Some might think this is a politics story. To view it as that rather than an indictment of what the media are doing is to buy into their bullshit.

Succinctly, this is the sort of thing that made me leave corporate media. There is no longer the slightest veneer of the point of the exercise being to inform their audience, but rather to tell them what to think under the guise of impartial news.

We are here because of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which slightly predates my involvement in print journalism. Justia explains:

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 directed the FCC to review its media ownership rules every four years. The FCC sought to loosen its restrictions in 2002 and 2006, but a federal court struck down the revised rules. In 2017, though, the FCC revoked the cross-ownership rules. Limits on ownership of local television stations also were loosened. The FCC noted the decline of the newspaper industry and the expansion of non-traditional media outlets, including the Internet, in explaining its decision. While a federal court initially wiped out the repeal, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed in April 2021 and allowed the cross-ownership rules to end. However, the FCC has returned to Democrat [sic] control under President Joseph Biden, which could lead to another shift in the rules.

Emphasis mine. There are vanishingly few independent local media sources as a result of this consolidation, but the net result has not been what the GOP likes to hammer away at, choosing instead to do their usual Goebbels-approved thing of accusing anyone else of using their tactics as cover for what is actually happening.

The WSJ used to have news coverage independent of editorial, and in this instance, you’re expected to believe that is still the case, then be unaware of who’s writing scripts for local news because you’re not watching in another market, et voila! Sanitizing propaganda and serving it as service journalism.

ETA: Here’s the original reporting.