BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, MAY 15, 2017
This week’s events https://www.benton.org/calendar/2017-05-14--P1W
SECURITY/PRIVACY
Nations race to contain widespread hacking
Cyberattack Is Likely to Keep Spreading [links to Wall Street Journal]
Ransomware’s Aftershocks Feared as U.S. Warns of Complexity [links to New York Times]
Russia, This Time the Victim of a Cyberattack, Voices Outrage [links to New York Times]
Small Countries’ New Weapon Against Goliaths: Hacking [links to New York Times]
Ransomware attack reveals breakdown in US intelligence protocols, expert says [links to Guardian, The]
Global ransomware attack shows why Apple refused to hack terrorist's iPhone [links to Los Angeles Times]
FTC Cracks Down on Cybertech Scams [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
Amazon’s New Echo Show Device Will Be Watching [links to Wall Street Journal]
COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
FBI Director Comey firing shows White House problems go far beyond communications strategy
President Trump has a long history of secretly recording calls, according to former associates
Top Democratic Reps Demand Release of President Trump's 'tapes' on Comey
White House refuses to say whether President Trump taped Comey talks [links to Hill, The]
President Trump threatens to cancel White House briefings because it is ‘not possible’ for his staff to speak with ‘perfect accuracy’ [links to Washington Post]
Gingrich urges President Trump: ‘Close down the press room’ [links to Hill, The]
Under President Trump, inconvenient data is being sidelined
WH Correspondents' Association: Canceling press briefings threatens 'accountability, transparency' [links to Hill, The]
Twitter COO Anthony Noto to President Trump: Replace press briefings with Twitter [links to Hill, The]
Under President Trump, inconvenient data is being sidelined
Is This a Constitutional Crisis? [links to Politico]
Trump officials are leaking to reporters that they aren’t supposed to leak to reporters [links to Vox]
Kellyanne Conway blames negative coverage on ‘sexist’ and ‘Trumpist’ media [links to Washington Post]
NETWORK NEUTRALITY
The Trump administration gets the history of Internet regulations all wrong - WaPo op-ed
Making the business case for network neutrality - Multichannel News op-ed
Municipal Broadband Providers Back FCC’s Title II Reversal
Chairman Pai Statement On Letter From Municipal Broadband Providers - press release [links to Benton summary]
House Dem Leaders Seek Extension of Net Neutrality Comment Period by One Month [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
Congress, not John Oliver's 'flash mobs,' must determine FCC policy - The Hill op-ed [links to Benton summary]
The John Oliver effect: Visualizing public comments (from Trump to expletives) on the FCC's net neutrality rollback [links to Benton summary]
MORE INTERNET/BROADBAND
National Digital Inclusion Week Helps Build Nationwide Momentum for Digital Equity
Sen Manchin Introduces Bipartisan Bill to Expand Broadband Deployment Using Accurate Coverage Maps - press release
'Pop-Up' Library Brings Internet Access to Rural Virginia [links to Benton summary]
OWNERSHIP
Sinclair’s Tribune Purchase, Path Paved By Trump
Sinclair Requires TV Stations to Air Segments That Tilt to the Right
Sinclair + Tribune = Transformative Force - TVNewsCheck editorial [links to Benton summary]
Amid Sinclair-Tribune megadeal, some smaller broadcasters are still in ‘acquisition mode’ [links to Fierce]
Sprint and T-Mobile are reportedly in merger talks again [links to Washington Post]
Sprint/T-Mobile Merger Would Destroy Wireless Competition, Kill Jobs and Harm Low-Income Families - Free Press press release [links to Benton summary]
Sprint, AT&T poised to lead increase in network capex: Deutsche Bank [links to Benton summary]
CenturyLink’s Level 3 acquisition faces challenges from California consumer advocacy groups [links to Benton summary]
ACCESSIBILITY
FCC Announces Entities Certified To Participate In The National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program For 13 States And Territories [links to Federal Communications Commission]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
The Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau Announce Procedures for Low Power Television, Television Translator and Replacement Translator Stations [links to Federal Communications Commission]
Gigabit Libraries Network Announces Five Library TV White Space Broadband Project Awards [links to Benton summary]
TELEVISION
Politics, It Seems, Has Jolted Even the Idiot Box Awake [links to Benton summary]
The record pace of cord-cutting has set off a race among media companies to be included in new “skinny” streaming bundles that are reshaping the American television landscape. [links to Wall Street Journal]
As Viewers Drift Online, Advertisers Hold Fast to Broadcast TV [links to New York Times]
FCC Proposes $144K Fine Against Unlicensed Low-Power TV Station in KY - press release
TDG: Cord Cutting is Surging with 58% of US Cord Cutters Cancelling Pay-TV in the Past Two Years [links to telecompetitor]
CONTENT
Maybe the Internet Isn’t Tearing Us Apart After All [links to Wired]
An Algorithm Summarizes Lengthy Text Surprisingly Well [links to Technology Review]
JOURNALISM
Voices for Internet Freedom Forum in L.A.'s Skid Row Lifts Up Community Voices [links to Free Press]
Our polarized media environment, in one New York Times reporter’s Facebook post [links to Washington Post]
Op-Ed: A focus on digital habits could help news publishers fight Facebook [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
The New York Times continues to experiment with the Sunday paper, this time with a special kids’ section [links to Nieman Lab]
RESEARCH
How can a survey of 1,000 people tell you what the whole US thinks? [links to Pew Research Center]
POLICYMAKERS
Senate confirms Lighthizer as trade representative [links to Washington Post]
Substitute press briefer Sarah Huckabee Sanders struggles with impossible job [links to CNN]
Rep Jason Chaffetz Has Been Telling House Republicans He Will Join Fox News [links to Washingtonian]
Chris Levendos, the former head of the network deployment and operations organization at Google Fiber, is joining Frontier Communications [links to Multichannel News]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Global Fiber Broadband Penetration Surpasses DSL, On Track for 1 Billion Connections [links to telecompetitor]
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SECURITY/PRIVACY
GLOBAL HACKING INCIDENT
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Elizabeth Dwoskin, Karla Adam]
Officials in nearly 100 countries raced May 13 to contain one of the biggest cybersecurity attacks in recent history, as British doctors were forced to cancel operations, Chinese students were blocked from accessing their graduation theses, and passengers at train stations in Germany were greeted by hacked arrival and departure screens. Companies and organizations around the world potentially faced substantial costs after hackers threatened to keep computers disabled unless victims paid $300 or more in ransom, the latest and most brazen in a type of cyberattack known as “ransomware.” The malware hit Britain’s beloved but creaky National Health Service particularly hard, causing widespread disruptions and interrupting medical procedures across hospitals in England and Scotland. The government said that 48 of the NHS’s 248 organizations were affected, but by Saturday evening all but six were back to normal. The attack was notable because it took advantage of a security flaw in Microsoft software found by the National Security Agency for its surveillance tool kit. Files detailing the capability were leaked online in April 2017, though after Microsoft, alerted by the NSA to the vulnerability, had sent updates to computers to patch the hole. Still, countless systems were left vulnerable, either because system administrators failed to apply the patch or because they used outdated software.
benton.org/headlines/nations-race-contain-widespread-hacking | Washington Post | The Guardian
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COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
WH PROBLEMS GO FAR BEYOND COMMUNICATIONS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Dan Balz]
The firing of James Comey as director of the FBI has left the credibility of President Trump’s White House in tatters. The White House now appears to be an institution where truth struggles to keep up with events, led by a president capable at any moment of undercutting those who serve him. This wasn’t the first time that the president’s spokespeople have been asked to explain the inexplicable or defend the indefensible. But what it showed is that this is far more than a problem with the White House communications team, which initially bore the brunt of criticism for offering what turned out to be an inaccurate description of how the president came to dismiss Comey. Whether the communications team is or isn’t fully in the loop is not the pertinent issue. Instead, the responsibility for what has been one of the most explosive weeks of the Trump presidency begins at the top, with the president, whose statements and tweets regularly shatter whatever plans have been laid for the day or week. It includes Vice President Pence, who in an appearance on Capitol Hill quadrupled down on what turned out to be, at its most benign interpretation, an incomplete and therefore misleading description of how the decision was made. It includes White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, who must try to bring discipline to White House operations in the face of a president with a practice of frustrating those efforts and who then blames others when things go bad.
benton.org/headlines/fbi-director-comey-firing-shows-white-house-problems-go-far-beyond-communications-strategy | Washington Post
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TRUMP SECRETLY RECORDED CALLS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Marc Fisher]
Throughout Donald Trump’s business career, some executives who came to work for him were taken aside by colleagues and warned to assume that their discussions with the boss were being recorded. “There was never any sense with Donald of the phone being used for private conversation,” said John O’Donnell, who was president of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in the 1980s. For O’Donnell and others who have had regular dealings with Trump through the years, there was something viscerally real about the threat implied by the president’s tweet Friday morning warning that fired FBI director James B. Comey “better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” “Talking on the phone with Donald was a public experience,” said O’Donnell, author of a book about his former boss, “Trumped: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump.” “You never knew who else was listening.”
benton.org/headlines/president-trump-has-long-history-secretly-recording-calls-according-former-associates | Washington Post
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DATA BEING SIDELINED
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Juliet Eilperin]
The Trump administration has removed or tucked away a wide variety of information that until recently was provided to the public, limiting access, for instance, to disclosures about workplace violations, energy efficiency, and animal welfare abuses. Some of the information relates to enforcement actions taken by federal agencies against companies and other employers. By lessening access, the administration is sheltering them from the kind of “naming and shaming” that federal officials previously used to influence company behavior, according to digital experts, activists and former Obama administration officials. The administration has also removed websites and other material supporting Obama-era policies that the White House no longer embraces. “The President has made a commitment that his Administration will absolutely follow the law and disclose any information it is required to disclose,” said White House spokeswoman Kelly Love. The White House takes its ethics and conflict of interest rules seriously,” Love added, “and requires all employees to work closely with ethics counsel to ensure compliance. Per the President’s Executive Order, violators will be held accountable by the Department of Justice.” But Norman Eisen, who served as President Barack Obama’s special counsel for ethics and government reform, said the changes have undermined the public’s ability to hold the federal government accountable. “The Trump administration seems determined to utilize a larger version of Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility to cover the entire administration,” said Eisen, now a fellow with the Brookings Institution’s governance studies program.
benton.org/headlines/under-president-trump-inconvenient-data-being-sidelined | Washington Post | 8 changes
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DEMOCRATIC REPS DEMAND RELEASE OF TRUMP RECORDINGS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Max Greenwood]
Top Democratic Reps are asking the White House to turn over any recordings of President Trump's conversations with fired FBI Director James Comey. "Under normal circumstances, we would not consider credible any claims that the White House may have taped conversations of meetings with the President," Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI) and Oversight Committee Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) wrote in a letter to White House counsel Donald McGahn. "However, because of the many false statements made by White House officials this week, we are compelled to ask whether any such recordings do in fact exist. If so, we request copies of all recordings in possession of the White House regarding this matter." House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-CA) said, “If the President has ‘tapes’ of his conversations with Director Comey, it is because the president himself made them. For a President who baselessly accused his predecessor of illegally wiretapping him, that Mr. Trump would suggest that he, himself, may have engaged in such conduct is staggering. The president should immediately provide any such recordings to Congress or admit, once again, to have made a deliberately misleading — and in this case threatening — statement.”
benton.org/headlines/top-democratic-reps-demand-release-president-trumps-tapes-comey | Hill, The | Vox | The Hill
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
NATIONAL DIGITAL INCLUSION WEEK
[SOURCE: Government Technology, AUTHOR: Zach Quaintance]
Austin city officials and community leaders have long sought to stem the growth of economic disparity by providing equal access to technology. For many years, such efforts have been known nationwide as bridging the digital divide, and they’ve largely sought to ensure all citizens have access to computers and the Internet. Recently, however, the issue has grown more nuanced and complex. Access to high-speed Internet is no longer the sole measure of whether citizenry has equal digital opportunity, as such access is now readily available via smartphones and other devices. As a result, the issue now seeks to address whether all populations have equitable access to things like tech training, high-speed Internet at home, and education that emphasizes the importance of going online to apply for jobs, finish homework, access better and more efficient medical care, and do the millions of other things enabled by the Web. As such, the phrases "digital equity" and "digital inclusion" are now being used to frame the discussion. Digital equity is what cities want; digital inclusion is how they obtain it. Initiatives that fall under this umbrella still include old digital divide stuff like getting computers into low-income neighborhoods, but they also increasingly entail skills training, support programs and guarantees of meaningful Internet access. This semantic shift is making it easier for nonprofits and city programs to proliferate around the cause, said Angela Siefer, director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, the leading group in the matter. “The reason is because there are so many digital divides,” Siefer said. “You might close one divide, but there’s another that pops up tomorrow.”
benton.org/headlines/national-digital-inclusion-week-helps-build-nationwide-momentum-digital-equity | Government Technology
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INTERNET REGULATION HISTORY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Rob Pegoraro]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s history of Internet regulation is wrong. The government regulated Internet access under President Bill Clinton, just as it did in the last two years of Barack Obama’s term, and it did so into George W. Bush’s first term, too. The phone lines and the connections served over them — without which phone subscribers had no Internet access — did not operate in the supposedly deregulated paradise Chairman Pai mourns. Without government oversight, phone companies could have prevented dial-up Internet service providers from even connecting to customers. In the 1990s, in fact, FCC regulations more intrusive than the Obama administration’s net neutrality rules led to far more competition among early broadband providers than we have today. Pai’s nostalgia for the ’90s doesn’t extend to reviving rules that mandated competition — instead, he’s moving to scrap regulations the FCC put in place to protect customers from the telecom conglomerates that now dominate the market. Chairman Pai talks about the importance of competition, but so have a lot of other FCC chairmen wishing that it would happen. Unfortunately, the 1990s legacy he keeps endorsing offers no hope that dumping the rules of those days will give us more competition.
[Rob Pegoraro covers technology for Yahoo Finance, USA Today, the Wirecutter and other sites. From 1999 to 2011, he wrote The Post’s personal-tech column.]
benton.org/headlines/trump-administration-gets-history-internet-regulations-all-wrong | Washington Post
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BUSINESS CASE FOR NET NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Randy Cooke]
[Commentary] A profound shift in the balance of power between content and distribution will be the necessary consequence of eliminating Title II’s governance of the internet. For better or worse, three sectors of the media landscape will be affected. First, this is a boon to traditional cable operators who also serve as most people’s internet service providers, via coax, fiber or wireless spectrum—the incumbent multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs). They are content gateways through which consumers’ access, cost and quality of content engagement will be determined by the content originator’s metered internet terms, payable to the ISP/MVPD. Such cost-neutralization of carriage for the traditional MVPD represents enormous advantages over virtual MVPDs, an industry effectively created by the FCC in 2014 when it reclassified the definition of MVPD to exclude any physical distribution infrastructure. While virtual MVPDs may offer content access rivaling the incumbent MVPDs, they too would be subject to the costs of a metered internet, again, payable to the ISPs. No doubt, this would be a margin-crusher that would favor the incumbent MVPDs in a content price war. The FCC has yet to comment on how exactly this promotes competition. Finally, there are the programmers whose very existence depends on bundled carriage revenues. Without the ability to offset the neutralization of carriage revenue with robust monetization of audience, the elimination of net neutrality may very well thin the herd of linear programmers. Who’s got time for bad TV anymore? In the end, Ajit Pai’s vision for an open and free internet will likely result in outcomes marginally favorable to consumers. Content distribution is democratizing at an unbelievable rate, while audiences continue to balkanize across platforms and devices. So while consumers will soon be able to price shop providers in earnest, diversity in programming itself may be the first casualty of a new, open and free internet.
[Randy Cooke is vice president of programmatic TV at video ad inventory marketplace SpotXchange]
benton.org/headlines/making-business-case-network-neutrality | Multichannel News
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MUNI BROADBAND BACKS TITLE II REVERSAL
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
A group of nonprofit municipal broadband providers -- all members of the American Cable Association -- support Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's proposal to reverse the classification of ISPs as common carriers under Title II, and told him so in a letter dated May 11. The letter drew a swift and lengthy thank you from the chairman. "By returning to light-touch regulation of broadband service, the Commission will give Muni ISPs incentives to invest in enhancing our networks and our deployment of innovative services at affordable prices while still ensuring consumers have unfettered access to the Internet," they wrote. They also said the FCC's "overly broad and vague" general conduct standard rule and other parts of the Open Internet order was based on the "unwarranted assumption" that they have the incentive or ability to be anticompetitive. They said the FCC, in adopting the 2015 Open Internet Order ignored the evidence that they don't block or throttle or engage in paid prioritization and put them in the "straight jacket" of utility regulation and the constant threat of action under the "unknown and unknowable" general conduct standard.
benton.org/headlines/municipal-broadband-providers-back-fccs-title-ii-reversal | Broadcasting&Cable
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SEN MANCHIN BROADBAND BILL
[SOURCE: US Senate, AUTHOR: Press release]
Sens Joe Manchin (D-WV), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Deb Fischer (R-NE) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) introduced the Rural Wireless Access Act of 2017. This legislation would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to collect broadband coverage data that is valid, consistent, and robust. This standardized data is necessary to ensure that policies to expand broadband deployment accurately target the unserved and underserved communities and account for the mobile coverage experience of those living in the most remote parts of the country. Other original cosponsors include Sens Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Gary Peters (D-MI). This bill would direct the FCC to establish a methodology to:
Ensure that wireless coverage data is collected in a consistent and robust way;
Improve the validity and reliability of wireless coverage data;
Increase the efficiency of wireless coverage data collection.
benton.org/headlines/sen-manchin-introduces-bipartisan-bill-expand-broadband-deployment-using-accurate-coverage | US Senate
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OWNERSHIP
SINCLAIRS TRIBUNE PURCHASE
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Robbie McBeath]
During the same week that President Donald Trump fired the man in charge of the investigation into the Trump Administration’s ties to Russia, Sinclair Broadcast Group, the largest owner of local television stations in the United States, agreed to buy Tribune Media for $3.9 billion. Sinclair is set to acquire Tribune Media’s 42 stations and a prized asset, WGN America, a basic cable and satellite television channel. With the deal, Sinclair will reach more than 70 percent of American households with stations in many major markets, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. The proposed deal was made possible by a deregulatory vote by the Federal Communications Commission last month. It seems as though the Trump Administration, by paving the way for increased media ownership consolidation, is granting this conservative-leaning station group owner greater influence over our civic discourse. This is a major development that could fly beneath the radar while our attention is drawn to the White House-induced crisis at the FBI.
benton.org/headlines/sinclairs-tribune-purchase-path-paved-trump | Benton Foundation
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SINCLAIR SEGMENTS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Sydney Ember]
They are called “must-runs,” and they arrive every day at television stations owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group — short video segments that are centrally produced by the company. Station managers around the country are directed to work them into the broadcast over a period of 24 or 48 hours. Since November 2015, Sinclair has ordered its stations to run a daily segment from a “Terrorism Alert Desk” with updates on terrorism-related news around the world. During the election campaign last year, it sent out a package that suggested in part that voters should not support Hillary Clinton because the Democratic Party was historically pro-slavery. More recently, Sinclair asked stations to run a short segment in which Scott Livingston, the company’s vice president for news, accused the national news media of publishing “fake news stories.” As Sinclair prepares to expand its stable of local TV stations with a proposed acquisition of Tribune Media — which would add 42 stations to Sinclair’s 173 — advocacy groups have shown concern about the size and reach the combined company would have. Its stations would reach more than 70 percent of the nation’s households, including many of the largest markets. Critics of the deal also cite Sinclair’s willingness to use its stations to advance a mostly right-leaning agenda. That practice has stirred wariness among some of its journalists concerned about intrusive direction from headquarters.
benton.org/headlines/sinclair-requires-tv-stations-air-segments-tilt-right | New York Times
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TELEVISION
FCC PROPOSES LPTV FINE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission proposed a $144,344 fine against Vearl Pennington and Michael Williamson for operating an unlicensed low-power television station in Morehead (KY). An FCC investigation found that these individuals continued to operate well after the FCC license for their station was cancelled following failure to file a renewal. The proposed fine is the maximum allowed for ongoing violations of the Communications Act, justified by the individuals’ continued operation of the station for years despite repeated warnings that they were in violation of the law.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-proposes-144k-fine-against-unlicensed-low-power-tv-station-ky | Federal Communications Commission | NAL | Broadcasting&Cable
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