MAP Stuns Media Giants
Court Remands Ownership Rules Back to Commission
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in the Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC case agreed with MAP that preserving democracy is more important than helping big media companies grow bigger.
Andrew Jay Schwartzman, President and CEO of the Media Access Project, and lead counsel for the citizens groups in Promtheus Radio Project v. FCC, issued the following statement:
This is a big, big win for diversity in the media. The Court has ruled in our favor on almost every issue in the case. The judges agreed with us that preserving democracy is more important than helping big companies grow bigger.
Perhaps the most important part of the decision is the Court’s holding that the FCC improperly applied a presumption in favor of deregulation in its review of the broadcast media ownership rules. The Court’s directive that the FCC take its deregulatory thumb off the scale virtually assures a different outcome when the FCC revisits the question in response to the Court’s decision.
Read the full statement
Read the court’s decision