Groups Battle Over Standard/Tegna Extension Request

The FCC shouldn’t grant an extension request for reply filings in the Standard/Tegna proceeding, said Standard General, Tegna and Cox Media Group in a joint filing posted Tuesday. The request, from the NewsGuild and National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians sectors of the Communications Workers of America, plus Common Cause and the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, is for a two-week extension. A 30-day extension was granted earlier in the proceeding. “The Movants’ serial extension requests make clear that they merely seek to delay this proceeding,” said the broadcasters. Granting the motion would bring the length of time between the application filing and the reply deadline to “nearly double the historical average,” said the broadcasters. The anti-consolidation groups seek the extension due to the complexity of the matter, the difficulty of accessing protected information, the short number of business days in the filing period, and “unavoidable medical treatments” required by Andrew Schwartzman, counsel for the two unions. Schwartzman is also senior counselor at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. None of those reasons is acceptable grounds for further delay, the broadcasters said. “The Motion itself is indicative that Petitioners are pooling resources in this proceeding,” said Tegna, Standard General, and CMG. “The requested extension is therefore not justified by a single lawyer’s need for an out-patient medical procedure.”