After seeing a social media post that called rewatching of “The West Wing” as an exercise in binging “hope porn,” we found ourselves returning to watch creator Aaron Sorkin’s canon of life in a fictional White House. On this President’s Day, we found another example of the show predicting an intersection of fictional storylines and today’s real-life events. That happened multiple times over the seven years the series ran from 1999 to 2006, typically with some uncanny accuracy.

In episode 19 of the show’s 5th season, titled “Talking Points,” the main plot revolves around how the celebration over Josh Lyman’s successful negotiation of a new trade deal quickly dissolves into the reality that thousands of American high-tech jobs will be shipped to India. Because “The West Wing” always had a concurrent subplot or two to depict the myriad of complications facing the Bartlet administration, it was one of those that we found particularly prescient.

For the counterpoint to Josh’s moral dilemma, we find press secretary C.J. Cregg discovering that the Federal Communications Commission (which the show explains is “an independent agency”) has announced a compromise with Congress to lift the national cap on the number of local television stations one company can own up to covering 45% of the nation, up from the current limit of 39.37%

Upon hearing the news, Cregg (brilliantly portrayed by Allison Janney) delivers her skepticism about this development on the issue of “media consolidation” with this line: “Because who wants the same bunch of big shots controlling the media?”

It is the oddly specific figure of 39.37% that gnaws at the press secretary for much of the episode--until she realizes the “hiding in plain sight” reason for that exact percentage. She tries repeatedly to get the members of the White House press corps interested in the story, with little success. She ultimately gets her point across with a dramatic stunt that lands her in a little trouble with her boss, Chief of Staff Leo McGarry, played by the late John Spencer.

Because we hate spoilers, we won’t detail what ultimately happens in the show, since there may still be people who have never watched “The West Wing,” which we find hard to believe. (Should this include you, be aware that the entire series is available to stream on both the Netflix and HBO Max platforms.)

But you have to admit that it is oddly prescient that an episode of a television series that debuted in April of 2004 would focus on the very same question now before the FCC, some 22 years later.

In an odd twist of fate, we were watching this particular episode of “The West Wing” last Saturday, the same day that an opinion columnist writing in The New York Times was detailing her experience of meeting Jeff Bezos at a conference on the future of newspapers back in June of 2017. At the time, Bezos had owned The Washington Post for about four years, having bought the paper from the Graham family, who had run it since 1946. The writer, Lydia Polgreen, then the editor of The Huffington Post, details how Bezos had “cut quite a figure at the conference,” and had offered a passionate case for plowing more resources into the heart and soul of the newspaper that had just adopted the masthead mantra, “Democracy dies in darkness.”

In his address to the conference, Bezos flatly stated, “You can’t shrink your way into relevance.” By this point in owning The Post, he had added some 140 journalists, and the paper was reportedly “rounding the corner to profitability.”

Polgreen spends much of the rest of her NYT piece exploring the question of why she trusted Bezos, given the massive cuts he oversaw at the paper, the latest coming just last week.

Over the years, a few of our mentors have espoused the same idea that “you can’t cut your way to greatness.” Obviously, it doesn’t matter if your massive personal wealth would allow you to continue to fund a money-losing journalistic enterprise with little more than the loose change likely to be found in your couch cushions. The cold, hard reality is that the way to save a business that is losing money always comes down to one of two options: increasing revenue or cutting expenses. Failure to do either usually leads to the enterprise’s demise.

And so we return to the “art imitates life” storyline about the FCC and media consolidation concerns that “The West Wing” was exploring in 2004. At least in the context of a single episode of a primetime TV drama that aired over two decades ago, and is now seemingly playing out in real life.

Except in the current situation, no one is talking about any cap on local television station ownership, let alone something as quaint as “a compromise” on keeping a cap at a figure of just 45% of the country’s television households.

Now, the industry’s position on having no cap on local TV station ownership is that, given the existential threat posed by giant tech corporations to the current media landscape, size matters. It is only by bulking up on assets that we can ensure the survival of all local TV stations, and in turn, “their vital local news coverage.”

But you aren’t likely to find the leaders of any local television group owner echoing Jeff Bezos’s 2017 sentiment about “you can’t shrink your way into relevance.” Why? Because whatever “safety in numbers” sentiment that might be part of their argument will meet the cold business reality that a growing company can find profitability through the lofty-sounding goal known as “finding synergies.”

During the “Talking Points” episode of “The West Wing,” Press Secretary Cregg delivers the historical context, asking, “You know when they passed the laws that limit media ownership? In the 40s, as a response to fascism in Europe.” Actually, the limits on electronic media ownership have their roots in the Radio Act of 1927, when Congress created the Federal Radio Commission and codified limits on radio station ownership. The specifics were spelled out in greater detail in the Communications Act of 1934, which expanded the Federal Radio Commission’s purview as the newly rechristened Federal Communications Commission. From that point forward, the FCC has continually developed and enforced the limits on how many broadcast outlets a single entity could own, both nationally and locally. Those rules have evolved multiple times, but the core idea—ownership limits tied to diversity and localism—traces back to that 1927–34 framework.

To the show’s credit, C.J. goes through the episode like a bulldog with a bone about the issue. She tells her boss, Leo McGarry, “No one is writing about it. They’re all afraid of their media-mogul, robber baron bosses.” She adds, “This is the biggest media conspiracy since William Randolph Hearst was starting wars and crushing filmmakers.” Leo counters her by stating, “We don’t run the press. We certainly don’t run the FCC. They made the ruling.”

Well, maybe not back in the fantasy world of 2004, Leo. These days, the FCC and the “Dealmaker-In-Chief” seem to be coming from the same place. Whether the current members of the United States Congress will allow them to do whatever they want remains to be seen.

“Local news is getting trampled,” C.J. implores. “You think corporate media’s going to take on corporate polluters, describe mega-mergers as anything other than a rising stock price?” It’s at this point that the script writer of this episode, Eli Attie, gets in a not-so-subtle dig when C.J.’s boyfriend asks her the question, “When was the last time you watched local news?”

He continues: “It’s just high-school ping-pong and weathermen predicting hailstones the size of canned hams.”

And there you have it. Media consolidation is something to be concerned about, except that what we are talking about is protecting the journalistic equivalent of whatever nutrition you can get from a drive-thru window at a fast-food restaurant.

We won’t spoil how this particular episode of “The West Wing” finally resolves the question. However, the entire theme of the hour revolves around the inability of the government to “look out for the little guy,” no matter how much it promises to do so during campaigns for office.

One might suspect that the current real-life issues around media ownership will be resolved in an equally feckless fashion.

And whether it’s a couple of decades from now, or perhaps a far shorter interval, when there are likely far fewer journalists working at the local television stations where you live, there will be far less outrage and wringing of hands than there was last week when the staff was slashed at The Washington Post.

Because while you can’t shrink your way into relevance, apparently you can slice your way into raising your company’s stock price.

Whoever first said “Democracy dies in darkness” probably didn’t foresee that it might happen right before our eyes, illuminated by the light of all the various screens before us.

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