The key to a strong and healthy democracy is an informed and engaged public. Receiving trustworthy and informative news — especially at the local level — is how we stay engaged.

A 2022 Gallup poll showed Americans have greater trust in local news than national news. That’s because we depend on local coverage to help us navigate issues like school closures, respond to emergency events and make choices about how we want to be governed.

But local news is facing a stiff headwind as it fights to remain viable in an environment where media consolidation is gutting newsrooms across the country. That is why Common Cause is opposed to gigantic hedge funds and investment groups taking over media outlets — because inevitably, they are in it to extract profits.

Right now, the hedge fund Standard General is promising that it will be the exception to the rule if it secures Federal Communications Commission approval to purchase Tegna, a media company with broadcast stations from Seattle to San Antonio. The FCC referred the case to an administrative law judge, which is usually the end of the line for mergers. But when the judge indicated a review of the proposed merger could not be completed in time to meet the financing deadline for the deal, Standard General-Tegna mounted an expensive public relations campaign, promising the world to certain groups to buy their support. When they had a chance to commit to those plans in its filings with the federal government, though, Standard General-Tegna did not present a shred of evidence that the deal would have any benefit to the public.

We have seen what happens when mega-conglomerates buy out companies. They slash jobs and mass-produce content. You can count on more car-chase stories and bear break-in videos.

Strip-mining for profits is what hedge funds do. They buy out companies, fire staff, sell off the profitable pieces and dump the rest.

Take for example The Los Angeles Times, my local paper. In 2007, when Sam Zell’s Equity Group, took control of The Tribune Co. and by extension, the Times, it cost over $8 billion. At the time, the Chicago-based investment group promised it would not cut newsroom jobs. By 2008, after multiple rounds of cuts, it was announced that a further 250 would lose their jobs.

That all turned around in 2018 when Patrick Soon-Shiong, a Los Angeles-based surgeon and cancer researcher, decided to purchase The Los Angeles Times. Under local ownership, the paper once again invested in local reporters, diversified the newsroom and rebuilt the California Section. Now, I can read about local businesses like Octavia’s Bookshelf working to bring Black authors to Pasadena’s only black-owned bookstore in honor of local author, and store namesake, Octavia Butler.

I can count on the kind of in-depth local reporting that uncovered secret tapes of Los Angeles City Council members scheming behind closed doors over redistricting lines. That coverage ignited a citywide debate over what we want our government to look like — one that may result in fundamental changes to redistricting, how we vote and what we expect of our elected representatives.

That’s the power of journalism that centers the communities they serve.

By contrast, the scorched-earth approach of hedge funds has long-term consequences on our democracy. Without an informed, engaged, and empowered citizenry, we won’t be able to tackle our collective challenges. When the public is uninformed, we have lower civic participation, lower voter turnout and greater political polarization.

When we don’t have a town square for deliberative democracy, people start wandering down dark alleys and political rabbit holes. The void left by local and ethnic media is so easily filled with disinformation.

The rapid decrease in local news should alarm everyone, especially heading into yet another consequential election year. With fewer resources to combat disinformation and hold power accountable, we have to do what we can to protect our local newsrooms.

There’s a reason that freedom of speech and the right to a free press are in the very First Amendment. Without a trusted platform for local voices, communities lose the ability to watchdog local government, hold leaders accountable, advocate for themselves, and bring awareness to issues that could never be adequately covered by a national outlet. Cities and communities lose the power of storytelling and collective problem-solving.

Quality local journalism is a public good. It’s right that the FCC takes its time to evaluate whether to approve another media consolidation. When it comes to our democracy, we can’t afford to sell it to the highest bidder.

Free Press, Common Cause and a bunch of other progressive groups and civil rights advocates have called on the biggest social media companies to combat disinformation in the run-up to the midterm elections, the first national election since the January 6 Capitol insurrection, saying if they don't, they are "the dominant threat" to the democratic process.

That came in the form of letters to the CEOs of Meta, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and Alphabet from over 100 groups.

Also: House Dems Grill Facebook, Google, Twitter

They pointed to disinformation hangover from the 2016 presidential election, like the stat that a recent poll found that over 40% of Americans said they didn't believe President Biden was the legitimate winner of the election, or what has become known as "the Big Lie."

Among the steps they want Big Tech to take are preventing disinformation targeting non-English-speaking communities, consistently apply "civic integrity" policies to all their live content, prioritize fact checking, including of political ads and posts from public officials, and provide watchdogs and outside researchers real time access to data.

Also: Big Tech Defends Twitter Trump Ban

"Election disinformation targets voters year-round," said Nora Benavidez, Free Press senior counsel and director of digital justice and civil rights, in a statement. "This is a systemic effort to discredit and disenfranchise certain voters—and especially those in communities of color—that has been made worse by platforms and their inability to protect their users from bad actors. These social media companies must do better in the run-up to November's midterms, starting with fixing their algorithms, protecting people equally, and increasing their transparency."

The groups concede that social media can be an important tool in promoting democracy, but only when there is responsible oversight and protections. Without those, they warn, their platforms will "become known as the dominant threat to a thriving democratic process." ■

Stakeholders on all sides have asked the Federal Communications Commission for more time to digest and comment on the agency‘s request for input on the impact of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act's $65 billion investment in broadband on the Universal Service Fund advanced telecom subsidy program.

Currently the deadline for comments is January 18-31 for reply comments, but the parties argue the issues are too complex and the stakes too high not to provide more time to stakeholders. “Evaluating how this longstanding fund and the newly-minted IIJA can work together to accomplish the FCC’s mandate to connect all Americans will require time,“ the stakeholders said.

Those stakeholders, ranging from NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, ACA Connects and USTelecom to Common Cause, Public Knowledge and the Benton Foundation, joined Wednesday to petition the FCC for 30 more days for comment —until February 17 — and until March 17 for reply comments.

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“While not granting this extension will significantly curtail the Public Interest and Industry Stakeholders’ ability to fully participate in this proceeding, granting an extension at this early stage will have little impact on the proceeding and will not prejudice any other party to proceeding,“ they told the FCC.

They opined that the large number of active proceedings has made it “incredibly difficult” for stakeholders to “fully participate.”

They also pointed out that the notice of inquiry (NOI) was issued just 10 days before Christmas with a mid-January due date. “Holiday travel, staff vacations, and end-of-the-year obligations create significant hurdles to evaluate the complexity of the Infrastructure Act’s impact on the USF,” they said, adding that public interest groups have limited resources and tend to be understaffed over the holidays.

Also: New Bill Pushes Reform of Universal Service Fund Support

The FCC does not routinely grant extensions of its comment deadline, but does so on a case-by-case basis for good cause, which the petitioners are convinced they have, including so the FCC can develop a better record on which to base a decision. The FCC also has pushed deadlines in recognition of holiday issues. ■

Common Cause, joined by almost two dozen more groups, have called on Facebook to prevent political action committees (PACS) affiliated with suspended accounts--the target is former President Trump--to violate the site's community standards.

That violation of standards was the specific rationale Facebook gave for suspending Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Also Read: Trump Sues Big Tech

The groups wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg telling him that Facebook should not allow the Team Trump page, which is operated by Trump’s Save America PAC, " to continue running political ads on Facebook, despite the current 2-year ban on the former president’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Facebook has said that was because the ban only applied to affiliated posts if they were in Trump's "voice."

The groups argue that is too vague a term and Facebook needs to clarify its policies and better align them with campaign finance laws in the face of what they said is Trump's ability to practice ban evasion via the PAC they argue he controls.

To the degree they can divine the standard for voice, they said, it appears to only include posts of videos of Trump or links to his website.

They said that under campaign finance law, Trump's PAC is controlled by the former president, so allowing its political ads on Facebook is allowing Trump to use a loophole to evade the ban.

Also Read: Trump PAC Peddles Tech Suit Tee

"If Facebook’s content moderation policies for public figures are to have any legitimacy, they must not be so easily circumvented. We urge Facebook to close this loophole and align its content moderation policies with campaign finance law to prevent politicians from using political committees under their control to evade enforcement actions," said Yosef Getachew, Common Cause media and democracy program director.

Among the groups signing on to the letter were Free Press, MoveOn, and the National Hispanic Media Coalition.

Common Cause and New America's Open Technology Institute said the FCC is shortchanging the net neutrality issue by not launching a rulemaking looking into the impact of its network neutrality deregulation on public safety, broadband deployment and low-income subsidies. 

That came in comments on a federal appeals court's remand of a portion of the FCC's 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom (RIF) Order back to the commission for a better explanation of that impact. 

The FCC had issued a public notice seeking comment on those specific issues in a public notice, but the groups said that was not sufficient, particularly given what they argue are the serious negative impacts of the RIF order on all three. 

Related: FCC Defends 'Light Touch' Net Neutrality Reg Remake

"The Court’s remand order addresses complex issues that strike at the heart of the Commission’s core Congressional mandates—universal service, broadband competition, and public safety," they said. "These critical issues demand more than a simple, four-page Public Notice. The Commission should give this remand the seriousness it deserves and issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking [NPRM]." 

They said the point of the court's remand was its admonition to the FCC that it had largely ignored the impact of its decision on those things, so to "rush through" it with a public notice rather than a full review and accounting" does not inspire confidence that the Commission has learned any lessons from the remand. 

They said that NRPM process would also give public safety officials more time to weigh in given they were kind of busy at the moment with fighting a pandemic. "The record would be incomplete without their full participation."

The FCC earlier this week declined to extend the public notice comment period for a second time--initial comments were due April 20--despite requests by the cities of New York and L.A. and Santa Clara public safety officials, sometime Common Cause and OTI also cited, though the FCC was denying the request at about the same time the commenters were saying it should be granted. 

Their bottom line was the RIF order ignored critical issues and created problems for public safety and low-income Lifeline broadband subsidy recipients, they argued, symptoms or the larger problem of its reclassification of internet access from a telecom service to an information service, a course it should now correct.

Critics of the Sinclair-Tribune merger continue to try to get FCC chair Ajit Pai to delay a decision on the deal until a federal appeals court rules on the UHF discount that made the combo possible.

The FCC restored the discount under Pai -- it had been eliminated under Democratic chair Tom Wheeler.

The UHF discount means a TV station group only has to count 50% of its UHF TV stations' audience toward the 39% national audience reach cap.

Pai declined when Hill Democrats asked him to delay the decision until the court rules, but Common Cause and Public Knowledge Thursday officially petitioned the commission to "hold the proceeding in abeyance," which is just legalese for "hold off," pointing out that "the Court’s consideration of the UHF Reinstatement Order has direct bearing on whether the proposed acquisition of Tribune Media Company (“Tribune”) by Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (“Sinclair”) (collectively, the “Applicants”) can be consummated as currently envisioned."

They point out how difficult it would be to disassemble and reassemble the deal if the court rules the discount does not apply and cite precedent for the FCC holding its decisions in abeyance pending relevant court decisions.

Both groups want the FCC to deny the deal when it does render a decision.

Saying the White House is not a privately held company, Common Cause has called on Press Secretary Sean Spicer to return to the custom of holding daily, live press briefings, on-camera with live audio.

Common Cause said the White House has had only five on-camera briefings so far in June, with the rest off camera and with delayed audio.

"Televised briefings had been a near-daily occurrence for decades," the group said. "This highly problematic evasiveness with the media comes on top of a disturbing pattern of general hostility exhibited toward the media by White House officials."

The tone has been set from the top, with President Donald Trump branding negative stories as 'fake news' and their outlets in league with Democrats to delegitimize him.

“The White House is not a privately held company, unaccountable to stockholders,” Common Cause president Karen Hobart Flynn said. “The president and his administration serve the people who elected them, yet the Trump Administration’s decision to ban cameras and live audio from an increasing number of daily briefing treats the people, the media and the oath of office as little more than inconveniences.

“This is not how an elected government behaves in a true democracy," she said, mincing no words. "Even on those occasions when cameras are allowed in the briefings, White House spokespeople regularly refuse to answer questions by claiming ignorance on a host of topics including those that a seventh grade civics class could have anticipated. Hiding behind the bully pulpit is a cowardly act far beneath the dignity of the Office of the President.”

The White House Correspondents Association met with Spicer this week to register its concerns about new restrictions.

Input continued to pour in following President Donald Trump's signing Monday (April 4) of a resolution nullifying the FCC's broadband privacy rules after Hill Republicans approved it on close, politically divided, votes in both Houses of Congress.

Privacy groups promised to fight on while advertisers said the fight was over "innocuous" info that didn't warrant "barrage" of opt-in notices.

"By vetoing the repeal of the broadband privacy rules President Trump could have sent a powerful message that he heard Americans' demands to have a real say over how their personal information is used and shared for commercial proses, and was willing to stand up for them," said the Consumer Federation of America.

But given that the President added his imprimatur, what now? "This fight is not over," vowed CFA. "The Consumer Federation of America and the other organizations with which we work will continue to push for real privacy protections for Americans."

The National Hispanic Media Coalition was similarly displeased and similarly ready to continue the fight.

"With the stroke of his pen, President Trump quietly sealed the fate of FCC regulations aimed to protect the private information and web browsing histories of Americans across the country," said Carmen Scurato, director of policy and legal affairs. "Latinos value their private information and will not soon forget a President who failed them, especially in light of all the public concerns he has for his own privacy. The act was a clear gift to Internet Service Providers at the expense of the American people. But the American people were not quiet during this process and left one resounding message: we will continue to stand together to preserve and protect the open internet."

Michael Copps, former FCC chairman and now a special adviser to Common Cause, saw it as a handover of consumer rights to big business by the President.

"Privacy goes the way of populism as Trump rolls over again for big business," he said. "Despite a campaign filled with rhetoric about the plight of forgotten Americans, Trump has once again come down on the side of corporate profiteering at the expense of Americans who don't sit on corporate boards and can't afford a $200,000 membership at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach. Trump has flip-flipped on his own campaign promises and handed over Americans' right to privacy to those with the deepest pockets."

Looking at it from an entirely different angle was the Association of National Advertisers, which had pushed the FCC to reconsider the rules and Congress to repeal them.

“This rule would have required vast amounts of innocuous information to be treated suddenly as highly sensitive and needing opt-in consent from consumers," ANA said in a statement. "This is an important major step to help assure a level playing field for privacy regulation for all businesses, and to see to it that consumers will not be bombarded with incessant opt-in notices. ANA also is pleased that the leadership of the FCC and FTC have committed to working cooperatively to return primary regulatory authority over privacy issues to the Federal Trade Commission, which is where we think it should rightfully belong due to the FTC’s long history of oversight and expertise in the privacy arena.”

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), a longtime advocate for privacy online, particularly of children, and a frequent critic of media companies, said the rule rollback "will give giant internet service providers like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T an open invitation to more easily collect, share, and sell your personal information without your consent."

“All Americans have a fundamental right to privacy, and I believe that right extends to the internet,” said Franken, ranking member of the Senate Privacy Subcommittee. “Your digital footprint—the sites you browse, the apps you use, and the sensitive data you provide to websites—deserves to be protected. President Trump has made a grave mistake by signing this disastrous legislation, which will deepen the pockets of big internet conglomerates like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T by allowing them to more easily broker your private information. This law is as anti-consumer as it gets—it gives broadband providers free rein to collect, share, and auction off your data to the highest bidder without your consent. Your privacy is under threat, and I plan to fight back. We cannot allow corporate profits to outweigh consumer privacy rights.”

Even as multiple reports, including one in Multichannel News, have FCC chairman Tom Wheeler likely to propose approving the Charter Communications-Time Warner Cable deal with various conditions, including ones on access to over-the-top content and broadband buildouts, Common Cause was pushing back, calling on the FCC to change course, "step back" and reject the deal.

Demand Progress was also demanding that progress not be made toward approval.

"Sure, Charter may paint a rosy picture and may promise a number of public-interest concessions, but I've been through enough cable mergers to know that those promises are rarely kept," said former FCC chairman Mike Copps, now a special advisor to Common Cause. Copps was a strong opponent of media consolidation in his days on the commission.

"The FCC should reject this merger with dispatch, and recommit to chairman Wheeler's stated mantra of 'competition, competition, competition,’" Copps said.

Wheeler is expected to circulate the item before the informal 180-day shot clock on merger reviews reaches that figure next week. It is, as of March 17, on day 172.

Joining the effort to stem the approval tide was consolidation critic Demand Progress, which suggested conditions did not sweeten the deal.

“If this merger goes through, Big Cable will see even bigger profits, while American consumers will be stuck with higher prices and fewer options," said Demand Progress executive director David Segal. "And weak, unworkable and unenforceable conditions on the merger won't change that."