[Owning the Speaker] TV, Newspaper Ownership Restrictions Lifted

Yesterday’s news about blog-conglomerate ownership and the 1996 Telecommunications Act got me decently worked up because of what it meant to the citizen journalist and share of voice. Now there’s news that restrictions banning a media company from owning a TV and newspaper outlet in the same market are being temporary lifted.

From a business standpoint, I guess the logic is sound: a newspaper can now be supported by a broadcast entity. Which is good if you think that newspapers are the only form of journalism and need to be saved into order to keep the foundation of journalism. However, the process could also limit the overall number of producers of broadly cast mainstream news. And that change in the share of voice is never good.