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I’ve given it a couple of days and it’s still hard to work up the anger I’m supposed to feel over the arrogance of FCC chairman Kevin Martin. His critics are saying Martin, a Republican, delivered the store to Big Media Tuesday when the FCC, by a 3-to-2 party-line vote, gave single owners permission to go on running both newspapers and TV stations in the same markets, and made it easier for such arrangements to be made in the future. Said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, a national advocacy group that that bitterly opposes Martin’s change, “The waivers and giant loopholes contained in these new rules could spell disaster for citizens everywhere.” On its Web site, Free Press has set up a form letter asking Congress to step in and “take action.” With a couple of clicks, an angry citizen can tell Washington that “the FCC has turned its back on its mission and its mandate. Their decision to let Big Media get even bigger will erode localism, diminish minority ownership, and decrease competition.”
The city’s flailing mastodons aren’t keeping tomorrow’s journalism from being born around them. It might turn out that the only thing the FCC just did for Big Media was buy it a little more time before it bites the dust.
