1. Monthly archive
  2. October 2016

October 2016

Yes, Donald Trump has been good for the media business

Here is an eye-popping figure: "CNN will make approximately $100 million in television and digital advertising revenues more than it would expect in the typical election year," according to NPR. Just to reiterate: That's not $100 million total; that's $100 million on top of the money CNN would have raked in anyway. As NPR's David Folkenflik wrote, "The network has turned a financial corner thanks to the painstaking initiatives of its chief, Jeff Zucker, and to the unpredictable words of another man not employed by CNN: Donald Trump."

Yes, Trump has been good for some in the media business. This has been obvious since the first debate of the Republican presidential primary, which smashed a cable TV viewership record with an audience of 24 million. Before the second debate, Advertising Age reported that CNN was charging 40 times its normal ad rate for the event.

FCC’s Idea of a Broadband Privacy ‘Compromise’ Involves Few Compromises

If the Federal Communications Commission gets its broadband privacy rule wrong, Internet service providers, consumers, and edge providers could all suffer. The FCC "compromise" on its privacy rules is far from the real change needed to protect the Internet economy.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s revised proposal claims to be a compromise that draws upon the Federal Trade Commission’s suggestion of opt-in consent for only sensitive data, but in reality the commission’s new proposal eliminates the need to distinguish between sensitive and non-sensitive data because opt-in consent will still be mandated for most of the consumer information useful for broadband providers. The FCC’s revised rule in essence tells ISPs that they can now be smothered by a ton of regulatory feathers instead of a ton of stone. So why is it critical that the FCC adopt an approach closer to that of the FTC? If the commission gets the broadband privacy rule wrong, ISPs, consumers, and those providing internet content and services could all suffer negative consequences.

White House: President Obama gave 'entirely factual' answer about Clinton e-mail server

President Barack Obama gave an “entirely factual” response when asked in 2015 about how he discovered Hillary Clinton used a private e-mail server as Secretary of State, his top spokesman said. President Obama’s claim that he first learned about Clinton’s server “through news reports” was called into question again after an e-mail chain released Oct 25 by WikiLeaks showed a top Clinton aide expressing concern in March 2015 that the president might be accused of lying. "What the president said was an entirely factual response,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. "I recognize that some of the president’s critics have attempted to construct some type of conspiracy about the communication between the president and the secretary of state,” Earnest continued. “But they’ve failed to put forward a conspiracy that withstands any scrutiny, so I guess they are back to recycling thoroughly debunked conspiracies."

The White House has repeatedly insisted that President Obama did not have knowledge of Clinton’s unusual e-mail server, even though the two did communicate by e-mail during her time at the State Department. But Clinton’s allies privately expressed concern about President Obama’s claim during a March 2015 CBS News interview that he first learned through media reports that the secretary of State used an e-mail system “outside the U.S. government for official business,” as reporter Bill Plante described it while questioning the President. “[L]ooks like POTUS just said he found out HRC was using her personal email when he saw it in the news,” Clinton spokesman Josh Schwerin told other allies in a March 7, 2015, email published by WikiLeaks. “[W]e need to clean this up - he has emails from her - they do not say state.gov,” responded former Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills. At a White House press briefing two days after the email exchange, Earnest said that Obama knew about Clinton’s email address because he sent messages to it. But he said the president was unaware of the exact nature of the server or the extent to which she used it.

President Obama says the US government still doesn't know who shut down the Internet on Oct 21

It’s still unclear who is responsible for Oct 21’s massive Internet outages, according to President Barack Obama. The attack was comprised of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of Internet-connected devices that sent junk traffic to Dyn, a major domain name service provider. The attack took down major sections of the Internet across the United States for hours. Basic security flaws found in webcams and other Internet-connected recording devices were compromised in the attack, according to Chinese device manufacturer Hangzhou Xiongmai Technology, which admitted its products were partially to blame. A recall of Hangzhou Xiongmai products has been initiated. But other IoT device makers were targeted, too. Still, no one seems to know who perpetrated it. And it may take weeks to find out. "We don't have any idea who did that,” said President Obama.

CWA Members Pan FCC BDS Proposal

The Communications Workers of America has made its opposition to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler's business data services (BDS) proposal, currently circulating among the other commissioners for a vote. That came in petitions, over 7,000 of them, delivered to the FCC from CWA members. The petitioners say they oppose the BDS revamp because the FCC proposal favors nonunion companies including Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon at the expense of companies that invest billions in their high-speed networks. CWA says the proposal will "radically cut rates for some elements of business data services," which will have "a devastating effect on investment needed for broadband expansion, especially in rural areas.” That, said the union, would result in less investment in fiber deployment, job cuts, and declining living standards for its workers.

© 1994-2024 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved.