Victory for Media Diversity: Court Strikes Down FCC’s Attempt to Relax Media Ownership Rules

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In a narrow ruling unlikely to have an immediate effect on current broadcasters, a federal appeals court on Thursday overturned a 2008 decision by the Federal Communications Commission to relax restrictions on cross-ownership of newspapers and broadcast outlets in the same city.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, based in Philadelphia, did not rule on the merits of the 2008 regulatory changes, which made it easier for a single company to own both a station and a newspaper in the same locality. Instead, the court said that the F.C.C. had failed to allow sufficient time for official notice and public comment on the new rules, as required by law.

The ruling Thursday essentially sent the issue back to the F.C.C., which is undergoing a mandatory re-evaluation of ownership rules anyway. At the same time, the court upheld most of the media ownership rules handed down by the commission in 2008.

In a statement, the general counsel for the F.C.C., Austin Schlick, took no notice of the cross-ownership ruling and instead cited the court’s approval of the other rules for ownership, saying that the decision “affirms the F.C.C.’s authority to promote competition, localism and diversity in the modern marketplace.”

But Corie Wright, counsel for Free Press, a public advocacy group that supported the challenge to the 2008 ownership standard, said in a statement: “Today’s decision is a sweeping victory for the public interest” because it “concluded that competition in the media — not more concentration — will provide Americans with the local news and information they need.”

Democracy NOW:

A federal appeals court has overturned part of a Federal Communications Commission rule that made it easier for a single company, like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, to own a newspaper and a broadcast outlet in a single market. The ruling marks the second time the appeals court has intervened in the commission’s attempts to relax media ownership rules. We speak with Brandy Doyle, policy director for the Prometheus Radio Project, the organization that filed lawsuit, Prometheus v FCC. “Media consolidation has a particularly terrible impact on ownership by those who are historically disenfranchised in the media system like women, people of color, workers, the poor, anyone whose voice is not already represented in our media,” says Doyle.

BRANDY DOYLE: Sure, it is a major victory, not just for our media but for our democracy. The court blocked the FCC’s attempt to end a 35-year-old ban on newspaper and broadcast cross-ownership. Cross-ownership is when one company owns the newspaper and a broadcast TV or radio station in the same market. The band has been in place for 35 years to ensure that there is a diversity of voices, viewpoints and accountability in our news media in all of our communities.

The FCC tried to relax that ban originally in 2003 and Prometheus and many of our allied organizations, sued the FCC and spoke out against that. People spoke out all over the country and we won. As you know, they tried again in 2007. Thousands of people spoke out at media ownership hearings, held by the FCC, across the country. Millions of people filed comments and raised their voice against this. Yesterday, the Third Circuit Court in Philadelphia agreed with the thousands of people that testified and the millions that commented that what the FCC did was undemocratic and the process that they did it with was undemocratic. It’s a major victory for media diversity.

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1. This is good news. But I fear what will happen if it gets to the Supreme Court. n/t