{"id":333496,"date":"2026-08-31T01:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T01:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/333496\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T01:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T01:32:09","slug":"rob-bonta-tish-james-war-on-local-news-blocking-nexstar-tegna-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/333496\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Bonta & Tish James’ war on local news: blocking Nexstar-Tegna deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among state Attorney General Tish James\u2019 other misadventures are her headline-hunting \u201cconsumer protection\u201d suits<\/a> that are anything but.<\/p>\n

She regularly teams up with other self-promoting AGs like California\u2019s Rob Bonta in vendettas, like trying to stop the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery deal <\/a>and to block Nexstar\u2019s acquisition of Tegna.<\/p>\n

Their success on that last would undermine local news and competition in the industry, the exact opposite of their stated goals \u2014 but then getting on the news is all either AG understands about the media industry.<\/p>\n

The Federal Communications Commission this month tossed the old rules for what counts as media \u201cmarket dominance,\u201d a delusion central to the AGs\u2019 case against Nexstar-Tegna.<\/p>\n

This is the new reality: Broadcast TV and cable stations, movie studios and theaters all now compete with streamers, YouTube and other online video, as well as podcasts and every other content-creator (including us!) and provider seeking to grab your eyes and\/or ears.<\/p>\n

So the AG\u2019s claim that Nexstar-Tegna would somehow dominate more than 60% of some local-news market is insane \u2014 it would own under 15% of all US local-broadcast stations and under 5% of all TV-viewing.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n

DirecTV \u2014 another competitor in the vast media blob \u2014 started this suit because the deal would likely force it to pay more to local stations for the right to sell the content they create.<\/p>\n

James and Bonta jumped in to play hero, claiming the deal would harm local news reporting \u2014 which is demonstrably contrary to fact.<\/p>\n

Trustworthy faces reporting local news is about the only way broadcast-TV stations can compete now: Consumers can get just about everything else from other sources.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Nexstar invests in journalism, boosting the hours of local news its stations broadcast by nearly 20% these last five years.<\/p>\n

And why it was overjoyed to sign an agreement with Ohio\u2019s AG to drop out of the suit as long as it committed to continuing with this approach \u2014 and why federal regulators OK\u2019d the deal in the first place.<\/p>\n

The AGs are simply (ab)using their powers in the name of the public good \u2014 helping DirecTV, which is likely to repay them with more fat campaign donations.<\/p>\n

Independent news raters deem every Nexstar outlet to be \u201creliable\u201d and politically neutral; same for its national-news affiliate, cable\u2019s NewsNation.<\/p>\n

Bonta, James & Co. don\u2019t care; the taxpayers fund all their headline-hunting legal malpractice.<\/p>\n

Oh, for public servants who truly serve the public, not themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Among state Attorney General Tish James\u2019 other misadventures are her headline-hunting \u201cconsumer protection\u201d suits that are anything but.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[71684,304,2850,398,9,11,10,49,51,50,61667,299,69540],"class_list":["post-333496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-antitrust-law","tag-editorial","tag-lawsuits","tag-letitia-james","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-nexstar-broadcasting","tag-opinion","tag-rob-bonta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}