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A pair of decades-old policies may change the way rural America gets local news

While Americans were distracted by the very important public debates around an open internet and the proliferation of fake news online, the Federal Communications Commission quietly proposed reshaping a key way rural Americans stay informed – their local television news.

The FCC said, it was unnecessarily burdensome to force broadcasting companies to maintain local studios even somewhat near the communities they serve. This continues the ongoing policy shift from a focus on connections to the local community, and toward benefiting broadcasters’ business operations and profit margins.

The second decades-old rule the FCC wants to repeal would complicate matters further by allowing media companies to own even more TV stations across the country.

Media consolidation is already a major problem today, with critics claiming it leads to a lack of diversity in programming, in journalism and in employment. When it comes to local television, Pew Research recently reported that the five largest television ownership groups – Sinclair, Nexstar, Gray, Tegna and Tribune – own 37 percent of all full-power TV stations in the country.

Increasingly, these owners are also editorializing on their local stations: The New York Times recently reported that Sinclair was forcing its stations to air conservative-leaning news segments, for instance.

By Christopher Ali

Full Story: http://www.dailyyonder.com/pair-decades-old-policies-may-change-way-rural-america-gets-local-news/2017/06/27/20066/

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