including the Federal Communications Commission's investigation of ABC's "The View" for broadcasting an interview with Texas State Rep. James Talarico, and the FTC's order prohibiting Omnicom from directing ad buys based on media companies' "adherence to journalistic standards or ethics established or set by a third party" as a condition of its acquisition of Interpublic Group.

The groups' argument comes in a battle dating to June 2025, when Media Matters sued to block the FTC from pursuing a broad "civil investigative demand" (comparable to a subpoena) for a trove of information -- including material regarding its finances and newsgathering, and documents relating to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, World Federation of Advertisers and its now defunct Global Alliance for Responsible Media, Check My Ads, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Double Verify and NewsGuard, among other groups.

Media Matters claimed the FTC undertook the probe in retaliation for a November 2023 report that ads for Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle and other brands were being placed next to pro-Nazi posts on Elon Musk's X. (Musk also sued Media Matters over the report; that matter is ongoing.)

U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, D.C. ruled in August that the group was likely to prove that the FTC's demand for information was issued with "retaliatory animus," and therefore unconstitutional.

"Speech on matters of public concern is the heartland of the First Amendment," Sooknanan wrote in an opinion granting Media Matters' request to block the probe. "It should alarm all Americans when the government retaliates against individuals or organizations for engaging in constitutionally protected public debate."

The FTC recently sought to lift the injunction, arguing that its investigation concerns "potential anticompetitive collusion in the digital advertising industry to withhold advertising from certain disfavored media."

The Center for Investigative Reporting and other outside advocacy groups are urging the appellate court to reject that rationale, writing that the FTC's claim regarding antitrust "could be levied against any organization that critiques a business that sells advertising."

"More importantly, such a theory is an affront to the First Amendment," the groups add. "Criticism is not a moral harm or grounds for an antitrust inquiry; it is the very essence of public debate."

Media Matters contended in its appellate brief, filed last week, that the FTC's arguments regarding ad boycotts "should itself raise alarm," noting that the Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that the First Amendment protects politically motivated boycotts.

The FTC also argued that Media Matters' lawsuit is premature because the agency hasn't attempted to enforce its demand for information.

The free speech advocates counter that this argument, if accepted by the court, would allow the FTC to "hang a Subpoena of Damocles over any organization."

"This strategy has an obvious outcome: it coerces rather than investigates," the groups write. "A nonprofit organization like Media Matters lacks the resources to withstand an open-ended discovery dispute with the nation’s largest consumer regulator."

The D.C. Circuit is expected to hear oral arguments on April 13.