On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Federal Communications Commission (FCC) vs. Prometheus Radio Project, regarding the FCC’s rule change to deregulate cross-media ownership rules. The government argued that the current cross-media ownership regulations, which disallow an entity from owning a daily newspaper and a radio or television station in the same market, are outdated and do not take into account innovations in the news media.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 directs the FCC to review the media ownership rules on a regular basis and to repeal or modify any regulation that is “no longer in the public interest.” The rapid innovation of technology, increased accessibility to the internet, and the sharp decline in local newspapers and media have made these rule changes necessary and NTU has been largely supportive of the FCC efforts to modernize these regulations.
When the cross-media ownership regulations were established, Amercians were reliant on a few television and radio stations for news and there were concerns with large corporations owning too much of the media. Now, consumers have access to a plethora of online news sources, and the outdated regulations regarding cross-media ownership serve to stifle investment opportunities in local markets.
Taxpayers have a major stake in this debate and the eventual outcome. According to a University of North Carolina study, 200 counties in the United States have no local newspaper and half of the counties in the U.S. only have one local newspaper. Additionally, the Pew Research Center reports a 23-percent drop in newsroom jobs from 2008 to 2019, with most cuts coming from newspapers. What these closures and cuts mean for taxpayers, besides the notable loss in job opportunities, are fewer people reporting on local policy and government and less national visibility into what is happening at the state and local level. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this already ubiquitous issue.
To show how these regulations are outdated, one only needs to look to which entities these rules apply to. There are no rules restricting the New York Times from also running a podcast in the same market. In doing so, is the New York Times undermining democracy or damaging the public discourse? Of course not. The concern that large media companies might finance and distort local media coverage as justification for letting an industry get slowly crushed by unnecessary regulation simply does hold water. In fact, the media market now is even more competitive with the availability of online news sources and social media.
As President Biden appoints new leaders to government agencies like the FCC, they should continue to work to free businesses and industries from dated and cumbersome rules and regulations. Local media markets and taxpayers have suffered under these archaic regulations for long enough. Deregulating outdated cross-media rules will allow for more capital and experience to enter local media markets and can help save those newspapers struggling to stay afloat. Fully modernizing FCC’s rules to reflect the current level of innovation and advancement is unlikely to happen quickly, but this is a step in the right direction.