Lauren Frayer

On the same day the Senate is grilling former Obama and Trump Administration officials about Russian interference in US elections, a group of Democratic Reps has asked the Federal Communications Commission to apply transparency requirements to RT (formerly Russia Today) broadcasts delivered over the airwaves. RT broadcasts from Washington (DC) studios. While it lists 19 cable systems, satellite operator Dish, Roku, Google and Apple apps, IPTV outlets and a lot of hotel channels, the only terrestrial outlet identified is MHz4 in Washington, one of a suite of noncommercial digital subchannels of WNVC and WNVT, although their spectrum was sold in the FCC inventive auction and will be going off the air soon, according to what they told the FCC.

The legislators said they were not looking to chill speech, just identify it. They asked whether the FCC's sponsorship rules should apply to foreign-state-sponsored channels. The letter comes following a January report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence finding that RT played a propaganda role in Russia's efforts to influence the election outcome. The letter was spearheaded by former House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo (D-CA).

As local newspapers have closed across the country, more and more communities are left with no daily local news outlet at all. Rural America isn’t the only place local news is disappearing. It’s also drying up in urban areas around the country.

[Commentary] This issue of the Columbia Journalism Review is about what has happened—and likely will happen next—to one of America’s great national institutions, its local press. Just as the local-news financial picture seems more daunting than ever, new energy is building to address the problem. Is it fixable, or are America’s local newsrooms going away for good? What are the implications for open records, for accountability—for our democracy? This issue of CJR is one step toward answering those questions.

The Sinclair-Tribune deal has set tongues wagging in Washington (DC) as to whether Sinclair, a Maryland-based television station owner that has often pushed right-leaning programming, will try to position itself as a rival to Fox News.

The Washington Post reported in December that during the 2016 campaign, news stories and features favorable to then-candidate Donald Trump or challenging Democrat Hillary Clinton were distributed to Sinclair stations on a “must-run” basis. Earlier that month, POLITICO reported that the president's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, told business executives the campaign had struck a deal with Sinclair for better media coverage, a characterization Sinclair disputed. The group also recently hired Boris Epshteyn, a White House aide who oversaw Trump's television surrogate operation, as chief political analyst. Given those recent decisions, many in Washington wonder if Sinclair has its sights set on Fox News.

For the moment, the fate of the Sinclair-Tribune deal rests in the hands of the Federal Communications Commission as well as the nation’s antitrust regulators. As with any merger of this size, the government has the ability to review and block the merger, permit it to proceed as proposed, or require Sinclair and Tribune to make certain changes in order for them to proceed.

Already, though, Sinclair has benefited greatly from the Federal Communications Commission: Under its Republican chairman, Ajit Pai, the agency has relaxed media ownership rules, beginning with a change in the way some stations are counted toward a company’s national footprint. That deregulatory move made Sinclair’s bid for Tribune fathomable, analysts have said. During the 2016 election, Sinclair stations appeared to have great access to the presidential candidate. While the company claimed it was not playing favorites, President Trump’s closest aide, Jared Kushner, said in December that Sinclair had actually struck a deal with Trump’s campaign with respect to its coverage. (Sinclair said the deal never happened.) Months later, Sinclair snapped up Boris Epsteyn, one of Trump’s spokespeople in the White House, as a chief political analyst.

[Commentary] A new commodity spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting antitrust regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era.

These titans—Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft—look unstoppable. They are the five most valuable listed firms in the world. Internet companies’ control of data gives them enormous power. Old ways of thinking about competition, devised in the era of oil, look outdated in what has come to be called the “data economy”. A new approach is needed. Rebooting antitrust for the information age will not be easy. It will entail new risks: more data sharing, for instance, could threaten privacy. But if governments don’t want a data economy dominated by a few giants, they will need to act soon.

Sinclair Broadcast Group has agreed to buy Tribune Media in a cash and stock deal valued at $3.9 billion. Sinclair will acquire Chicago (IL)-based Tribune Media's 42 television stations and other assets, making the largest station owner in the country even bigger, pending approval from the Federal Communications Commission and federal antitrust regulators. Under the terms of the deal, Baltimore (MD)-based Sinclair will pay $43.50 a share for Tribune Media and will assume approximately $2.7 billion in net debt.

The combined company will become a TV broadcasting behemoth, owning and operating 233 television stations in 108 markets, pending any required divestitures by the FCC. Sinclair owns and operates stations in 81 markets, including Washington (DC), Seattle (WA), St. Louis (MO), Minneapolis (MN), Pittsburgh (PA), and Milwaukee (WI). Its holdings include 54 Fox affiliates, the most of any station group owner. A Chicago broadcasting pioneer, Tribune Media owns WGN-Ch.9 in Chicago, KTLA-TV in Los Angeles and WPIX-TV in New York, a portfolio that was bolstered by the December 2013 acquisition of Local TV's 19-station group for $2.73 billion.

HBO’s John Oliver isn’t about to let the tough network neutrality rules he helped get enacted be erased without a fight. Three years ago, a 20-minute net neutrality segment on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” went viral. It helped spur an outpouring of public comments that led the Federal Communications Commission to enact tough regulations protecting the free flow of online content. Now, with current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai moving to dismantle the tough legal oversight behind those rules, Oliver took to the airwaves again urging Internet users to tell the agency to leave net neutrality alone. As further encouragement, Oliver’s team created a quicker way to navigate in the FCC website. Rather than searching for the specific page that solicits public comment on this topic, people can go to gofccyourself.com and click the “express” link on the right side to express their views.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai unveiled his plans to reverse network neutrality in April, and the proposal is expected to face an initial vote on May 18th. On May 7, protesters from the Protect Our Internet campaign went around Chairman Pai’s neighborhood in Arlington (VA) and distributed door hangers at nearby homes, prompting people to be aware of their neighbor’s efforts to limit internet freedom.

The flyers feature a black-and-white photo of Pai, along with a short description of the chairman’s background and how his proposal would roll back open internet rules. According to a blog post by the activists, hundreds of signs were circulated and the crew received “friendly support from the neighbors they spoke to.”

Veterans of high-profile political campaigns and White House administrations — who in years past would have turned their public-service resumes and connections into jobs as lobbyists on K Street, advisers at Fortune 500 firms or leaders of nonprofits — are increasingly heading west, attracted by the opportunities to put their political skills to use in the technology industry.

It can lead to strange bedfellows: Democrats and Republicans who fought each other while working on opposing campaigns find themselves working on shared goals and trying to effect change outside the nation’s gridlocked capital. It’s a new gold rush — to social media companies, tech start-ups, incubators and key players in the sharing economy.