second secret study surfaces at FCC

from huffington post: Another Federal Communications Commission study on the negative impacts of media consolidation came to light Monday after being buried at the agency for at least two years - the second suppressed FCC ownership study to surface in as many weeks.

It's clear that FCC's top brass are willing to deep-six any research that contradicts the media industry's pro-consolidation claims...

A copy of the study is available here.

Although the study would have been the fifth of its kind since the 1996 Act - which lifted national radio ownership caps - it was never released, and no subsequent studies on the topic have been conducted. It only became public after a copy was leaked to the office of Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Last week, Jonathan Rintels reported here that Boxer also uncovered a buried federal study that showed media consolidation is harmful to local news reporting...

Upon seeing the results, senior managers at the FCC ordered that "every last piece" of that study be destroyed, according to the Associated Press.