FCC Boss Being Investigated By His Own Agency For Being Too Cozy With The Industry He Regulates
from the not-particularly-shocking dept
If you watched FCC boss Ajit Pai's rushed repeal of net neutrality there really shouldn't be any question about where Pai's loyalties lie, and it certainly isn't with smaller companies, healthy competition, transparency, openness, innovation, or American consumers. The agency head repeatedly lied about the justifications for the repeal, casually using fabricated data to justify what may just be the least popular policy decision in this history of modern technology. Pai's fealty to giant monopolies runs so deep, his agency now just directs reporters to lobbying talking points when they question the flimsy logic propping up the repeal.
So for those paying attention, it's probably not too surprising to see news that the FCC's own Inspector General is investigating the agency boss for being a bit too cozy with the giant companies he's supposed to be holding accountable:
"Last April, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, led the charge for his agency to approve rules allowing television broadcasters to greatly increase the number of stations they own. A few weeks later, Sinclair Broadcasting announced a blockbuster $3.9 billion deal to buy Tribune Media — a deal those new rules made possible.
By the end of the year, in a previously undisclosed move, the top internal watchdog for the F.C.C. opened an investigation into whether Mr. Pai and his aides had improperly pushed for the rule changes and whether they had timed them to benefit Sinclair, according to Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey and two congressional aides."
Sinclair's $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media has already faced broad, bipartisan opposition by those concerned that the merger will dramatically damage both competition and opinion diversity across countless markets nationwide. The Sinclair Tribune tie up would give Sinclair ownership of more than 230 local broadcast stations around the nation, allowing it to reach 72% of the public with "reporting" frequently lamented as grotesquely distorted on a good day.
Sinclair's latest merger couldn't occur without Pai's decision to gut numerous media consolidation rules over the last few months, including several decades old rules specifically designed to prevent any one company from unfairly dominating a media market and crushing local competition. Unsurprisingly, consumer groups were quick to seize on the news suggesting that the agency should suspend its review of the merger until the Inspector General inquiry is complete:
"Until the inspector general’s investigation is complete, Chairman Pai and any other FCC staff subject to this inquiry should recuse themselves from all dealings related to Sinclair’s proposed takeover of Tribune Media," Free Press Senior Counsel Jessica J. González said in a statement. "If the investigation finds that Pai or any other FCC staff did indeed let their own bias and favoritism shape decisions related to the deal, they must not be permitted to vote on this matter and they should be subject to other appropriate ethics-review processes."
Of course if you're familiar with Pai's work, you know that won't be happening, and in Pai's ideologically-blinded brain this will all be dismissed as the errant rantings of partisans. But again, opposition to this deal is fairly uniform across the spectrum. Conservatives don't like it because they realize Sinclair is going to squeeze smaller media outlets out of the equation unfairly. Liberals don't like it because they know Sinclair is going to fill the airwaves with more nonsense just as we're trying to get a hold on problems inherent in foreign influence, disinformation, and discourse quality.
Regardless, Pai's going to have a very busy few years. He's already facing several different inquiries into why his agency made up DDOS attacks and turned a blind eye to identity theft as part of an apparent attempt to downplay massive public opposition to his policies. He's also facing several law enforcement inquiries (one of which he's actively blocking) and numerous lawsuits into his agency's blatant disregard of the public interest. And while this particular inquiry may not conclude that Pai technically broke the law or violated agency rules, it's pretty hard to act confused about where Pai's loyalties truly lie.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: ajit pai, crony capitalism, fcc, inspector general, media ownership, ownership rules
Companies: sinclair broadcasting, tribune media
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Talk about self-dealing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
self-dealing?
There are legal limits on how many stations the same people can own in the same market (so, for instance, someone holding separate full-power affiliate stations in two of the big four networks in the same city would be a no-no) and there are ways around these limits.
For instance, there are local marketing agreements (LMA) and shared service arrangements (SSA). Both do something similar; one company owns a station but has some other company run the station for them. In LMA, the company running the station just rents the entire station's airtime to put their own content and ads there (they collect the ad revenue and pay the nominal station owner), in SSA the station owner collects the ad dollars and uses them to pay the other folks to run the station. The result is the same.
Sinclair and Cunningham Broadcasting are infamous for this. They're nominally separate licensees, but they're controlled by members of the same family - ie: Mummy and Daddy own Sinclair, Grandma owns Cunningham and sets that company's stock aside as the grandkids' inheritance, Grandma then has Mummy and Daddy run her stations for her with an LMA or SSA and the whole thing ends up automated from the same site.
That's the level of what could be done to circumvent concentration of ownership restrictions in the days before Ajit Pai. It's only gotten worse since then. Commercial radio is just as bad, with companies like Clear Channel (iHeartRadio) free to own 2 AM + 6 FM stations in the largest cities - which could let them tie up a quarter of the dial.
Is it any wonder that all the pap sounds the same?
Sinclair's $3.9 billion acquisition of Sinclair is self-dealing, but it's nothing new and it fits the pattern.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: self-dealing?
This has been under attack for some time and is not what it used to be.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"while this particular inquiry may not conclude that Pai technically broke the law or violated agency rules" -- it's good enough for minion to base yet another attack piece on.
Back to lying about you don't KNOW occurred by any intent, just whining and smear.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: "while this particular inquiry may not conclude that Pai technically broke the law or violated agency rules" -- it's good enough for minion to base yet another attack piece on.
This is the Federal Communication Commission. Communication is literally in their fucking name, how can they suck so hard at communicating?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: "while this particular inquiry may not conclude that Pai technically broke the law or violated agency rules" -- it's good enough for minion to base yet another attack piece on.
You, however, are lying about putting up a video on youtube proving how Mike REALLY feels about free speech. So why should we believe anything you say?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: "while this particular inquiry may not conclude that Pai technically broke the law or violated agency rules" -- it's good enough for minion to base yet another attack piece on.
I don't expect you to see it now, but in time it may help: Whining and smear is not limited to your adversaries here...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: "while this particular inquiry may not conclude that Pai technically broke the law or violated agency rules" -- it's good enough for minion to base yet another attack piece on.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
This not a shock, it was expected.
History of the world in a nutshell.
Weak and Scare people ask for government to protect them from things they should be doing for themselves. Bad actor shows up and abuses that power.
Humans have a really bad habit of willfully accepting lesser evils just to staff off the bigger evils never realizing all the while that those lesser evils are causing more damage over time when compared to the greater short lived evils.
History teaches that humans never learn from it!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
When you ask for government to solve a problem you and your fellow citizens should be solving, you become a peasant. Of course you will be treated like the dirt you have allowed yourself to become.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yup - what is wrong with all you lazy bums? Why are you not solving all the worlds problems? What's that? Craporations stop you from doing that? Hmmmmmm.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The only way for the population to control any such things would be to take illegal measures, fire, and pitchforks to every bad actor ever, and suffer mass casualties. (There were actually times when things like this happened, and they usually did not work out in favor of the public or workers.) Most people would not have a job doing anything else.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
He'll be punished alright... by acquiring a nice 7 figure salary at one of these big companies he lobbied for. And IF he were to go to jail (which I'm sure he won't) he'll still have that 7 figure job. Plus all the payola he got already and be out in short time. He wins no matter what.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A parallax view, in case anybody is interested.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
It is almost completely speculative, so a lot of things to dig into, but the amount of data and the ways it has been carried out certainly points towards a "mutually beneficial arangement" between a public administation employee and a private group of people.
Particularly the UHF-case and the JTA-situation is beyond disturbing.
Unfortunately I am not seeing any of it making enough for a court-case. Expect it to end in a few sharp words about the insufficiencies in Pais procedures in relation to documentation of the meeting with Don Smith and some grave words about how a lot of it certainly doesn't look proper.
But since nobody reads those documents, the "no smoking gun" will be interpreted as "not guilty" and the ivolvement of a democrat will make conspiracy a good word to use, to ensure that the proper partisans know their story. If nobody else creates a shitstorm to keep Pai, his life-partner Don Smiths media-empire, Sinclair will protect their asset.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Worth noting...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Worth noting...
Next you'll be telling me the guy in the White House who constantly demonizes racial minorities is the White Supremacist to!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Worth noting...
Less snarkily, just like in any neighborhood, if you want to know the good stuff, all you have to do is hang out in the right bars and restaurants, or know the people who work at the golf courses, retail stores, and hair salons, or talk to neighbors and classmates.
Yes, I'm sure you can see it from wherever you are, because you're observing their words and actions and drawing the correct conclusions. But locally, we see it directly.
These are truly awful people.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Worth noting...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I'd would've thought he'd have some well-articulated criticism of how the agency is staffed with left-wing nutjobs...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Outliers
[ link to this | view in chronology ]