A federal appeals court issued an emergency stay delaying new Federal Communications Commission rules that would allow a single company to own newspapers and broadcast outlets in the same city. When the case will be heard is unclear.
Meanwhile, Staci Kramer has an interesting interview with FCC Chairman Michael Powell in the Online Journalism Review, in which he says he sees the Internet fitting in with — and ultimately influencing — print and broadcast journalism. But he also frets that lack of filters threatens information overload and a loss of credibility. “The problem in a society is not concentration and scarcity but actually abundance, fragmentation and hyper competition. There’s so much of it the audience is getting fragmented across so many different media that they’re very hard to reach and hold onto.”
