Senator Asks FCC to Reject Sinclair/Tribune Merger

It appears that Sinclair has greased enough palms and sucked up to enough people, including the President that their deal to buy Tribune is basically a shoe-in.

But that is not stopping many from trying to get the FCC to do the right thing and reject the deal.

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal wrote a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai yesterday urging him to reject the deal.

“With this proposed transaction, Sinclair threatens to strangle whatever remaining localism remains in our communities," Blumenthal wrote. "With its outsourced news and distant ownership, Sinclair would reduce the number of independent voices in each of these markets and sharply reduce the number of local journalists and reporters. Every market impacted by this mega-merger would experience a reduction in responsive local news due to Sinclair’s unresponsive top-down approach – denigrating diversity, diminishing our already distorted civic discourse, and devaluing the local voices of women and people of color.”

The Senator then called Pai out for making the deal even easier for Sinclair,  "You resurrected the illogical and wildly out-of-date UHF discount just this year, allowing Sinclair to more easily purport to comply with congressionally mandated limits on TV station groups' nationwide audience reach. This can only be explained by your interest in prioritizing the outlandish demands of Sinclair over the public interest."

Like I said, grease the right palms and suck up and it's all good to go. 

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