Newspapers can't merge?

Story: "Suspicious about possible alliance among competitors, a federal judge barred The San Francisco Chronicle from consolidating some of its business operations with newspapers owned by MediaNews Group Inc.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued the temporary restraining order Tuesday, upon seeing a previously undisclosed memo saying that the Chronicle's parent company, Hearst Corp., intended to collaborate with the newspaper's rivals on Bay Area distribution and national advertising sales.
The judge ruled the deal would possibly violate antitrust laws."

Government violation of the free markets... How on earth does two newspapers merging create and anti-trust situation? Espessially with the access to the news over the internet, this is just a stupid ruling.

Sorry about the lack of posts recently, and there maybe over the next few days, as my Robotics team is going to compete at the state level this weekend. Pray for us, I'm sure we're going to need it.