Never more than now has the news media been under scrutiny.

That criticism has been along partisan lines and it tends to break down to what is (and is not) fake news. Local media is still left unsullied, right?

Nope.

Thanks to an FCC decision last week and another likely to come this month, local television is likely to get more partisan and a whole lot less local. This should be alarming to everyone.

I’ll start with last week’s decision by the FCC to change newsroom requirements.

According to Variety, the entertainment industry’s biggest trade magazine, last week the FCC removed a rule requiring broadcasters to have a main studio in a local coverage area. In other words, now radio and television stations do not have to have a physical news or studio presence in their broadcast area. As Variety put it, this could be a “boost to the ambitions of Sinclair Broadcast Group.”

Sinclair, as you may know, is a large television company buying up markets all over the country. Locally, they own Channel 6, KFDM and while they currently have a whole news team in Beaumont, as of last week, they could, if they wanted, close their newsroom and keep broadcasting. Without local content.

And, at least according to one conservative critic, the CEO of Newsmax, this is probably what Sinclair will do.

Variety, again, “Chris Ruddy, the CEO of conservative outlet Newsmax … expressed concerns that ‘the elimination of the main studio rule had also been an agenda item of Sinclair’s, which has sought to dramatically reduce their programming costs.’”

This isn’t just a problem for news consumers, it is a problem for everyone in every newsroom, too. Local journalism (so far) is still more or less free from the taint of national partisan divide. Most people understand that local newspapers and news outlets are not playing favorites at city hall or at the school board meetings. And because our focus is on local content and not national issues, we stay below the fray of the “fake news” debate. So, we manage to hold on to a lot of trust.

Beyond trust, local journalism is carried on the backs of each and every journalist in each newsroom, and so while we at the News would love to be the ones who break each story and uncover every scandal, sometimes tips and leaks are given to the other guys. But, as long as those tips and leaks improve our cities and tamp down corruption then we are all better for it. We have to live here too, and the fewer eyes and ears out there looking out for the good guys, the worse we will be.

Not to mention that a closed studio represents job loss and that’s no good either.

But remember when I pointed out that local journalism is mostly free of partisan politics?

Well, maybe not after November.

In November the FCC is set to rollback another longtime television rule. Wired reported on this last week. They report that the FCC is considering lifting a ban “preventing companies from owning both a broadcast station and a newspaper in the same market, and ease restrictions on the number of television and radio stations a single owner can control in a market.”

So, one company can buy up a whole host of local media.

If you’re guessing this move could help a certain partisan company buying up local television stations across the country, you’re right.

From Wired, “[T]he rules have already attracted controversy because they will most immediately benefit Sinclair Broadcast Group, which plans to buy Tribune Media for $3.9 billion.”

Yes, Sinclair again.

According to Wired, the merger would mean Sinclair could reach 73 percent of American marketplaces.

The Federal Communication Commission is stacked with a majority of Republicans who support the move and so this is probably going to pass when they vote on the rule change in a few weeks. Make no mistake: this is not another example of Republicans trying to ease restrictions to broaden the marketplace (since the rule changes will almost certainly limit consumer choice, that feeble argument doesn’t work on even the most facile level). No, this is naked partisan preference.

Again, from Wired, “Sinclair is generally seen as a conservative-leaning media organization. For example, it requires its stations to air particular content, including commentary from former Trump administration official Boris Epshteyn. Earlier this year, Politico reported that President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner told business executives that the Trump campaign struck a deal with Sinclair for better coverage.”

So, at the end of the day, what are we getting? Thanks to rule changes and proposed changes, we will be left with fewer media options, fewer local reporters and better coverage of President Trump.

That may be great for Sinclair, but it hardly seems like a good deal for the rest of us.