Tish James had proved herself a rancid political hack before Daniel Wiesenfeld blew the whistle; let’s hope she’s soon out of government if not in prison.
Page A13From§Eachthe late evening edition — 30 August 2026
New York's attorney general blocks a corporate media merger; New York Post calls it 'abuses of power.'
As it ran on the front
WHO OWNS THE MEGAPHONE
Here's a trick that works every time: you take the thing that protects you and you rename it a crime. New York's attorney general and California's do a fairly boring, fairly normal regulatory thing — they say no, actually, you two big broadcast companies can't merge into one bigger broadcast company, because that's fewer owners deciding what shows up on your local news at six o'clock. That's it. That's the whole act. It's the kind of thing antitrust lawyers do on a Tuesday and nobody notices.…
…(cont) Except somebody noticed, and the headline that ran wasn't "regulator blocks merger." It was "war on local news." Read that twice. The people trying to consolidate ownership of your local news into fewer hands are the ones described as its defenders. The person saying no, you can't own more of it, is the one at war with it. That's not a typo, that's a strategy, and it's the same strategy sitting one story down, where the same official gets a headline calling her abuses of power "laid bare," sourced to a prosecutor described as a whistleblower, in the same outlet, the same week, about the same person who just told a media conglomerate no.
I'm not asking you to take my word for any of it. I'm asking you to notice the position. When a public official blocks a corporate acquisition, and the press covering that official immediately runs a separate story accusing her of abuse of power, you don't need a motive, you don't need an inside source, you need a calendar. The stories ran the same week. The company that didn't get to buy the stations is not a neutral bystander in how that official gets covered afterward, and neither is anybody who shares a printing press with them.
Here's the stake, plain: the number of companies that get to decide what counts as your local news has been shrinking for twenty years, and one of the last brakes on that is a state attorney general's antitrust authority. When you watch that authority get relabeled a scandal in real time, in print, you are watching the brake get worked on. Keep the receipt.
“They call it 'abuses of power laid bare' right under the story where she blocked two companies from owning even more of the news you get your information from. Follow whose ox is getting gored — the guy trying to sell the local station.”
“This is a clear case of government overreach into a private transaction between two willing companies, and the timing of the — no, I understand it's the same official in both stories, that's not — that's a separate matter, the merger review is entirely on the merits.”
The receipts
Among state Attorney General Tish James’ other misadventures are her headline-hunting “consumer protection” suits that are anything but.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.