Jimmy Kimmel’s ABC late-night show is back following a whirlwind week: Parent company Disney’s decision to suspend was met with uproar, with many viewers seeing it as capitulation to threats from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Still, two large broadcasters—Nexstar and Sinclair—refused to air the program on their networks. In a new blog post, Roosevelt’s Bilal Baydoun explains how we got here, and how the consolidation of hundreds of media companies into just a handful makes our information ecosystem more vulnerable to state bullying.
“Where broadcasting once reflected the decisions of hundreds of independent and often local owners,” Baydoun writes, “a handful of supergroups like Sinclair and Nexstar now dominate.” As it happens, both companies—whose actions blocked roughly a quarter of ABC affiliate stations from airing Kimmel’s return, until Sinclair’s change of heart today—are actively pursuing regulatory approvals or mergers that will require the favor of the FCC. “When a few large owners control access,” Baydoun explains, “the pressure of a regulator’s threat ripples faster across the system.”
The Trump administration has signaled that it may loosen regulations on broadcasters, making the media terrain even more ripe for pressure and censorship. Congress has also stripped funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, reflecting a “broader effort by this administration to dismantle any institutions that might hold it accountable,” Baydoun said in July.
A media ecosystem dominated by a handful of ultra-wealthy decision-makers is a gold mine for a federal government eager to consolidate power and suppress speech it finds distasteful. That’s because “for-profit media conglomerates are accountable first and foremost to their shareholders,” Baydoun writes, “not to the tradition of free speech that is the lifeblood of their industry and American democracy.”
Democracy depends on free discussion among the people. “Public media must be treated as core democratic infrastructure,” Baydoun writes. “At a moment when commercial broadcasters are increasingly beholden to both Wall Street and Washington, a robust public system is one of the few ways to guarantee space for independent journalism and pluralistic debate.”
Read the blog post: Threats to Free Speech Won’t End with Late-Night Comedians
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