January 2017

GOVERNMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS

PRESIDENT TRUMP ATTACKS MEDIA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Matthew Rosenberg]
President Donald Trump used his first full day in office on Jan 21 to unleash a remarkably bitter attack on the news media, falsely accusing journalists of both inventing a rift between him and intelligence agencies and deliberately understating the size of his inauguration crowd. In a visit to the Central Intelligence Agency intended to showcase his support for the intelligence community, President Trump ignored his own repeated public statements criticizing the intelligence community, a group he compared to Nazis just over a week ago. He also called journalists “among the most dishonest human beings on earth,” and he said that up to 1.5 million people had attended his inauguration, a claim that photographs disproved. Later, at the White House, he dispatched Sean Spicer, the press secretary, to the briefing room in the West Wing, where Spicer scolded reporters and made a series of false statements. He said news organizations had deliberately misstated the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration on Friday in an attempt to sow divisions at a time when President Trump was trying to unify the country, warning that the new administration would hold them to account.
benton.org/headlines/false-claims-president-trump-attacks-media-turnout-and-intelligence-rift | New York Times | Vox | Vox – War on Media
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WAR ON MEDIA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Sydney Ember, Michael Grynbaum]
For wary Washington journalists, it seemed only a matter of time before Donald Trump’s presidency would lead to a high-tension standoff between his administration and the news media. But on Day 1? The news media world found itself in a state of shock on Jan 22, a day after President Trump declared himself in “a running war with the media” and the president’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, used his first appearance on the White House podium to deliver a fiery jeremiad against the press. Worse, many journalists said, were the falsehoods that sprang from the lips of both President Trump and Spicer. “It was absolutely surprising and stunning,” said the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, Jeff Mason.
benton.org/headlines/news-media-target-trumps-declaration-war-expresses-alarm | New York Times | Financial Times
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TWITTER ACCOUNTS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Shear]
America inaugurated two very different presidents on Jan 20. One, who goes by the Twitter handle @POTUS, is gracious, understated and humble. Since taking office, @POTUS has posted seven messages, three of them merely to say thank you. The second president is the more familiar one. Posting to Twitter under the handle @realDonaldTrump, he is full of braggadocio, prone to leave out facts, sometimes harshly critical of his adversaries and more than a bit thin-skinned. In a half-dozen Twitter messages since his inauguration, @realDonaldTrump boasted about “GREAT reviews” for his Inaugural Address and noted with pride that 31 million people in the United States had watched his inauguration on television — making sure to note that it was more than the number who watched President Obama’s inauguration four years ago. The two Twitter accounts are, of course, different handles for the same man. The @realDonaldTrump account, Trump’s personal account since March 2009, has 21.4 million followers. The @POTUS account, the official presidential handle, which he inherited, has 14.3 million followers. Trump’s personal account simply identifies him as “45th President of the United States of America.” The bio on the official account adds: “Tweets by @DanScavino. Tweets by #POTUS signed -DJT.” (Dan Scavino is the new White House social media director.) So far, none of the official posts have been signed -DJT, even the one that reads, “On behalf of my entire family, THANK YOU!”
benton.org/headlines/one-president-two-very-different-twitter-voices | New York Times
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TRANSITION

TRUMP SAID TO ELEVATE PAI TO FCC CHAIRMAN
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Alex Byers, Tony Romm]
Apparently, President Donald Trump will tap Ajit Pai as his pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission in the new administration, elevating the sitting GOP commissioner to the top spot overseeing the nation's communications industry. The announcement could come as soon as the afternoon of Jan 20, apparently. Pai, a Barack Obama nominee who has served as the senior FCC Republican for more than three years, could take the new role immediately and wouldn't require approval by the Senate because he was already confirmed to serve at the agency. Pai was widely assumed to be taking the agency’s gavel at least temporarily as an acting chairman at the beginning of Trump’s tenure. But President Trump’s decision to make him a more permanent chairman affords the Kansas-bred Republican a bigger mandate to make his mark on the agency and its rules.
benton.org/headlines/president-trump-said-elevate-ajit-pai-fcc-chairman | Politico | The Verge | B&C
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FREE PRESS ON PAI
[SOURCE: American Enterprise Institute, AUTHOR: Craig Aaron]
Ajit Pai has been on the wrong side of just about every major issue that has come before the Federal Communications Commission during his tenure. He’s never met a mega-merger he didn’t like or a public safeguard he didn’t try to undermine. He’s been an inveterate opponent of Net Neutrality, expanded broadband access for low-income families, broadband privacy, prison-phone justice, media diversity and more. Pai has been an effective obstructionist who looks out for the corporate interests he used to represent in the private sector. If the new president really wanted an FCC chairman who’d stand up against the runaway media consolidation that Trump himself decried in the AT&T/Time Warner deal, Pai would have been his last choice — though corporate lobbyists across the capital are probably thrilled. Millions of Americans from across the political spectrum have looked to the FCC to protect their rights to connect and communicate and cheered decisions like the historic Net Neutrality ruling, and Pai threatens to undo all of that important work. Those millions will rise up again to oppose his reactionary agenda.
benton.org/headlines/ajit-pai-has-been-wrong-side-just-about-every-major-issue | Free Press
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WH WEBSITE SCRUBBED OF LGBT, CLIMATE CHANGE, HEALTHCARE AND CIVIL RIGHTS MENTIONS
[SOURCE: AdWeek, AUTHOR: Sami Main]
Immediately after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, some changes were made to the White House's official website and social media accounts. Though the plan to move Barack Obama's tweets as @POTUS to @POTUS44 was already in place, the Twitter account was wiped clean of tweets and followers to prepare it for President Trump (though he will reportedly continue to use @realDonaldTrump). WhiteHouse.gov also saw lightning-fast changes, many of which observant Twitter users pointed out right away. Pages that contained information on issues such as LGBT and climate change as well as many resources on healthcare and civil rights were removed from the site.
benton.org/headlines/white-house-website-scrubbed-lgbt-climate-change-healthcare-and-civil-rights-mentions | AdWeek
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PRESIDENT TRUMP'S TOP 7 ACTION ITEMS IN TELECOM
[SOURCE: Fierce, AUTHOR: Mike Dano]
[Commentary] As President Donald Trump settles into his new job there are a number of outstanding issues in the telecommunications industry he will likely address in the coming weeks, months and years. Below are the top seven issues that President Trump will likely weigh in on throughout his administration, as well as speculation on what he might do.
1. Select Federal Communications Commission’s leadership and determine its direction
2. (Almost certainly) repeal network neutrality
3. Act on AT&T’s proposed merger with Time Warner…
4. …and rule on future deals, like a possible Sprint and T-Mobile matchup
5. Finish the incentive auction and formulate an overall spectrum policy
6. Address "unlock the box" and the pay-TV market
7. Create more jobs in telecom
benton.org/headlines/president-trumps-top-7-action-items-telecom | Fierce
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FIVE TECH WORRIES
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Ali Breland]
Here are five areas where the tech industry is cautiously awaiting the Administration's plans:
Trade: tech leaders are sweating over the possibility they could lose access to huge burgeoning markets abroad, especially China.
Immigration: Technology companies across the board have voiced a strong desire for comprehensive immigration reform.
Privacy rights: Protecting privacy has been a longstanding passion for tech leaders, who say strong privacy practices give their products a competitive edge and help them win over consumers. But Trump unsettled tech groups and civil libertarians after the San Bernardino shooting.
Corporate mergers: Trump's views on corporate mergers have left many in tech scratching their heads, in particular over the biggest merger on the table: AT&T's proposed $85 billion deal with Time Warner.
Network neutrality: The fight is set to flare again with the Trump administration and congressional Republicans certain to look at ways to roll back elements of net neutrality.
benton.org/headlines/five-worries-tech-under-president-trump | Hill, The
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DONT LET TRUMP KILL PUBLIC MEDIA
[SOURCE: FreePress, AUTHOR: Timothy Karr]
The Trump Administration is pushing a plan to axe funding to hundreds of local NPR and PBS stations around the country. After coming out of an election where fake news was rampant and cable-news networks refused to call out racism, the last thing we need is an attack on public broadcasting. Trump's transition team is reportedly recommending privatizing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the entity that oversees distribution of federal money to public radio and television stations. While the United States spends a fraction of what other countries pay on public broadcasting, that hasn’t stopped politicians from threatening to defund the CPB time and again. One of the most high-profile attacks in recent history came in 2012, when then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney said during a debate that he would “cut the subsidy to PBS.” The backlash was swift and severe. We've saved public broadcasting from cuts many times before. We can save it again — but only if millions of us speak out.
benton.org/headlines/dont-let-trump-kill-public-media | FreePress
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FCC GENERAL COUNSEL SYMONS EXITING
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Federal Communications Commission general counsel Howard Symons is exited the FCC Jan 20 after three years, most of it as vice chair of the incentive auction task force. Symons was named general counsel back in July after general counsel John Sallet left to join the Justice Department as deputy general counsel for litigation in the antitrust division. The general counsel is the top legal advisor to the commission. Its attorneys represent the FCC before appeals courts, recommend decisions in adjudications, and helps provide the legal underpinnings for decisions like reclassifying ISPs under Title II. Before joining the FCC, Symons chaired the communications practice at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo and was senior counsel to the house Telecommunication (now Communications) Subcommittee. The exit comes as the spectrum auction Symons helped shepherd met its benchmarks for closing after the current stage of the forward auction.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-general-counsel-symons-exiting | Broadcasting&Cable
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

NATIONAL BROADBAND RESEARCH AGENDA
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration, AUTHOR: ]
One of the four overarching recommendations in the Broadband Opportunity Council's 2015 report was to improve data collection, analysis, and research on broadband. Included in the report was a commitment by NTIA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to lead the development of a National Broadband Research Agenda to address these topics comprehensively. This Agenda is a synthesis of broad input from academia, the public, and Federal staff, and provides a conceptual framework for potential research proposals and data requirements in four key areas related to U.S. R&D in broadband: technology, deployment, adoption, and socioeconomic impacts. Findings from these proposed research topics will support the continued dynamic growth of the Information and Communications Technology sector and identify effective strategies to address remaining disparities in broadband access, adoption, and choice in the United States.
benton.org/headlines/national-broadband-research-agenda-key-priorities-broadband-research-and-data | National Telecommunications and Information Administration
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TRUMP VOTERS NEED FAST BROADBAND AND NET NEUTRALITY TOO, WHEELER SAYS
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
Donald Trump's election has put Republicans in position to eliminate network neutrality rules and gut the Federal Communications Commission's authority to regulate broadband providers. But Trump voters need the consumer protections provided by the FCC as much or more than anyone, said Tom Wheeler, whose resignation as FCC chairman takes effect Jan 20. In making the case for continued net neutrality rules and consumer protections, Wheeler pointed out that Trump voters in rural areas are vulnerable to the actions of major broadband providers. "The Trump administration campaigned that they are the voice of the forgotten," Wheeler said. "Well you know, the half-dozen major carriers [lobbying against FCC regulations] are hardly forgotten." The people who are forgotten are the "two-thirds of consumers in America who have one or fewer broadband choices," Wheeler said. "Where are those choices most limited? In the areas where Donald Trump got the strongest response, in rural areas, outside of major cities. If indeed this is an administration that is speaking for those that feel disenfranchised, that representation has to start with saying, 'we need to make sure you have a fast, fair, and open Internet because otherwise you will not be able to connect to the 21st century.'"
benton.org/headlines/trump-voters-need-fast-broadband-and-net-neutrality-too-tom-wheeler-says | Ars Technica
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January 2017

CJR: Don’t let Trump get away with ‘alternative facts’

Bob Garfield: How To Instantly Repair the Media Economy

For Civic Tech, Hope and Fear in the Age of Trump

January 23, 2017 (Trump Administration Attacks Media, Facts)

Donald Trump Embarks on His First Week With a Heavy Slate

News Media, Target of Trump’s Declaration of War, Expresses Alarm

Jim Rutenberg: ‘Alternative Facts’ and the Costs of Trump-Branded Reality

Margaret Sullivan: Traditional way of reporting on a president is dead. And Trump's press secretary killed it.

Michael Wolf: How should the media cover Donald Trump?

Commentary: When the presidency and television ratings collide