From this morning's Tom Taylor NOW column...
“The Trump Doctrine eschews limitations, particularly when it comes to media.” Is there a “Trump Doctrine” for broadcasting and other businesses? Writing for The Hill, former FCC staffer Adonis Hoffman says that generally, “We should expect a more benign, pro-business approach to communications regulation.” He expects “a rollback on regulations that impose what appear to be arbitrary or antiquated restrictions on who can own what in the media – except for foreign broadcast ownership.” Hoffman’s prime example is “NBCO,” the ban on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership. When it comes to telecom regulation, he predicts “a light touch.” And he says under Trump “size will not matter...big corporations are not seen as inherently bad or suspect, despite candidate Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip reactions to questions on mergers during the campaign.” Hoffman says the Trump worldview could be “not so much a retreat from consumer protection as an advancement of corporate priorities in a jobs-first economy.”
Got that? Let me translate this very gingerly presented view. "Antiquated restrictions on who can own what in the media" means that there will be no limit on what a company can own. "A light touch" means they will not be regulating at all. "Size will not matter" means that within this presidency, four companies (maybe five, maybe three) will own ALL media outlets. "Advancement of corporate priorities in a jobs first economy" means that large numbers of media employees will be losing their jobs.
When you allow consolidation, you do NOT grow jobs. Not now, not ever. Never happened in the history of mankind. Welcome back to opposite world. Black is white, repeat. Let the younger version of me explain it to you this way...
P.S. That's supposed to be ironic. I never thought I'd have to say so, but I am saying so. I'm NOT really on the side of the nine Americans who want this.
