Taking what you can get

It shows how bad things have become when this can - and will - be greeted as good (or at minimum, relieving) news rather than with what would be the reaction in a just world of a shrug and "of course."

Reuters, June 13 - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear appeals by media companies challenging whether ownership restrictions are constitutional, leaving it up to federal regulators to decide the appropriate limits. ...

[In 2003,] [t]he FCC eased several ownership limits [on media corporations]....

Consumer advocates, arguing that the relaxed limits would hurt diversity in viewpoints and opinions, challenged the regulations in court. A federal appeals court last year agreed to put the rules on hold and ordered the FCC to better justify them.

Media giants, including the Tribune Company and Gannet, claimed that even the remaining restrictions were a violation of corporate "free speech" rights and they should be allowed to do pretty much as they damn please, pointing to the 1996 Telecommunications Act for support. But the Supreme Court, by refusing to listen, in effect rejected that argument.

So while the constitutionality of regulatory controls on corporate concentration in media has not been decided de jure by the Supremes, it has been decided de facto in the affirmative. And while, again, that should be an "of course," it is nonetheless good news.

Footnote: I still have trouble getting my head around the concept of corporate free speech, especially at a time when human free speech continues to be under pressure. I also have trouble getting my head around claims that all we need to do is to elect Democrats when I recall that the prime movers behind the 1996 Act, which many at the time said would lead to increased media concentration, were Bill Clinton and Al Gore.