This major challenge to local news has gone almost unnoticed

[Commentary] The proposed acquisition of Tribune Media by the Sinclair Broadcast Group is under consideration by the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department. Approval would likely trigger a hemorrhage in local reporting and voices and a sharp decline across much of the nation in balanced coverage of politics and government.

The core principles undergirding the Communications Act are localism, diversity and competition. Approval of this merger, along with erasure of the previous limits on ownership, would open a floodgate, likely leading to more mergers by media conglomerates, whether liberal or conservative. This would mean more monopolies or oligopolies in broadcast news, which is a primary source of information for a significant share of Americans — those older, poorer and more rural citizens who do not have access to cable or satellite television. This merger would be a major setback for America’s media and electoral process. And it is not an exaggeration to predict that it would signal the end of local TV as we know it.

[Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute]