Cleaning up some unfinished business from its AT&T-MediaOne merge...

Cleaning up some unfinished business from its AT&T-MediaOne merger approval last year, FCC rejected application for review filed by Media Access Project, Consumers Union and Consumer Federation of America. In 4-page order issued Thurs., Commission denied bid by consumer groups to gain access to handwritten staff notes, e-mail messages, staff summaries of ex parte meetings, memos and other documents in agency’s merger consideration. Order said staff members had resolved some of consumer advocates’ objections by making some of documents available. It also found further discretionary disclosure of records “not appropriate here” because they “would foreseeably harm the institutional interest underlying the deliberative process privilege” and “would actually inhibit candor in the decision-making process.”