By Dana Floberg

A demolition team rolled in to 9 Broadcast Plaza in early June, tearing down Northern New Jersey’s only broadcast television studio.

The physical destruction of the studio, which had served the region for more than 30 years, is a painful reminder of the devastating impact that runaway media consolidation has had on local news in New Jersey.

The studio was long the home of WWOR-TV, a local television station that the Federal Communications Commission licensed to Secaucus, until owner Fox Television sold the property and moved the station to its existing studio in Manhattan.

Sens. Cory Booker and Robert Menendez condemned the move. “By selling their Secaucus studios, they’ve officially put the final nail in the coffin on any legitimate claim to calling themselves a New Jersey broadcast station,” said Menendez.

Caught between the New York City and Philadelphia media markets, New Jersey has long been overlooked by broadcast companies focused on serving these major metropolises instead of covering local communities.

That’s why when the FCC renewed WWOR’s license in 1984, it did so under the condition that the station would relocate its studio to New Jersey and serve local interests in the northern part of the state.

But for decades, New Jerseyans charged that WWOR wasn’t doing its job. Citing a lack of political coverage and sparse news stories on critical local issues, the nonprofit group Voice for New Jersey filed a complaint at the FCC alleging that WWOR was shirking its responsibility to serve the communities of northern New Jersey.

Then, WWOR closed its news department, sparking major layoffs and replacing the local newscast with conservative shock jock Bill Spadea’s half-hour weeknight infotainment show “Chasing New Jersey,” which furious viewers likened to the tabloid site TMZ. New Jersey’s congressional delegation sounded the alarm and in 2013 the state Legislature passed a joint resolution urging the FCC to revoke WWOR’s license.

But the agency dismissed their concerns, and with Chairman Ajit Pai at the helm, it’s embarked on a mission to roll back the agency’s media-ownership rules. First on the chopping block was the “main studio rule,” a requirement that every local broadcast station maintain a physical studio within the community it’s licensed to serve.

Less than a year after Pai eliminated the rule, WWOR packed its bags and moved to Manhattan.

Responsive local news is under increasing threat from corporate broadcasters that skirt their public-interest obligations to pump up profit margins — and now the FCC has given them free rein to abandon communities.

New Jersey needs better local news. Poor communities and communities of color in particular deserve the chance to tell their own stories and see their experiences reflected on their local newscasts. Voters deserve quality information about local elected officials and the issues that matter to them.

There’s reason for hope. Last week, the New Jersey Legislature passed the state budget, including up to $2 million in funding for the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, a first-of-its-kind nonprofit with the mission of reviving, strengthening and transforming local media across the state.

The budget is now on the desk of Gov. Phil Murphy, who has already voiced his support for the consortium. But $2 million will only go so far. New Jersey needs broadcast stations with journalists who have roots in the community — not Manhattan’s outsourced leftovers.

Policymakers at the FCC and beyond must pull a lesson from the rubble of 9 Broadcast Plaza and build a media system that actually serves local communities — before it all comes crashing down.

Dana Floberg is the policy manager for the national nonprofit organization Free Press.

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