FCC Should Reject Standard/Tegna Appeal, Say Public Interest Groups
The FCC isn’t required to act on the Standard General/Tegna deal before the May 22 final extension date, said the union and public interest group opponents to the transaction in a joint opposition filing posted Monday in docket 22-162 (see…
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2303240064). “Selecting that date was the Applicants’ mistake,” said the joint filing from Common Cause, the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, and the NewsGuild and National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians unions. The FCC “is under no obligation to solve their problem,” the filing said, urging the agency to dismiss the Standard/Tegna application for review “for that reason alone.” Forcing the FCC to decide the issue by May 22 ignores the rights of the other parties in the case to participate in a hearing, the filing said. The broadcaster's constitutional claims against the administrative law judge hearing aren’t valid here because the hearing was limited in scope and FCC rules allow the hearing to be conducted without an ALJ, the groups said. “If there is one truly unprecedented aspect of how the Media Bureau treated the Applicants, it is that the staff afforded them extraordinary opportunities to put more information into the record to resolve possible factual issues,” the filing said. Standard General didn’t comment. The broadcasters said they would seek relief from the courts if the FCC didn’t vote on the transaction by Monday.