Big Loss for Big media and the FCC

[Commentary] It's not every day that you can celebrate a win for the public over big media. But a federal appeals court threw out an attempt by the Federal Communications Commission and industry titans to gut media ownership limits.

The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit threw out a 2007 FCC rule change that would have allowed a single company to own a daily newspaper and several broadcast stations in one local market. Such a change could have opened the floodgates to media mergers, leading to further layoffs in newsrooms while leeching diverse perspectives from local media. The court also upheld the FCC's decision to retain its other local broadcast ownership restrictions, and instructed the agency to better consider how its rules affect broadcast ownership by people of color. The decision is a sweeping victory for the public interest. The court rejected arguments made by broadcast and newspaper giants while exposing the FCC's repeated failures to rein in runaway consolidation.