Sanders Vows 'Moratorium' On Media Mergers

Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders has taken on Wall Street, big oil producers, credit card issuers and private prison operators. Now the Democratic presidential candidate is taking aim at mergers among the nation’s biggest media companies, reports Bloomberg.

In a Monday op-ed in the Columbia Journalism Review, the Vermont senator said that if elected president he would impose an “immediate moratorium” on approval of deals that would make media giants even bigger. “We are not going to rubber stamp proposals like the new plan to merge CBS and Viacom into a $30 billion colossus,” he wrote.

He also said that major media companies should be required to disclose whether their planned mergers could bring newsroom job cuts, and employees should be able to purchase media outlets through stock-ownership plans.

Sanders said he would appoint “new, progressive leadership” at the Federal Communications Commission to instate tougher media ownership rules that prevent extensive cross-ownership of newspapers and TV and radio stations.

“We will reinstate and strengthen media ownership rules, and we will limit the number of stations that large broadcasting corporations can own in each market and nationwide,” he added. “We will also direct federal agencies to study the impact of consolidation in print, television, and digital media to determine whether further antitrust action is necessary.

Sanders reiterated his pledge to appoint an attorney general and Federal Trade commissioners who would take a tougher stance on antitrust enforcement against tech powerhouses like Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google.

According to Dylan Byers at NBC, the Sanders plan would:

• Appoint federal officials "who more stringently enforce antitrust laws" to prevent Facebook and Google from doing financial harm to news organizations.
• Put "an immediate moratorium" on major media mergers "until we can better understand the true effect these transactions have on our democracy."
• Require media corporations "to disclose whether or not their corporate transactions and merger proposals will involve significant journalism layoffs."
• Require media corporations to give employees "the opportunity to purchase media outlets through employee stock-ownership plans" before putting the company up for sale.
• "Limit the number of stations that large broadcasting corporations can own in each market and nationwide."
• Plus: Sanders says he would boost unionization efforts, protect people of color and women from being adversely affected by mergers and direct federal agencies to determine the need for further regulations.
• And: Sanders proposes placing a tax on targeted advertising "to fund nonprofit civic-minded media," part of a larger plan to "increase funding for programs that support public media."