Media-Ownership Reforms Are Key to Limiting Network Control
President Donald Trump’s feud with the major broadcast networks has thrust the Federal Communications Commission and its “public-interest standard” into the national spotlight. While the agency and the White House have largely been in lockstep, Trump made news recently when he vocally came out against an active FCC proposal to reform the agency’s broadcast-ownership rules.
Notably, it doesn’t appear that Trump’s objection had much to do with a desire to preserve the 39% national market cap imposed on independent broadcasters. Rather, he directed his ire at the possibility that changing the rules would allow what he calls “the fake news networks” to grow larger. But if the president wants to curtail the major networks’ power, the proposed broadcast-ownership reforms would go a long way toward that goal.