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As Elon Musk attempts to purchase Twitter, many journalists and political commentators have viewed the Tesla CEO's plans to take over the social media giant as detrimental, and have slammed the idea of billionaire ownership, yet several liberal media organizations are themselves owned by billionaires. The Washington Post Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos purchased the Washington Post in 2016 for $250 million. The Atlantic Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, became the majority owner of The Atlantic in 2017. TIME Marc Beinoff, the billionaire CEO of Salesforce, and his wife Lynne, purchased TIME in 2018 for $190...

Note: A version of this report originally appeard at the media blog Lippmann Would Roll and also at Stop Big Media. In a blow to local journalism and quality reporting, the Federal Communications Commission is supporting an old media cross-ownership rule that allows companies to own more media outlets in communities across the country. On Wednesday, the FCC filed a brief with a U.S. appeals court defending the agency’s 2007 decision under former Chairman Kevin Martin to weaken the Newspaper-Broadcast Cross-Ownership (NBCO) Rule. The Martin NBCO Rule, which was adopted as part of the FCC’s 2006 media ownership review, is...

The following text SNIPPET is a quote: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-10-1084A1.pdf PUBLIC NOTICE Federal Communications Commission 445 12thSt., S.W. Washington, D.C.20554 News Media Information 202 / 418-0500 Internet: http://www.fcc.gov TTY: 1-888-835-5322 DA 10-1084 Released: June 16, 2010 MEDIA BUREAU ANNOUNCES THE RELEASE OF REQUESTS FOR QUOTATION FOR MEDIA OWNERSHIP STUDIES AND SEEKS SUGGESTIONS FOR ADDITIONAL STUDIES IN MEDIA OWNERSHIP PROCEEDING MB Docket No. 09-182 Suggestions for Additional Studies Deadline:July 7, 2010 Requests for Quotation for Media Ownership Studies. As part of the Commission’s 2010 Quadrennial Media Ownership proceeding,1the Commission is commissioning nine economic studies to evaluate the current marketplace and the state of...

A Doctrine By Any Other Name by: Bethany Stotts, November 13, 2007 As reported earlier by Cliff Kincaid, the November 8th Senate Committee Hearing on “Localism, Diversity, and Media Ownership” likely precedes a concerted effort by Congress to reform digital, radio, and print media. Although not officially designed to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine, the hearing’s participants betrayed many of the same attitudes which could lead to greater government regulation of content, scalability, ownership—and now even ethnicity. If Congress follows the advice of this committee’s carefully selected witnesses, a comprehensive reform agenda could soon sweep all areas of broadcast media. “[Congress]...

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.

ALAN FRAM Associated Press WASHINGTON - Lawmakers will probably ignore a White House veto threat and vote to block companies from owning more television stations, a pivotal senator said Tuesday. If the prediction by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, comes true, President Bush will have to decide whether to veto a massive spending bill over the issue. It would be Bush's first veto and it would come less than a year before he faces re-election next November. "If it's in an omnibus bill," Stevens said, using the term to describe the enormous spending measure, "that's not a vetoable...

<p>The Senate this week rejected a new Federal Communications Commission rule expanding from 30 percent to 40 percent the number of households a single company can reach. Another FCC provision loosens the restraints in some markets on ownership of more than one local TV station. The House has voted overwhelmingly to overturn the rule. Senate approval propels the measure restricting the FCC to President Bush's desk. Expect a veto, he says.</p>

PTC Praises Senate Decision to Veto FCC Media Ownership Rules Today the Parents Television Council praised the U.S. Senate for voting to overturn a Federal Communications Commission decision to boost the national media ownership cap from 35% to 45%.  The vote prevents a handful of mega-media corporations from gaining more control over local television markets across the nation. Statement from PTC President Brent Bozell Regarding the Senate Veto:"It is clear that the FCC's heavy-handed attempt to allow a handful of media companies greater control over the public airwaves will not be the final word in the matter of local ownership. ...

The Senate has indeed passed this resolution to overrule the FCC's new media ownership guidelines. This is the legislation that has the new reenactment of the Fairness Doctrine in it. The Senate voted to, in essence, go back to the old days and reject the new FCC guidelines. The vote was 55-40, and Trent Lott had what some people might consider a threat. He said that the president would be foolish to veto this. This now goes to the House, which is expected to pass it to the president. The FCC this past summer authorized new ownership guidelines, allowing for...

Also see: Republicans Join Fight to Muzzle Rush Limbaugh and Rush Says 'Fairness Doctrine' Spells Doom for Talk Radio. The Republican-led Senate ignored a presidential veto threat Tuesday and voted to overturn the Federal Communications Commission's recently adopted rules on broadcast ownership. A dozen Republicans joined Democrats in passing the bill 55 to 40. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., had joined with Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., in co-sponsoring the so-called "congressional veto" resolution. The measure now moves to the House of Representatives, where it faces an uncertain fate. At issue is the FCC's June party-line vote, which allowed conglomerates to own...

<p>Yesterday, the Senate voted down the Federal Communications Commission's new media ownership rules. With a vote of 55-40, the resolution sets to roll back industry deregulation passed in June. In reaction, FCC Chairman Michael Powell said the upper chamber's move "would bring no clarity to media regulation, only chaos." To undo the new rules, the stand-alone resolution would have to be passed by the House and then signed by the president, which seems unlikely, since House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin supports the new rules and the White House has issued a veto threat against attempts to overturn the FCC's action. But if successful through another legislative means, disorder would result, because the changes are the product of a congressionally mandated review of the rules and replace practices rejected by federal courts. There is no way the FCC could craft new rules that would appease judicial mandates to deregulate and congressional efforts to regulate more.</p>

WASHINGTON - The House voted Wednesday to prevent federal regulators from letting individual broadcast companies own television stations serving nearly half the national TV market, ignoring the preferences of its own Republican leaders and a Bush administration veto threat. By a 400-21 vote, lawmakers approved a spending bill with language blocking a Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) decision to let companies own TV stations serving up to 45 percent of the country's viewers. The current ceiling is 35 percent. Despite GOP control of the White House, Congress and the FCC (news - web sites), the House vote set...

Posted on Tue, Jun. 03, 2003 Ubiquitous Internet weakens significance of FCC changeBy E. THOMAS McCLANAHANThe Kansas City Star For a good time, go to www.kausfiles.com, the Web log of former New Republic Senior Editor Mickey Kaus, who regularly serves up inside dirt on troubles at The New York Times, as well as other topics on the political and journalistic scene.Kaus' site is great fun, but I didn't sit down to write about him or The Times, at least not directly. Today's subject is what the Federal Communications Commission did Monday on media-ownership rules and why the uproar over...

Vote was 3-2, along party lines, as expected. Capitalism once again beats socialism! Liberal attempts to force popular conservative opinion off the air to make room for their unwanted hate speech results in more freedom to air conservative programming than ever! Celebrate! Expect at least a few despondent, lie-filled, crazed rants from the left as incoherent as the ones they spewed out after Election Day 2002. They should be pretty funny to watch.

Media Should Cover FCC Reform Survey: Most Americans Know Nothing About Debate By Mark Fitzgerald CHICAGO -- As Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps barnstorms around the country holding unofficial public hearings in advance of a scheduled June 2 vote on proposals to eliminate the FCC cross-ownership ban and ease other media-ownership restrictions, he repeats the same message everywhere: News outlets have failed to inform the public about these important issues. "The media have not done a very good job of teeing up this debate for the American people. ... Whatever your side, someone's got to tell them what's up for...