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  2. January 2017

January 2017

Newt Gingrich’s White House Press Briefing Plan

Newt Gingrich has a new proposal for the Trump Administration’s efforts to delegitimize and weaken critical journalists: turn White House press briefings into a “town hall” format where presumably hand-picked citizens would join the “total left-wing propagandists” in the press corps, while banning the most critical reporters from asking questions.

Gingrich, a former speaker of the House, Fox News contributor, and sometime adviser to President Donald Trump, has urged the new administration to use the power of the White House to shatter the credibility and influence of the press. He previously said the administration should respond to critical coverage from CNN by blackballing a reporter for months and including more “courteous,” less “adversarial” journalists from local outlets, in addition to “propaganda organizations” like CNN and The New York Times.

Copyright Alliance Presses Trump on Protections

The Copyright Alliance, which represents content creators, has asked President Donald Trump to stand up for copyright protections here and abroad, pointing out he has a personal interest in that protection.

In a letter to the President, the group pointed to Trump's own IP. "Throughout the long history of our country, few, if any, Presidents have had a more sizable and diverse copyright portfolio than you," they said. "[The Apprentice, for example]. Your experiences as a businessman have afforded you insights into the value and importance of copyright and how copyright protections help drive the US economy and create millions of well-paying jobs and small businesses." It said that it was important the copyright owners get free market value for their work, free of undue government regulations, and in the limited cases where the government does deem it necessary to set royalties, that fair market value still applies.

Should we want a bipartisan FCC?

[Commentary] The short answer is, “No!” In an independent regulatory agency like the Federal Communications Commission, political alliances should be left at the door. That has not been the case the past few years and now is the time for change.

Politics isn’t the only thing to blame for the wide swings in FCC regulatory decision-making. The agency has also lost its way. Originally designed to regulate monopoly telephone companies, oversee broadcasters who had exclusive rights, and manage scarce radio spectrum, the FCC’s authorizing statues are badly outdated, despite having been updated in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Now that competition is the norm, industry players seek to use the agency’s authority for ex ante regulations to hinder rivals, to the detriment of customers. A statutory change should direct the agency to focus on managing radio spectrum and, if needed, subsidies for broadband in rural, high cost areas where affordability is an issue. It should restrict the agency from engaging in ex ante regulation except in the case of actual monopoly, and when a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, followed up with evaluations, demonstrates that ex ante regulation improves outcomes for customers. Absent a statutory change, the commission itself can use its authority to forebear from regulation wherever there is competition and means test its subsidies.

[Mark Jamison is part of the FCC transition team for President Trump. He is the Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida]

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