Common Cause backed the FCC pulling a draft...

Common Cause backed the FCC pulling a draft media ownership order circulated by then-Chairman Julius Genachowski that was a “bad idea to allow billionaire moguls to control even more of our media,” said the nonprofit on its blog Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1jfr7Df). It said current Chairman Tom Wheeler deserves credit for saying the draft will be reworked. The order, which would have allowed some types of broadcaster-newspaper cross ownership while attributing some TV station resource sharing deals in a way that might have curtailed them, was yanked from circulation earlier this month (CD Dec 16 p1). “It was an ugly dinosaur still stalking the Commission’s hallways long after it should have been extinct,” said Special Adviser to the Media and Democracy Reform Initiative Michael Copps, a former Democratic commissioner. “Maybe, just maybe, the new FCC will go on from here to become a true protector of the people’s interest on the people’s airwaves.”