FCC chairman Ajit Pai defends First Amendment, proposes changes to local media ownership rules

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Ajit Pai, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, defended the First Amendment in remarks made at an Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, urging for separation between the government and the media.

“I have said again and again and again that the First Amendment must be at the heart of our work,” Pai said Wednesday, listing actions he has opposed during his time at the FCC.

Pai noted that President John F. Kennedy “targeted the Washington Post and NBC,” and “six members of this very Committee, including the current ranking members of the Committee and Subcommittee, once demanded that the FCC investigate a broadcaster based solely on the content of a documentary that they didn’t like and that hadn’t even aired.”

“Let me be clear,” Pai said. “I stand on the side of the First Amendment. I firmly believe that journalists should heed their viewers, their listeners, and their readers — not the dictates of officials in D.C.”

“We must stop the federal government from intervening in the news business,” he concluded.

Pai went on to announce that the agency would work to eliminate a rule barring common ownership of a newspaper and a nearby broadcast station. It would also revise restrictions on  owning multiple broadcast outlets in a single market.

Those rules could be a boon to conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group, which has proposed a $3.9 billion purchase of Tribune Media Inc. that would violate the current rules in ten cities.

The FCC will vote on the new rules on November 16, Pai said.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat, announced opposition to Pai’s proposals before his remarks Wednesday. “The already consolidated broadcast media market will become even more so,” she said, “offering little to no discernible benefit for consumers.”

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