Lauren Frayer

For President Donald Trump, it is critical that Alex Jones and other backers in the conservative media continue to look on the bright side — and continue to tell the president's base to do the same.

Despite these reversals and shortcomings, Trump's base is standing by him. No single factor can fully explain loyalty, but positive spin in the conservative press is surely a big one. The message Trump voters have heard over and over is that their man deserves a long leash. So far, they seem willing to give him one. But things could change if commentators like Jones, Limbaugh and Hannity were to turn on Trump. The White House seems to understand the stakes.

Tom Rutledge, Chairman & CEO of Charter Communications, was reelected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of NCTA – The Internet & Television Association (NCTA). In addition, the following officers were reelected for a second one-year term: Pat Esser, President, Cox Communications, as Vice Chairman; and John Skipper, President, ESPN, and Co-Chairman, Disney Media Networks, as Secretary. Elected for a first term as Treasurer was Dave Watson, President & CEO, Comcast Cable, and EVP, Comcast Corporation.

Other Board elections included:

• Associate Director: Bob Stanzione, Executive Chairman, ARRIS, was reelected to serve a two-year term.
• At-Large Programmer Directors: David Zaslav, President & CEO, Discovery Communications; Peter Rice, Chairman & CEO, Fox Networks Group; and Josh Sapan, President & CEO, AMC Networks, were elected to serve two-year terms. Bob Bakish, President & CEO, Viacom, was elected for a one-year term to finish out the term of a previous director.
• At-Large System Directors: John Evans, Chairman & CEO, Evans Telecommunications, and Pat McAdaragh, President & CEO, Midco, were reelected to another three-year term.
• Rural/Midsize Director: In March 2017, Jeff DeMond, President & CEO, Vyve Broadband, was reelected for another two-year term.

Additionally, Nancy Dubuc, President & CEO of A+E Networks, and Alfred Liggins, President & CEO of Radio One and Chairman & CEO of TV One, were reappointed to fill At-Large Appointed Director seats that carry two-year terms.

It was a bad week for the reports on freedom of the media in Russia.

• Reporters Without Borders released its 2017 world press freedom index. Russia came in at 148, after such bastions of independent media as South Sudan and Thailand.
• A Ukrainian human rights delegation briefed the Helsinki Commission on the case of Oleg Sentsov — a Ukrainian filmmaker imprisoned in a Siberian penal colony for his opposition to the annexation of Crimea — and abuses of Ukrainian journalists and creative professionals more broadly.
• Freedom House unveiled its Freedom of the Press 2017 report. That report gives Russia partial credit for the world’s 13-year low in press freedom.

“Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia has been a trailblazer in globalizing state propaganda. It continues to leverage pro-Kremlin reporting around the world,” the report states. The three taken in tandem tell a story — one in which violence against journalists in Russia and the region is connected to violence against journalism around the world.

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai plans to fast-track a proposal for the agency’s May meeting that would undermine this strong legal standing and undo the network neutrality rules completely. Chairman Pai wants internet users to believe that he supports the “principle” of net neutrality, just not the Title II authority on which the rules rest. But that’s nonsense: It’s like saying you like free speech but just aren’t a fan of the First Amendment. Whether the issue is the environment, health care, or worker safety, President Donald Trump and his lackeys like Pai manufacture data and lie about the downsides to disguise their real goals: taking away crucial protections and successful policies. The attack on net neutrality is no different.

Consider Pai’s other justification for launching this attack on internet users: the utterly false and repeatedly debunked claim that the FCC rules are dampening investment. In the two years since the FCC's 2015 vote, the industry has actually seen an explosion in over-the-top video competition as well as a dramatic increase in next-generation broadband-network deployment. Nobody will be fooled by Pai’s destructive plan or the empty promises of telecom executives. But millions of people will have to rise up again to stop it.

[Craig Aaron has led Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund since 2011.]

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s central argument for eliminating network neutrality rules, which he introduced with a plan to “reverse the mistake” of the Obama-era regulations, is that doing so will fire up investment in broadband networks. But that prediction is very optimistic, say experts who warn that his proposal could very well do little or nothing to stimulate such investment.

Chairman Pai’s central argument is that [the Title II] net neutrality rules had the immediate effect of slowing down investment in broadband networks. He said the internet was already working fine before the FCC stepped in to impose unnecessary regulations for purely political reasons. “While investment in broadband infrastructure has certainly dwindled in recent years, the impact that net neutrality regulation has had is very much open to debate,” says Dan Hays, global tech, media, and telecom lead at PwC’s Strategy& group. “In fact, it’s quite plausible that growth in market penetration of broadband services, coupled with acceleration of industry consolidation over the past few years, have more to do with reduced spending, despite the pleas of network operators,” Hays says. The subtext here is that investors in telecommunication companies, as a rule, detest massive new capital expenditure spending on network infrastructure. Combining with other networks is one way to avoid doing so.

What does the press still get wrong about Trump, and what do we just not get at all?

1. We forget what has always driven Trump: Gwenda Blair, author of The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a President
2. Trump. Won’t. Change.: Kurt Bardella, president and CEO of Endeavor Strategies
3. We still trust the polls too much: Helmut Norpoth, political scientist at Stony Brook University
4. ‘Trump is crazy’ has become a cliché: John McWhorter, associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University
5. We’re not only stuck in bubbles—social media is making them worse: Emily Parker, former chief strategy officer
6. We’re still ignoring the people who elected Trump: Matthew Continetti, editor in chief of the Washington Free Beacon
7. We’re falling for the ‘Trump exceptionalism’ trap: Nicole Hemmer, assistant professor of presidential studies at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia
8. We should take Trump’s tweets more seriously: Leah Wright Rigueur, assistant professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government
9. The media’s priorities are all wrong: Zeynep Tufekci, associate professor at the University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science
10. We haven’t nailed the biggest story: Jill Abramson, former executive editor of the New York Times
11. The press is still biased against Trump: Mark Bauerlein, senior editor at First Things and professor of English at Emory University
12. Trump’s success depends just as much on what happens outside Washington: Jessica Yellin, senior fellow at the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy and former chief White House correspondent for CNN
13. Most people don’t care about Trump’s lies: Terry Sullivan, partner at Firehouse Strategies and campaign manager for Marco Rubio in 2016

President Donald Trump’s first weeks in office have galvanized tech engineers, who vigorously protested the president — and in some cases, turned their fire on executives like Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, to get them to strike more forcefully at the White House. It isn’t all opposition, however.

Apple, Microsoft, Google, Oracle and other major tech companies that long have tried to overhaul the US tax code have found a president who’s willing to grant them a few wishes. President Trump’s tax plan is but a page — and it’s already politically imperiled in Congress — but it still backed a one-time tax break for businesses that bring back billions of dollars from overseas. So too have the nation’s tech titans gained a few allies in government. Much is still on the horizon. President Trump has pledged an infrastructure package, for example, that could be valued by as much as $1 trillion. Other work around issues like self-driving cars is well underway. “I think this is a marathon, not a sprint,” said Michael Beckerman, the president of the Internet Association. “A first 100 days is just 100 days, and you have years to go. And a lot of the things that were on the agenda…. are not directly related to our industry. I think the question of success will be later on.”

The Federal Communications Commission announces that Jean Kiddoo has been named Chair of the Incentive Auction Task Force and that Hillary DeNigro will join her as Deputy Chair. Kiddoo takes over for Gary Epstein, who will retire from the Commission April 28 after serving as chair of the Task Force since 2012.

Kiddoo has served as Deputy Chair of the Task Force since June 1, 2016, primarily focusing on the post-auction transition. Before that, she served as Deputy Chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, where she oversaw the Bureau's Auctions, Broadband, and Mobility Divisions. Prior to joining the Commission in 2014, Ms. Kiddoo spent more than three decades in private practice, most recently at Bingham McCutchen (now Morgan Lewis & Bockius), representing telecommunications, media and technology companies before federal agencies, courts, state regulatory commissions, and local authorities nationwide. Kiddoo graduated with honors from Colgate University and earned her law degree magna cum laude from the Catholic University of America.

DeNigro has served as Associate Bureau Chief of the Media Bureau. Prior to joining the Media Bureau’s front office, she was Chief of the Media Bureau’s Industry Analysis Division where she led the review of complex mergers, rulemaking proceedings, and the production of industry and market reports. She previously served as Chief of the Enforcement Bureau’s Investigations and Hearings Division, overseeing hearings and directing investigations involving a broad range of matters in the telecommunications and media industries. Before joining the Commission, she practiced commercial litigation at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy and, prior to that, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. She received her J.D. magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center and a BA Phi Beta Kappa from Emory University.

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai wants to characterize this battle as one between “the people” (who love the internet) and “the government” (which, in his view, has been bossing “the people” around). But he’s missing a giant piece of the puzzle.

There are actually three players on the battlefield, not two: the people, the government, and particularly powerful private individuals. The whole idea behind the democratic enterprise is to keep the triangle balanced: not too strong a government, not too powerful a group of oligarchs, and plenty of opportunity for individuals. Chairman Pai is putting his thumb decidedly on the scale in favor of the oligarchs, and it’s a risky move.

[Susan Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School]

While unveiling his plan to dismantle network neutrality and defang the Federal Communications Commission, Chairman Ajit Pai spent a good chunk of April 26’s speech defaming Free Press. Instead of making the case for his new policies, Chairman Pai recycled some out-of-context quotes to red-bait one of our co-founders and dismiss our decade-plus efforts to safeguard the open internet.

We’ve made no secret of our disdain for Chairman Pai’s policies and his fondness for falsehoods. And we’ve long sparred with him in the press and corrected his lies. But we’ve gotten some questions about what Chairman Pai said. So I thought I’d clear up the record.