Lauren Frayer

In a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, 14 U.S. senators express extreme concern will plans to roll back network neutrality rules.

Net neutrality is particularly important to women, as it affords women-owned businesses and startups an even playing field when competing with more established brands and content. Between 2007 and 2016, while the total number of firms increased by 9 percent, the number of women-owned firms increased by 45 percent - meaning that over this period the number of women-owned firms grew at a rate fully five times the national average.1 This growth mirrors the emergence of the Internet as a platform for economic growth. The online sales platform, Etsy, is another example of how women thrive under a free and open Internet. Under the current net neutrality regime, Etsy has empowered sellers in every state across the country, 87 percent of whom are women. An open Internet is also vital to providing a platform for elevating voices that are underrepresented or marginalized in traditional media, an experience many women in media know well. When turned away by traditional media outlets, many female creators have found a home and an audience for their stories on the open Internet. The vast array of online media platforms enabled by net neutrality give creators permission-less access to viewers, providing autonomy for women of every color and creed to tell rich, compelling stories in their own voices. In addition, an open Internet has allowed women to organize and create positive change in their communities.

[Commentary] I support the recent announcement by the Federal Communications Commission to roll back the misguided and overbearing regulatory structure imposed during the Obama Administration. Access, choice and low costs are important to American consumers when it comes to high-speed internet. That is not what the Democratic-led FCC achieved with the reclassification of broadband service under a burdensome, utility-like regulatory framework.

Closing the digital divide is a top priority of mine as chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee that oversees internet issues. To do so, Internet service providers need the confidence and certainty to invest in our nation’s most rural areas. A restrictive regulatory framework that chills growth and jeopardizes investment could hold back our underserved communities, stifling the potential for jobs and economic development with it.

The FCC’s action also offers Congress an opportunity to do more to ensure a free and open internet for all Americans. The time is ripe for Congress to find a way to balance proper regulatory oversight without stifling the freedom of internet service providers to grow and innovate.

[Sen Roger Wicker (R-MS) is Chairman of the Senate Communications Subcommittee]

Two months before May 8's announcement that Sinclair Broadcast Group would pay $3.9 billion for Tribune Media and add to its dominance as the nation’s largest owner of local TV stations, a top executive at Sinclair beamed a short commentary piece to many of the company’s 173 stations. In the segment, which looks like it belongs in a newscast, Sinclair vice president for news Scott Livingston stands before a wall of video monitors and warns that “some members of the national media are using their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think.” He accuses the national media of publishing “fake news stories” — a direct echo of President Donald Trump’s frequent complaint — and then asks viewers to visit the station’s website to share “content concerns.” The piece was a “must-run,” meaning news directors and station managers from Baltimore (MD) to Seattle (WA) had to find room for it.

Local TV stations rank high in public trust, and that is partly because they avoid delving into divisive topics such as national politics, said Harry A. Jessell, editor of TVNewsCheck. Sinclair executives such as Livingtston see it differently, Jessell said. They believe they are pushing back against what they see as a liberal bias in most news programming. Livingston “sees himself like an old-fashioned newspaper publisher, one with a point of view,” Jessell said.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) says he thinks the unmasking of associates of President Donald Trump by officials appears to have been politicized. Unmasking refers to restoring a US citizen’s name in intelligence surveillance reports. American citizens' names are redacted from such reports when incidentally collected during foreign surveillance. Speaker Ryan said unmasking information and then leaking it to the media is a crime. “That is a crime. And so that is taking classified information, unclassifying it, and leaking it out. That is something somebody in the Obama administration decided to do,” Speaker Ryan said.

Apparently, FBI Director James Comey overstated key findings involving the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation during testimony to Congress recently. In defending the probe, Director Comey offered seemingly new details to underscore the seriousness of the situation FBI agents faced last fall when they discovered thousands of Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s e-mails on the computer of her husband, Anthony Weiner. “Somehow, her e-mails were being forwarded to Anthony Weiner, including classified information,” Director Comey said, adding later, “His then-spouse Huma Abedin appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding e-mails to him for him I think to print out for her so she could then deliver them to the secretary of state.” At another point in the testimony, Comey said Abedin “forwarded hundreds and thousands of e-mails, some of which contain classified information.’’

Neither of those statements is accurate, apparently. The inquiry found that Abedin did occasionally forward e-mails to her husband for printing, but it was a far smaller number than Director Comey described, and it wasn’t a “regular practice.”

This is the fourth of nine installments for 2017 in a series of reports developed from Radio Television Digital News Association's (RTDNA) annual survey of newsrooms across the United States. The latest RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey found that 2016 marked an extraordinary year for the local TV news business. At 65.7%, newsroom profitability tied the highest level (with 2013) since 1996. Elections are still good news for local TV, and almost every category of station went up in profitability during 2016. Every market size rose except the smallest, which pretty much held its own. Staff sizes were all up except 11 to 20. ABC and CBS affiliates went up; NBC held steady; Fox affiliates dropped about 6 points.

This Public Notice serves as notice that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has appointed members to serve on two Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) working groups, Model Code for Municipalities and Model Code for States.The members of these working groups are listed in Appendix A.

The selection of members for other BDAC working groups is in progress, and final selections for these groups will be announced at a later date. The BDAC is organized under, and operates in accordance with, the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). The BDAC’s mission is to provide advice and recommendations to the Commission on how to accelerate the deployment of high-speed Internet access.

As more consumers “cut the cord” on traditional cable television, businesses selling those services are responding by offering a wider range of products, hoping to retain customers. Comcast and Charter Communications amplified that trend, announcing that they would team up to offer cellular telephone and data services in the United States, entering a ferociously competitive market.

The two companies had already said they would offer wireless services, and they most likely hope to use their combined scale to negotiate agreements with suppliers and take advantage of a network of Wi-Fi hot spots that the companies have built for customers in their service areas. “Both of our companies have regional wireless businesses using the same 4G LTE network, and by working together, our goal is to create even better experiences for our customers,” said Brian Roberts, the Comcast chairman and chief executive. Comcast is expected to soon begin offering its new Xfinity Mobile wireless service for existing broadband customers. The company also bought $1.7 billion in wireless spectrum at a Federal Communications Commission auction in April, to help ramp up its service. Charter has said it plans to offer wireless service in 2018.

[Commentary] The first wireless deal after a government-imposed hiatus is bad news for the biggest carriers and could scramble the likely outcomes of other anticipated combinations.

Cable operators Comcast and Charter Communications said they would form a year-long partnership to expand their wireless offerings. The deal signals the two companies are serious about expanding into the industry. It also ensures that the two biggest cable companies will work together—and not bid against one another—when it comes to wireless deals. For Comcast and Charter, which are more peers than rivals because their coverage areas don’t overlap, teaming up makes sense. It will allow them to integrate their networks of Wi-Fi hot spots, which cover about 80% of the country, according to New Street Research. This should help them offer better service to subscribers and considerably lower the cost of running wireless networks on Verizon Communications’ airwaves. The partnership could also signal a desire for a deeper relationship between the two cable giants—even possibly a merger down the line. The success of the venture would make things much worse for the industry’s two giants, Verizon and AT&T , which are already losing subscribers to T-Mobile US and Sprint amid a bruising price war.

[Commentary] Local governments are leading the way to implement innovative, forward-looking civic technology programs that narrow the digital divide and make cities more livable. But for all the impressive initiatives out there, many brilliant ideas never get off the ground for lack of resources. So last year, with support from the Democracy Fund and Benton Foundation, Next Century Cities launched the Charles Benton Next Generation Engagement Award. The competitive civic innovation prize invited cities to propose out-of-the-box solutions to local challenges. Last August, after an extensive review process, our team of expert judges – including Benton Foundation Executive Director Adrianne Furniss – chose three finalists: Austin (TX), Raleigh (NC), and Louisville (KY). Each received a seed grant to launch their local civic technology or digital inclusion program. Next Century Cities staff worked with the cities to put the grant to work and get their programs up and running.
[Todd O’Boyle is Deputy Director of Next Century Cities]