Media Ownership Rules Teed Up In Court, Again

On Feb 24, the Media Access Project's Andrew Schwartzman, on behalf of Prometheus Radio Project, will again be arguing the Federal Communications Commission's media ownership rules before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.

The court is hearing challenges from A) Prometheus, Consumers Union and others which argue the FCC went too far in 2007 by loosening the ban on newspaper-broadcast cross ownership and B) by broadcasters and newspapers who argue the FCC should have removed the ban altogether and loosened other rules. The FCC is independently reviewing those rules again to see if it needs to make any changes, and had asked the court to hold off on a decision until it could weigh in again, suggesting it could come to a different conclusion from the members of the 2007 FCC, only two of which remained. But the court lifted a years-long stay on enforcement of the 2007 rules last March and got the briefing schedule/oral argument ball rolling. An FCC spokesman said that associate general counsel Jacob Lewis will argue the case. On behalf of the deregulatory side-newspapers and broadcasters-- there will be a series of lawyers arguing various parts of the case, with Virginia Seitz of Sidley & Austin said to be handling much of the heavy lifting. Each side will get a half-hour, with the FCC getting a full hour to defend itself.