Kevin Martin’s op ed piece in today’s Times portrays the proposed relaxation of cross-ownership rules as good for journalism:

Without newspapers, we would be less informed about our communities and have fewer outlets for the expression of independent thinking and a diversity of viewpoints. The challenge is to restore the viability of newspapers while preserving the core values of a diversity of voices and a commitment to localism in the media marketplace.

Martin argues that the solution is that:

A company that owns a newspaper in one of the 20 largest cities in the country should be permitted to purchase a broadcast TV or radio station in the same market. … Beyond giving newspapers in large markets the chance to buy one local TV or radio station, no other ownership rule would be altered. Other companies would not be allowed to own any more radio or television stations, either in a single market or nationally, than they already do.

A newspaper purchasing a television station sounds fine because it would bring in more revenue and could possibly bring deeper journalistic values to the television newsroom. This sounds good until you step back and think about which direction the purchases would be more likely to go.

TV station owners have deeper pockets, and my guess is that they would be more likely to covet their local newspaper.

This scenario would most certainly not be a good thing for newspapers or the craft of journalism.  While newspapers are already under financial pressure that has caused cuts in the newsroom, television news values could cut papers even more (why send two news crews to an incident when you can just send one).  Television values also tend to sacrifice time consuming stories for “what sells.”  Fewer stories about what’s happening in government, or what’s going on at the community level, would not be good for “their role as watchdog and informer of the citizenry, newspapers are crucial to our democracy.” Further, television newsrooms are less likely to be staffed with graduates of journalism schools who are trained to do hard journalism–the kind that television reporters often rely on, but don’t do themselves.

Chairman Martin: the press is not on your side for very good reasons.