News reports say that one of the restrictions eased by today's FCC decision has to do with ownership of both a newspaper and a TV station. Regardless of whether TV broadcasting is entitled to full first amendment protection, it seems to me that it is a violation of the old-fashioned freedom of the press to penalize a person for owning/publishing a newspaper by denying that person any privilege available to others. Thus the rules that (it seems) conditioned TV station ownership on nonownership of a newspaper were unconstitutional in my (admittedly not very expert) view.
Comments? Does anyone think there is a compelling interest involved here that would justify penalizing a person for ownership/publication of a newspaper? Mark Scarberry Pepperdine
