Tegna Buyer is Claiming Racism
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FTVLive has been telling you how the FCC has been dragging its heels on the Tegna sale to Standard General.
While the FCC has been taking forever to sign off on the deal, Standard General’s CEO Soo Kim thinks he knows why the deal is being delayed.
Racism.
Kim issued a press release and he didn’t hold back.
Deb McDermott and I have a proven track record of enhancing stations’ service to their local communities. As a woman and a minority, respectively, we may well have had to work twice as hard as most to get to where we are in the media industry. We will bring decades of experience and perspectives to the ownership and leadership of TEGNA, an important media company.
We are extremely concerned by the manner in which Jon Schleuss, David Goodfriend and Andrew Schwartzman of the NewsGuild continue to ignore the facts of this deal, and more troubling are their sexist and racially charged ad hominem attacks. They claim:
Soo Kim’s investment is “anonymous foreign investment in American newsrooms”
This deal should be especially scrutinized because of “China(‘s) increased tensions in the Taiwan Strait”
Soo Kim’s transaction “does not promote ownership diversity as it is understood by the public interest and civil rights community, and by commission policy”
“Mr. Kim is not barred by his race from becoming a successful entrepreneur” while “Ms. McDermott is not barred by her gender to be selected to run a large corporation.”
To be clear, I am ethnically Korean. And I am a proud American citizen. These three men are attempting to define what constitutes a minority or what is the right kind of diversity—this is offensive and inappropriate. And it is beyond the pale for Schleuss, Goodfriend, and Schwartzman to use my ethnicity to postulate theories of my being an agent of foreign ownership. These fact-free statements are careless given that even a cursory inspection of the documents we have provided would show that I am currently the attributable owner of multiple radio and television stations today.
Notably, the NewsGuild did not comment on other recent Broadcasting deals such as the Scripps acquisition of ION or the Gray acquisitions of Meredith or Quincy – all deals that were not as straight-forward as ours given that they resulted in tremendous consolidation and required station divestitures to address regulatory/DOJ concerns.
Fortunately, Deb and I are not alone. We have received letters of support from legislators including the Chairs of the Black Caucus for Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina; civil rights groups including the Arc of Justice and the NAACP Atlanta; minority media groups like the National Association of Hispanic Publications; and many others.
We are confident that our applications are in order, our deal complies with all regulations, and we have been happy to answer forthright any and all questions. In full transparency, we have submitted 3 million documents and over 12 million pages of records and have nothing but respect for the regulatory process. We will continue to work collaboratively with FCC staff in their review of the facts of the proposed transaction.
We are confident that the public statements from these three men will be seen for what they are—sentiments that have no place in America today.
