Among state Attorney General Tish James’ other misadventures are her headline-hunting “consumer protection” suits that are anything but.
She regularly teams up with other self-promoting AGs like California’s Rob Bonta in vendettas, like trying to stop the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery dealand to block Nexstar’s acquisition of Tegna.
Their success on that last would undermine local news and competition in the industry, the exact opposite of their stated goals — but then getting on the news is all either AG understands about the media industry.
The Federal Communications Commission this month tossed the old rules for what counts as media “market dominance,” a delusion central to the AGs’ case against Nexstar-Tegna.
This is the new reality: Broadcast TV and cable stations, movie studios and theaters all now compete with streamers, YouTube and other online video, as well as podcasts and every other content-creator (including us!) and provider seeking to grab your eyes and/or ears.
So the AG’s claim that Nexstar-Tegna would somehow dominate more than 60% of some local-news market is insane — it would own under 15% of all US local-broadcast stations and under 5% of all TV-viewing.
DirecTV — another competitor in the vast media blob — started this suit because the deal would likely force it to pay more to local stations for the right to sell the content they create.
James and Bonta jumped in to play hero, claiming the deal would harm local news reporting — which is demonstrably contrary to fact.
Trustworthy faces reporting local news is about the only way broadcast-TV stations can compete now: Consumers can get just about everything else from other sources.
That’s why Nexstar invests in journalism, boosting the hours of local news its stations broadcast by nearly 20% these last five years.
And why it was overjoyed to sign an agreement with Ohio’s AG to drop out of the suit as long as it committed to continuing with this approach — and why federal regulators OK’d the deal in the first place.
The AGs are simply (ab)using their powers in the name of the public good — helping DirecTV, which is likely to repay them with more fat campaign donations.
Independent news raters deem every Nexstar outlet to be “reliable” and politically neutral; same for its national-news affiliate, cable’s NewsNation.
Bonta, James & Co. don’t care; the taxpayers fund all their headline-hunting legal malpractice.
Oh, for public servants who truly serve the public, not themselves.
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