November 2015

TV networks unite to fight Trump’s restriction on journalists’ access

Network TV news representatives are conferring to hash out demands about access to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign after Trump officials threatened to “blacklist” reporters who left a designated media “pen” during rallies for the presidential front-runner.

According to people at multiple networks, senior managers from the five leading TV news networks — ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox and NBC News — are discussing their response in an effort to push back against what they deem harsh and restrictive behavior by Trump’s managers, including his top aide, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Lewandowski threatened to pull the press credentials of a CNN reporter, Noah Gray, after Gray sought to leave the press pen during a Trump campaign appearance. Gray, an “embed” for the network who has covered Trump for months, recorded Lewandowski’s threat to “blacklist” him and posted it online.

Conservative media offer a VERY different take on what Trump supporters did to that Black Lives Matter activist

Donald Trump isn’t exactly apologetic about an incident at his rally in Birmingham at which a protester sporting a Black Lives Matter shirt was reportedly punched, kicked and knocked to the ground. The Republican presidential front-runner said on Fox News that “maybe he should’ve been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”

But some conservative media outlets have volunteered another defense for Trump and his supporters: Perhaps the protester, Mercutio Southall, wasn’t really roughed up at all. Breitbart is leading the way in questioning the first-hand reporting of other journalists who covered the event, which was attended by about 10,000 people.

A Washington Post reporter wrote that she “watched as one of the men put his hands on Southall’s neck and heard a female onlooker repeatedly shout: ‘Don’t choke him!’ ” Yet in a story bearing Breitbart’s customary all-caps headline (CNN’s NEW TRUMP SLAM NOT SUPPORTED BY ITS OWN VIDEO), the conservative site offers a different version of events. In this account, “it is unclear how the black protester ended up on the ground.”

Beltway Media Still Buried In Denial About Trump And Today's Fox News GOP

[Commentary] Donald Trump and his xenophobic campaign continue to soar in the GOP polls as he unfurls an endless stream of outrageous proposals. (Bring back U.S.-sanctioned torture! The government needs to close down some American mosques!)

Fact: Trump really has emerged as the perfect Fox News era candidate. He's a bigoted nativist. And he's a bullying, congenital liar who wallows in misinformation. In the process, he's winning over the demagoguery wing of the Republican Party that's been feasting off far-right media hate rhetoric for years. Now, by successfully neutralizing enough members of the press, Trump's created space for himself to maneuver while espousing jaw-dropping rhetoric that in the past would have been considered disqualifying for any candidate. So yes, of course Trump can win the nomination, partly because he embodies today's Republican Party, as reimagined through the intolerant lens of Fox News. We've never seen a campaign like Trump's in modern American history.

We've never seen a candidate soar to the front of the pack for months on end while espousing such divisive and often bigoted rhetoric. That's why it's long past time for the press to take off any lingering blinders: Fox favorite Trump is a truly radical candidate and he represents today's truly radical Republican Party.

[Boehlert is a Senior Fellow for Media Matters]

What the turn from polls to data science means for democracy

Polling may never have been less reliable, or more influential, than it is now.

The Slowest Internet in Mississippi

Stuck with huge bills for Internet service that barely works, Calhoun County schools have missed out on the digital revolution.

'They Rake Us Over the Coals'

In New Mexico cattle-ranching country, harsh geography and a lack of competition lead to astronomical bills for schools desperate to get their students online.

'Washington Gave Us Leverage'

The federal effort to deliver affordable high-speed Internet to rural schools has brought new hope to one of Mississippi's most disconnected districts.

Big bang: The coming upheaval in local TV

[Commentary] We could see TV broadcast stations shut down in markets across the country. Where there were five over-the-air stations, there may be only three, two or even one left. Many stations may choose to switch to airing on cable. Cord-cutters will be forced to subscribe to catch the local news. Other stations may go to streaming.

For media buyers, it could well mean fewer options and higher TV ad pricing, and that in turn could lead to shifts in ad spending to competing local media, such as radio, local cable, out of home and, of course, digital. It’s sure to have a huge impact on Hispanic television, perhaps leading to a shakeup in its ownership ranks and a severe winnowing of players that could play out over years. What’s this big event? A not widely understood spectrum auction.

[Stroud is a writer and a longtime media executive]

How the FCC's TV spectrum auction could play out in San Antonio

[Commentary] To see how the Federal Communications Commission’s incentive auction might play out in local markets, let’s examine San Antonio, Texas.

I’ve crafted three scenarios: light participation in the FCC auction, moderate participation and full participation. I’ll then estimate the impact of each scenario on total viewership, share of viewership, TV ad spending, cost of TV air time, levels of cable/satellite subscriptions, and shifting of ad dollars to other media. Why San Antonio? It’s in many ways a typical U.S. market and thus a microcosm for the whole country. As San Antonio goes in this auction, so goes America.

[Stroud is a writer and a longtime media executive]

Google now receives more than 2 million piracy takedown requests a day

Google now receives just over 1,500 requests every minute to remove URLs from its search results. That's 25 requests a second or around 2,160,000 a day — double the amount of requests the company was receiving over the same time period in 2014.

Oct 2015 takedown requests came from 5,492 copyright owners and pertained to 72,207 specific domains, meaning that each domain, on average, was the subject of around 900 takedown requests. However, this stat doesn't paint a totally accurate picture, as the top five domains (including Spanish-language MP3 download site flowxd.me and Polish file locker chomikuj.pl) were the target of more than half a million reports each.

Benton

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