Hardly impartial for a member of the traditional media -- even one who works for the Gray Lady -- to call for upping the fine on the company doing the most to make them irrelevant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Circumstantial
What you say may be true, but it does not establish that the OP’s argument is false.
That being said, if the speaker (or anyone else) attempts to argue from authority, I feel it’s appropriate to use a circumstantial ad hominem argument. Not to discount the argument itself, but to point out that their own appeal to authority is not only fallacious, but also unfounded.