From the pdf you offer:
Newspaper Joint Operating Arrangements
Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1801-04.
This act provides a limited exemption for join operating arrangements between newspapers to share production facilities and combine their commercial operations. The newspapers are required to retain separate editorial and reporting staffs and to determine their editorial policies independently.
Sadly, this has proven to be a failed approach:
Media Ownership Regulation, the First Amendment, and Democracy's Future
http://digitalcommons.law.msu.edu/facpubs/346/
By clicking on the article title at the link, and then it downloads a large pdf which states the legal problem.
I went through the links at your legal link and it was not encouraging. In fact the Ohio federal district court struck down a law preventing lying in order to influence elections when appealed by a conservative group. It made moot a law passed in the seventies and used as a precedent in many states.
This will no doubt affect many state races. Got to go, interested in what you can find to help. Good to see someone looking for solutions instead of just bashing.
At this fime, we are more hamstringed asking for FCC help as they are hemmed in not only by Reagan's changes, but those put in place during the Bush years.
Bush put Colin Powell's son Michael in charge of the FCC and he was 'free market' all the way, even saying 'The Free Market Is My God!' on cable television. There was a period of public input against him allowing the consolidation of all forms of media. Many experts and citizens came to testify in our city to give good reason not to allow it. Powell did it anyway.
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