Local news the next Spirit Airlines? * WorldNetDaily * by Lisa Murphy, Real Clear Wire

The debate sparked by “Local news the next Spirit Airlines?” argues that local broadcasting risks collapse if market and regulatory pressures repeat past failures. The article recalls Spirit Airlines shutting down without warning on May 2, with 17,000 workers losing their jobs, and links Spirit’s demise to a broader sequence including a 2023 decision by the Biden administration blocking JetBlue’s acquisition of Spirit to protect competition. It then shifts to media, saying Nexstar is trying to acquire Tegna, which owns 64 TV stations across 51 markets, in a $6.2 billion deal. The merger cleared the FCC and the Department of Justice in March, but a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction in April halting integration after a challenge involving DirecTV. Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday criticized the deal’s competition impact in markets such as Harrisburg and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The piece warns that local journalism is already weakening, with 213 news-desert counties reported and fewer than 1,000 daily print newspapers remaining.