Thursday, August 16, 2018
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The Press, The People, Are Not The Enemy
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I trust that the people of this country have not so lost their love of truth that they would allow their leaders to vilify our brothers and sisters who seek out and report on the truth so that we can aptly practice our democracy. Who can argue with the importance of a free press to our nation, our democracy, our liberty? And who would try to turn the people against our own tool for holding government accountable? That is the work of tyrants – and tyrants are the true enemy of the people.
Many may question why so many news outlets and others rise today to speak out against President Trump’s rhetoric. Others may ask why we give oxygen to the fire he himself flames. My answer is that every day is a good day to stand up for the Constitution and to exercise our rights while we still have them. And although the First Amendment begins “Congress shall make no law...” I remind you that in less than three months, we will be deciding what type of Congress we have – and with whom it is aligned.
The press is not the enemy of the people. Please say it with me: The press is the people. We should commit to protect, preserve, and strengthen it today and every day.
[Adrianne B. Furniss is the Executive Director of the Benton Foundation]
A well-informed public is best equipped to root out corruption and, over the long haul, promote liberty and justice. “Public discussion is a political duty,” the Supreme Court said in 1964. That discussion must be “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,” and “may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” In 2018, some of the most damaging attacks are coming from government officials. Criticizing the news media — for underplaying or overplaying stories, for getting something wrong — is entirely right. News reporters and editors are human, and make mistakes. Correcting them is core to our job. But insisting that truths you don’t like are “fake news” is dangerous to the lifeblood of democracy. And calling journalists the “enemy of the people” is dangerous, period.
Answering a call last week from The Boston Globe, The Times is joining hundreds of newspapers, from large metro-area dailies to small local weeklies, to remind readers of the value of America’s free press. These editorials, some of which we’ve excerpted, together affirm a fundamental American institution. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to your local papers. Praise them when you think they’ve done a good job and criticize them when you think they could do better. We’re all in this together.
[Commentary] Nothing flatters an independent journalist less than the sight of him forming a line to drink from the same fountain as his colleagues. Such a spectacle will unfold on Aug 16, as 200 or more editorial pages will heed the call sounded by Boston Globe op-ed page editor Marjorie Pritchard to run editorials opposing President Donald Trump’s unrelieved press-bashing. Participating dailies include the Houston Chronicle, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Miami Herald and the Denver Post, as well as the Globe. Joining the movement are the American Society of News Editors and the New England Newspaper and Press Association.
Most journalists agree that there’s a great need for Trump rebuttals. I’ve written my share. But this Globe-sponsored coordinated editorial response is sure to backfire: It will provide President Trump with circumstantial evidence of the existence of a national press cabal that has been convened solely to oppose him. When the editorials roll off the press on Aug 16, all singing from the same script, President Trump will reap enough fresh material to whale on the media for at least a month. His forthcoming speeches almost write themselves: By colluding against me, the fake media proved once and for all, that they are in cahoots with the Democrats and have declared themselves to be my true political opposition.
[Jack Shafer is Politico’s senior media writer.]
Sen Tom Udall (D-NM) has signaled he will use some of his time questioning Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai at an Aug 16 FCC oversight hearing to make sure he has journalists' backs. That is the same day journalist organizations are getting together to push back on President Donald Trump's attacks on mainstream media as fake news outlets in league with his Democrat opponents to undermine his presidency and policies. Sen Udall will call on Chairman Pai "to defend the free press in light of repeated attacks from President Trump and members of his administration."
A Q&A with Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA).
How much do you pay for internet service each month? NDIA found that lots of customers are paying about $60 a month for their internet packages. Some get super slow internet speeds, while others get super fast speeds. "This is definitely an issue that should bring people together," Siefer said. "This is an issue in rural areas and urban areas. It's an issue in rural areas because it's not profitable for internet service providers to roll out in areas where the customers are far apart. It's also an issue in urban areas where providers have chosen not to upgrade their old copper networks. So, we have community members in both kinds of places who are paying way more for their internet than really seems fair."
When asked, "Why is home broadband internet so important for access when people can also access via their phones or on any sort of mobile device?" Siefer said, "So, mobile is not a solution because of data caps. That's the super-fast answer. You can't do everything you need to do with your data cap. If you don't have a data cap, you might be able swing it, along with free Wi-Fi, whenever you can get near free Wi-Fi. But if you have a data cap, and you have a household that more than one person in it, it is insufficient."
A new report from the American Action Forum questions the economic impact of rural broadband. The report draws on an econometric model of Federal Communications Commission data that, “suggests that the presence of broadband does little to explain the unemployment rate, median household income, the change in employment or the rate of population change in rural regions.” The report states that broadband adoption measures are “far better at explaining these trends.” While the report in some ways seems to be splitting hairs – clearly, you can’t have broadband adoption without broadband – it does break some new ground in terms of rural broadband research by looking at rural broadband availability in a granular manner.
What to takeaway? The author’s statement that the econometric model shows that “the percentage of the population with access to 25/3 [Mbps] broadband doesn’t explain the unemployment rate, median household income, the change in employment or the rate of population change in rural regions” tells only part of the story. The author goes on to state that broadband adoption explains economic trends four times better than broadband availability – a finding that would seem to highlight the importance of making broadband not just available but also affordable and of supporting it with broadband adoption programs.
The candidates running to become New York’s next attorney general each sought to assure a tech-friendly audience that they would be defenders of network neutrality and entrepreneurship during a candidate forum on Aug 14. Rep Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), Public Advocate Tish James, Zephyr Teachout and Leecia Eve — all running to secure the Democratic nomination in September’s primary election — made their pitches to protect industry actors while at the same time presenting themselves as bulwarks against the presidency of Donald Trump. Each emphasized the unique role the New York attorney general can play in challenging President Trump’s agenda at the national level. All the candidates largely agree on issues pertaining to net neutrality, technology, and data, so all of them took pains to differentiate themselves from one another in describing how they would use the office to ensure consumer data is protected and net neutrality is maintained.
Where differences emerged was when they were asked about the city's freshly signed law regulating Uber. Earlier that day, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a set of bills aimed at curbing the growth of Uber in the city, requiring higher wages for drivers and calling for improved working conditions. All candidates on stage, with the exception of Teachout, said they opposed the Uber cap.
Gov Bruce Rauner (R-IL) signed into law a bill designed to increase broadband access for the state's growing, but less-connected older population. The bill establishes a 21-member Broadband Advisory Council tasked with figuring out why more seniors aren't using the internet, creating digital literacy programs to overcome those barriers and exploring new technologies to increase broadband connectivity for residents 65 years and older. Among the council members is the secretary of innovation and technology, a spot currently filled by state Chief Information Officer Kirk Lonbom. The council is also intended to serve as an advocacy channel for state government agencies seeking to meet the need for broadband in underserved communities. The law also tasks the advisory board to explore the difference in broadband connectivity between low-income residents and other populations.
The wireless industry continues to urge regulators at the federal, state and local levels to make it cheaper and easier for network operators and others to install wireless equipment including small cells in new locations. And some of the nation’s biggest operators are starting to single out specific cities charging what they argue are excessive small cell deployment fees. It appears that the officials in Lincoln (NE) have emerged as some of the industry’s primary antagonists. “Verizon recently concluded that it would not deploy additional small cells in Lincoln, NE, at this time because of the $1,995/year attachment rate,” the operator said in a new filing with the Federal Communications Commission.
Lincoln isn’t alone, of course. Operators ranging from Verizon to Sprint have pointed out what they argue are excessive fees in a variety of other locations across the country:
- AT&T said it is “at an impasse” with the city of Oakland (CA) for a deployment of 60 small cell nodes because the city is charging a recurring rate of $2,300 per node.
- AT&T also said it has delayed its deployment in locations in Maryland due, in part, to Howard County’s nonrecurring fee of $10,000 on top of $1,800 per permit, annual recurring fees of $25,000 for ROW rights and $1,000 per small cell node.
- Verizon said Seattle (WA) is seeking $1,872 per pole per year with a 4% escalator “resulting in minimal small cell deployment” in the city.
- Sprint said it has deployed more than 500 small cells in the City of Los Angeles, but none in Los Angeles County partly because of $9,820 in application fees there.
Being a major metropolitan area usually means having top-tier infrastructure, access to technology and other advantages, but that isn’t the case when it comes to mobile network performance, according to a study of the worst and best mobile wireless cities released by RootMetrics.
Best Mobile Wireless Cities: Topping the rankings was Knoxville (TN), the nation’s 73rd ranked metro area in terms of population, followed by St. Louis (MO) (20th in population), Minneapolis (MN) (16th in pop), Allentown (PA) (60th in pop), and Fort Wayne (IN) (118 in pop).
Worst Mobile Wireless Cities: Santa Rosa (CA) (ranked 125th), followed by Hudson Valley (NY) (124), El Paso (TX) (123), and Bridgeport and Stamford (CT) (tied at 121).
Across the country, Americans depend on reliable phone service to stay in touch with friends and family, conduct business, and access vital public services. Although all Americans should have confidence that calls made to or by them will be completed, for those living in rural or remote areas, too often this is not the case. Whether consumers experience false ring tones, dropped calls, inaccurate caller ID information, or other problems, rural call completion issues can have serious repercussions, potentially impacting quality of life, economic opportunity, and public safety in affected communities.
The actions we take today are the next steps in our ongoing efforts to ensure that calls are indeed completed to all Americans, including those in rural America. With our initial implementation of the Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act of 20172 (RCC Act), we adopt rules designed to ensure the integrity of our nation’s telephone network and prevent “unjust or unreasonable discrimination among areas of the United States” in the delivery of telephone service.
Based on the record before us, and guided by the RCC Act provisions, today we adopt rules to establish a registry for intermediate providers and require intermediate providers to register with the Commission before offering to transmit covered voice communications, as well as further measures to augment and bolster the effectiveness of our call completion rules.
Ownership
United States v. The Walt Disney Company: Proposed Final Judgment and Competitive Impact Statement
Notice that a proposed Final Judgment, Stipulation, and Competitive Impact Statement have been filed with the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in United States of America v. The Walt Disney Company, et al., Civil Action No. 1:18–cv–05800.
On June 27, 2018, the United States filed a Complaint alleging that The Walt Disney Company’s proposed acquisition of certain assets from Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. would violate Section 7 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. 18. The proposed Final Judgment, filed at the same time as the Complaint, requires The Walt Disney Company to divest Fox’s interests in the following regional sports networks: (i) Fox Sports Arizona; (ii) Fox Sports Carolinas; (iii) Fox Sports Detroit; (iv) Fox Sports Florida; (v) Fox Sports Indiana; (vi) Fox Sports Kansas City; (vii) Fox Sports Midwest; (viii) Fox Sports New Orleans; (ix) Fox Sports North; (x) Fox Sports Ohio; (xi) SportsTime Ohio; (xii) Fox Sports Oklahoma; (xiii) Fox Sports San Diego; (xiv) Fox Sports South; (xv) Fox Sports Southeast; (xvi) Fox Sports Southwest; (xvii) Fox Sports Sun; (xviii) Fox Sports Tennessee; (xix) Fox Sports West; (xx) Prime Ticket; (xxi) Fox Sports Wisconsin; and (xxii) the YES Network.
Public comment is invited within 60 days of the date of this notice. Such comments, including the name of the submitter, and responses thereto, will be posted on the Antitrust Division’s website, filed with the Court, and, under certain circumstances, published in the Federal Register. Comments should be directed to Owen M. Kendler, Chief, Media, Entertainment, and Professional Services Section, Antitrust Division, Department of Justice, Washington, DC 20530, (telephone: 202–305–8376).
Opponents of the AT&T-Time Warner merger are taking aim at District Judge Richard Leon’s June decision to allow the deal to go forward. Here’s a rundown of some of their legal briefs as an appeals court prepares to take up the case:
- A group of 27 lawyers and economists criticized Judge Leon for questioning the government’s use of an economic test called the Nash bargaining model to determine whether AT&T would have an unfair advantage over competitors in licensing content. Judge Leon “either did not understand the model or else did not properly apply the model to the facts of the case,” they write.
- In a joint filing, the American Cable Association and William Rogerson, a former Federal Communications Commission chief economist, contend that Judge Leon appeared to accept the Nash bargaining model and idea of profit maximization in one part of his ruling but reject it in another — creating inconsistencies that call his entire decision into question.
- Advocates from Public Knowledge, Consumers Union, and the American Antitrust Institute, meanwhile, argue that Leon’s errors resulted in an “excessive burden of proof on the government” to win its case. They warn the decision, if not overturned, “promises to lead other courts astray and to encourage firms to attempt ever more anticompetitive vertical mergers that harm consumers.”
AT&T is expected to submit its rebuttal by Sept. 20, and briefs in its favor are due the following week. AT&T general counsel David McAtee previously called Leon’s decision “comprehensive” and said it “systematically exposed each of the many holes in the government’s case.”
The Trump era has now seen two major media mergers halted or almost stopped — Sinclair Broadcast Group’s combination with Tribune Media, and AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner. Both transactions met with turbulence from the feds, but that does not signal that media consolidation will be slowed in the coming years — far from it. In fact, getting far less attention are moves that likely will encourage more media mergers and acquisitions down the road. Here are a few examples:
- Broadcasters still may find it easier to get bigger. Despite the Sinclair fiasco, the Federal Communications Commission is still considering proposals to revise the national ownership cap, which currently limits TV station groups to holdings that reach no more than 39% of the country.
- Film studios may be able to get stronger. The Justice Department recently launched a review of the Paramount consent decrees, the 70-year-old restrictions that prohibit major studios from owning theater chains and disallow a number of business practices between distributors and exhibitors.
- There’s a way to get a greenlight quickly. The friction between big media and the feds in many ways overshadowed one of the most consequential actions — the DOJs approval of the Walt Disney’s purchase of much of 21st Century Fox in June. Many expected that the merger process would take a year; instead, it cleared in about six months.
- Tribune is still for sale. The Sinclair deal may be dead, but that doesn’t mean Tribune isn’t on the block.
Public-radio companies PRX and PRI are merging in a bid to capitalize on the surging popularity of podcasts and other digital formats as listeners and content creators migrate away from traditional broadcast radio.
PRX and PRI are two of the nation’s four national distributors of programming for public-radio stations and the first to combine operations. The other networks, National Public Radio and American Public Media, are much larger. Founded in 1983, PRI, or Public Radio International, produces programming carried by more than 700 public-radio stations in the US, including “The World” and “The Takeaway.” Public Radio Exchange, known as PRX, is ranked the No. 3 podcast publisher by podcast analytics firm Podtrac, behind NPR and WNYC Studios. Launched 15 years ago, PRX began as an audio-distribution company for radio stations, but has diversified into producing and distributing podcasts and making ad technology.
No money will change hands in the tie-up. Boston-based public broadcaster WGBH, which bought PRI in 2012 and recently turned to PRX as a partner for podcasts, will invest $10 million in developing new content, including a new production studio and a Podcast Garage in Washington (DC) to train new creators.
The Federal Communications Commission has shut down conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s flagship radio station, the pirate radio station, Liberty Radio. Liberty was hit with a $15,000 fine and at least temporarily pulled from the airwaves. A lawsuit filed in federal court in Austin (TX) alleged that Liberty Radio had functioned without a license since at least 2013, and had been transmitting from a tower at an Austin apartment complex. Liberty Radio stopped airing on the radio in December, but still streams online. The FCC is charging that the station was also illegally broadcasting on an FM wavelength.
As part of its ongoing Trust, Media and Democracy initiative, the John S. and James L.Knight Foundation partnered with Gallup to ask a representative sample of US adults for their views on the news editorial functions played by major internet companies. From a broad perspective, Americans credit major internet companies for connecting people and helping them become better-informed. At the same time, they are concerned about their role in spreading misinformation and in potentially limiting exposure to different viewpoints. They are more negative (54%) than positive (45%) about the idea of major internet companies tailoring information to individual users based on their interests, their internet search activity and their web browsing history. Majorities of US adults say they are very concerned that major internet companies’ methods as a content arbitrator can give people a biased picture of the news, restrict the expression of certain viewpoints, and increase the influence of news that benefits the internet company and its preferred points of view. Likely as a result of these concerns, the public believes major internet companies should be transparent about their methods for delivering content — 88% say they should publicly disclose the methods they use. Further, Americans think major internet companies should be subject to the same regulations as newspapers and television news stations. However, they do not see the government as being mainly responsible for ensuring that major internet companies give Americans an accurate and unbiased summary of the news. Rather, they believe that obligation falls on the internet companies or their users.
14% of Americans have changed their mind about an issue because of something they saw on social media
For most Americans, exposure to different content and ideas on social media has not caused them to change their opinions. But a small share of the public – 14% – say they have changed their views about a political or social issue in the past year because of something they saw on social media, according to a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted May 29-June 11.
Certain groups, particularly young men, are more likely than others to say they’ve modified their views because of social media. Around three-in-ten men ages 18 to 29 (29%) say their views on a political or social issue changed in the past year due to social media. This is roughly twice the share saying this among all Americans and more than double the shares among men and women ages 30 and older (12% and 11%, respectively). There are also differences by race and ethnicity, according to the new survey. Around one-in-five black (19%) and Hispanic (22%) Americans say their views changed due to social media, compared with 11% of whites. Social media prompted views to change more among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (17%) than among Republicans and Republican leaners (9%).
Effective, well thought-out, multi-faceted marketing can make your community broadband network more money and can cost less than sales teams alone. When Marketing work in conjunction with Sales, the network does better financially in the short- and long-term. Let’s use telehealth as an example. My 20 years of marketing work in the high-tech industry had me teaching a lot of folks in un-VC funded start-ups the values and virtues of marketing. It was easy to pigeonhole Marketing as a couple of folks creating snazzy brochures and snappy websites. True marketing is the graphics plus a combination of market research, market focus, spot-on marketing messages, and astute marketing partnerships.
Russia’s social-media trolling operation began stepping up its Twitter presence to new heights in late July 2017 -- more than eight months after sowing discord and disinformation in the 2016 presidential election. The burst of activity -- revealed in a new, comprehensive dataset of nearly 3 million tweets -- had an overriding focus over the ensuing three months: popularizing headlines and news stories that were originally authored by a US-based news site called Truthfeed that supports President Donald Trump and specializes in hyper-partisan, factually incorrect stories.
By Oct. 22, 2017, just hours before Twitter closed nearly all of the known accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency’s troll farm in St. Petersburg, Russia, Truthfeed content accounted for about 95 percent of the accounts’ English-language activity, the dataset shows. Special counsel Robert Mueller in February indicted the Russian agency and 13 individuals on charges of interfering in the 2016 U.S. election. There’s no evidence that Truthfeed’s staff members were aware of the Russian tweeting. Each tweet pointed to a separate, now-defunct website that was republishing more than 50 Truthfeed stories a day. That site, called ReportSecret.com, appears to have been connected to the troll-farm operation.
Google is rolling out the online library of US political ads it promised lawmakers in 2017, along with a report detailing political ad-spending trends across its platforms.
A searchable archive going live Aug 15 will include all ads across Google platforms including Search and YouTube that feature a candidate for a federal elected office or an incumbent officeholder. It includes ads from the end of May onward. Each ad is accompanied by information on who paid for it to run, a broad range indicating how much was spent to deploy it, and a rough idea of how many impressions the ad received. An application programming interface (API) will allow third parties and the public to directly access the archive. “Researchers, political watchdog groups and private citizens can use our data set to develop charts, graphs, tables or other visualizations of political advertising on Google Ads services,” said Michee Smith, the product lead on the company’s transparency report. Google will also release a new report on election advertising similar to those the company releases that tally how much content it has taken down as a result of legal problems and government orders. Users will be able to identify major advertisers and see how spending plays out by state and congressional district. However, Google is not listing "issue ads" that address a contentious topic but don't support a specific candidate.
Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Robbie McBeath (rmcbeath AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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