Media Consolidation

“Fake news” is President Trump’s favorite whipping boy, but a report this morning documents how his administration’s policies are bolstering a few big media companies and undermining their smaller competitors.

In the current surge of news media consolidation and homogenization, the Sinclair-Tribune merger proposal may be the most alarming yet.

The regulatory review of Sinclair Broadcasting’s $3.9 billion plan to acquire the Tribune Media Group is moving into a critical phase with today’s deadline for submission of comments on the merger to the Federal Communications Commission.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied the emergency stay motion filed by public interest groups, including the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Free Press, Common Cause, Media Alliance, and United Church of Christ, OC, Inc., which sought to prevent the Federal Communications Commission from implementing its decision to reinstate the so-called UHF discount. This will allow the FCC to make it easier for the nation’s largest television ownership groups to acquire additional stations, and crowd out diverse and local voices. The groups are represented by the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center. Despite this interim ruling, the Court will hear the appeal later this year.

Few people have ever walked through the doors of the Federal Communications Commission with as much knowledge, experience, and good judgement as Jessica Rosenworcel. I know from personal experience that she is among the most capable ever to hold the title of Commissioner, and her return to the Commission could not come at a more propitious time. With the Open Internet, media localism, and diversity all under threat, the public interest has never needed a public interest servant of her caliber so acutely. I urge Congress to confirm her with dispatch.

Sinclair's acquisition of Tribune Broadcasting is expected and disappointing. Expected because the new FCC majority is foaming at the mouth to rubber stamp more massive media mergers; and disappointing because Sinclair is not known for the best journalism in the land, to put it mildly. Our nation’s civic dialogue suffers yet another blow with this merger.