Tribune gets tax breaks; public interest gets lumps of coal

TRIBUNE GETS TAX BREAKS; PUBLIC INTEREST GETS LUMPS OF COAL
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation; AUTHOR: Charles Benton]
The season of giving began early this year when FCC Chairman Kevin Martin gave a gift worth hundreds of million of dollars to billionaire Sam Zell and the Tribune Company. For the public, however, the decision is the equivalent of three lumps of coal. There are at least three ways the Tribune sale will negatively impact the public: 1) Jeopardizing the Tribune's delivery of quality news and information; 2)Lost tax revenue; and 3) Slighting labor. The Tribune's request for waivers are based entirely on a claim that the waivers are needed to minimize burdens on Tribune. Its motive for seeking these waivers is entirely self-serving. Tribune rejected bona fide offers to sell itself because it preferred a particular tax favored restructuring that maximized benefits for its existing shareholders. But the FCC’s job is not to intervene in the market to protect the private interests of those who volunteer to be FCC licensees. Rather, its job is to enforce its rules and policies designed to promote the public interest. Today, the FCC failed in that role.