In 2004, Congress directed the FCC to make sure no single television station owner reaches more than 39% of the national audience, to prevent monopolies in broadcast media and protect the diversity of voices Americans hear on the news. On October 1, the FCC released the final text of an order repealing that rule, disregarding the law Congress wrote.
On October 9, UCC Media Justice joined a coalition of unions and nonprofit organizations in filing a petition asking the FCC to stay the order while a legal challenge moves forward. We filed alongside Public Knowledge, The NewsGuild-CWA, NABET-CWA Local 51, Future Film Coalition, Free Press, Reporters Without Borders, and the Writers Guilds of America East and West. Democracy Forward and public interest lawyer Gigi Sohn represent the coalition.
We are part of this fight because our members’ witness for justice begins in their own communities. Locally accountable news helps them learn what their leaders are doing at home and across the country, and how they act on their care for their neighbors, all children, and the earth.
“The FCC’s unlawful repeal of the bright-line national ownership cap not only hands more power to fewer conglomerates, but also to an agency that has shown a willingness to trade merger approvals for partisan political gain, in violation of the First Amendment,” said Cheryl A. Leanza, policy advisor for UCC Media Justice.
We know what consolidation does to communities. Newsrooms close, reporters lose their jobs, and editorial decisions move to distant corporate headquarters. The local coverage people depend on, including during emergencies, disappears, and communities rarely get it back.
The coalition’s petition lays out the legal problems with the FCC’s order. The repeal directly contradicts the law Congress passed, relies on faulty logic, and if it takes effect before a court reviews it, the mergers it enables will cause harm no one can undo.
UCC Media Justice has been fighting media consolidation since our founding. In the 1960s, our members monitored television stations in the Jim Crow South and compiled evidence of racism that led to the first-ever revocation of a broadcast license. The legal tools we created to fight are the same ones we use today. We still file declarations from UCC members across the country showing how media policy affects their communities, and we still go to the FCC and into court to hold the agency accountable.
Congress set the 39% cap for a reason, and the FCC can’t throw it out just because media conglomerates want it gone. We are asking the Commission to stay its order, and we are prepared to take this fight to court.
Read the coalition’s petition here.