Fuse Media and Teamsters Suggest Staffing Condition on Skydance/Paramount
Arguments that employment and labor concerns aren't germane to Skydance Media's pending acquisition of Paramount Global and shouldn't be considered by the FCC aren't correct, according to Fuse Media and Teamsters Local 399. In a docket 24-275 filing posted Tuesday to recap a meeting with FCC Media Bureau and Office of General Counsel staffers, Fuse and the union said the transaction directly ties to likely job cuts at New Paramount, including at stations owned and operated by CBS. Station staffing can affect a licensee's ability to uphold the localism part of the public interest standard, they said. Fuse and the union suggested a station-level staffing requirement that would keep full-time employment stable for eight years. It also would bar New Paramount from consolidating operations across stations or outsourcing work previously done by full-time staffers.
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The Center for American Rights -- which has filed news distortion complaints against CBS and other networks (see 2504210048) -- said New Paramount should treat every CBS-owned-and-operated newsroom as a bureau of the national network. That would result in viewers seeing more stories from cities around the country instead of from just New York City, Los Angeles and other locations where CBS has bureaus, CAR said.