FCC's Media Ownership Rule Relaxation Makes No Sense

In the most bizarre example yet of GOP corporate welfare, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has taken to the op-ed page of the New York Times to propose that -- in order to save the newspaper industry -- big-city papers should now be permitted to purchase a television or radio station in their market. So begins Marty Kaplan's decimation of the logic behind Martin's proposal to relax the long-standing newspaper-TV cross-ownership rule. As Kaplan, who is on CV's Board of Advisors, says, this is corporate welfare at its worst.  Even though Martin justified the relaxation of the old rule by citing the business woes of some newspapers, there's no requirement that any newspaper be unprofitable before it is permitted to buy a TV station in one of the same Top 20 markets. And for all the other markets, there's no requirement that a paper that claims it is in trouble seek a buyer first before seeking an FCC waiver to buy a competing TV station in its same market. Link: Marty Kaplan: Your FCC At Work - Politics on The Huffington Post.