For two years we have urged the FCC to engage in rigorous market structure analysis and to adopt a high First Amendment standard for its media rules. It has completely failed to do so. The FCC has adopted a remarkably narrow view of the public interest under the Communications Act and abandoned the most elementary principles of market structure analysis. The result is a set of rules that bear no relationship to the reality of American media markets. The FCC’s is wrong on the facts, wrong on the law and the resulting rules are entirely unreasonable. That is why Congress must step in and restore order.
