Filing comments at the FCC is a routine matter. But when comments need to be filed can be contentious. A battle over FCC filing deadlines has sprung up within the context of the FCC’s rulemaking to impose common carrier regulations on broadband Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The FCC is expecting the first round of Net Neutrality comments to arrive no later than Dec. 14 and the second no later than Jan. 17, 2024. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that is insufficient time and the deadlines need to be pushed back to Jan. 17 and March 18. But some public interest groups, including Common Cause and Public Knowledge, decided to oppose the Chamber.
Common Cause, news and broadcast unions and UCC Media Justice, Which petitioned the FCC to deny the Standard General-Tegna merger, told the FCC Tuesday (Aug. 2) just what it thought of the those merging parties’ defense of the deal, including that the petitioners had no legal right to challenge it. Standard General and Tegna are technically the merging parties, but Apollo Global Management, which controls Cox Media Group, is providing financing and getting some TV stations in an associated swap to keep the merged company within FCC’s local ownership rules. In fact, in its comments, Common Cause identified the deal as the “Proposed Apollo Global Management-Standard General-Tegna Merger.”
Critics of the $8 billion-plus purchase of Tegna’s TV station group by investment fund Standard General have told the FCC it needs to collect more data on the proposed merger before it rules on whether it is in the public interest. Common Cause, joined by the NewsGuild-CWA union and Public Knowledge, have filed a formal motion for both additional documents that the FCC and the public can peruse and an extension of time to weigh in. Currently, the FCC has set a May 23 deadline for those wishing to formally oppose the deal.
Free Press, Common Cause and a number of other progressive groups and civil rights advocates have called on the biggest social media companies to combat disinformation in the run-up to the midterm elections, the first national election since the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, saying if they don’t, they are “the dominant threat” to the democratic process. That came in the form of letters to the CEOs of Meta, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and Alphabet from more than 100 groups.
More fans of network neutrality rules, including Common Cause and the Benton Institute, have asked the FCC to return its bright-line rules against blocking, throttling and paid prioritization, saying eliminating those rules has damaged connectivity at a time —during the COVID-19 pandemic — when connectivity is a key public interest priority.
Exclusives
Common Cause signals it has retrans, other issues; ACA likely to follow.
Free Press and other groups challenge what they call the FCC’s dramatic reversal of media-ownership limits that pave way for media mergers, including Sinclair-Tribune.
A coalition of TV and media industry entities is urging the FCC to reject Sinclair Broadcast Group’s proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media, arguing that the combination would “produce a TV station behemoth that is unprecedented in both local and national size and power.”
WCPO Hit With Complaint Over Issue Ad IDs
The Campaign Legal Center reiterates its charge that many stations are not complying with rules to make available online information about their political advertising, including who is paying for the spots. It adds the Scripps-owned Cincinnati ABC affiliate to its earlier list and urges the FCC to move before the election “to ensure transparency in our electoral system and to protect voters’ right to know by whom they are being persuaded.”
WJLA Hit With Political Ad Complaint
The Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause and the Sunlight Foundation filed a complaint at the FCC alleging violations of long-standing rules and law by Sinclair ABC affiliate WJLA Washington. The complaint claims that WJLA continues to refuse to disclose the “true identity” of the sponsor of political ads being run by NextGen Climate Action Committee and asks for expedited action given that Election Day is just a few weeks away.
In joint comments, Free Press, Common Cause, the Institute for Public Representation, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ Inc., NABET-CWA and The Newspaper Guild-CWA say the FCC should deny the proposed sale because it violates the commission’s newspaper-broadcast crossownership rule or the television duopoly rule.
