The Sinclair Broadcast Group’s proposed acquisition of Tribune Media has ignited expected opposition from left-leaning advocacy groups that deplore news-media consolidation.
But a more unlikely group has recently joined the chorus of critics.
Free Press noted that Sinclair’s practice of forcing stations to promote an extreme conservative perspective and distort local news actively threatens the well-being of marginalized communities across the nation, specifically communities of color and immigrants.
“It’s unheard of to have one company pushing one specific agenda reaching so many people and doing it in a way designed to evade local input,” says Craig Aaron, president and CEO of Free Press, a Washington-based group that opposes media consolidation.
The Trump FCC is simply doing the bidding of Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Charter in its quest to abandon rules against blocking, slowing or speeding internet traffic, Wheeler says.
The Federal Communications Commission should investigate whether Verizon Wireless violated Net Neutrality rules by throttling video applications on its mobile network, advocacy group Free Press says.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, ISP-endorsed frontman and villain of a theoretical future Revenge of the Nerds reboot, is trying to dupe everyone into believing abandoning open-internet principles is inevitable because no opponents have any convincing arguments.
New legislation introduced today by Reps. David Price and Jared Huffman would protect local television markets across the country from corporate consolidation by permanently ending the so-called “UHF discount,” an obsolete FCC loophole that the Trump administration wants to revive to benefit right-wing media conglomerates.