Media ownership rules back into play

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A senior lawmaker introduced legislation on Wednesday to restore media ownership rules that the Federal Communications Commission recently voted to loosen -- and then blasted FCC chairman Kevin J. Martin for moving quickly late last year to vote on lifting the long-standing ban on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has oversight of the FCC, introduced on Wednesday a “resolution of disapproval” of the commission’s Dec. 18 vote to relax in important ways the ban on a single entity owning a newspaper and broadcast TV station in the same market. Dorgan called the FCC’s move “arrogant” and a “cave-in to corporate interests.”

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