The FCC's New 'Local' Focus: Too Little, Too Late?

[Commentary] By limiting its specific argument to the slow-motion collapse of local news, the Federal Communications Commission's "Information Needs of Communities" report skirts over -- and on occasion whitewashes -- the myriad interlocking crises that threaten the entire American news ecosystem, and therefore threaten to undermine the crucial role it plays in ensuring the smooth function of deliberative democratic debate.

For it's not just local news that's disappearing, it's all news. The FCC staff report does not even dip its toe into the disappearance of actual "news" from the news and its replacement with nonsense -- which is the net result of all the above. Nor does it concern itself with the continuing problem of increased media consolidation and/or the disappearance of so much of investigative reporting infrastructure that is dying together with the media advertising-supported business model. Moreover, consistent with so much of the Obama Administration's ethos -- its proposed solutions are actually more amenable to conservatives than to liberals or even moderates.