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You’re reading the Benton Foundation’s Weekly Round-up, a recap of the biggest (or most overlooked) telecommunications stories of the week. The round-up is delivered via e-mail each Friday; to get your own copy, subscribe at www.benton.org/user/register

Robbie’s Round-Up for the Week of July 11-15, 2016

Party platforms can be sleepy affairs. In recent years, platform writing too often became an exercise of box-checking to “reach out and touch” as many interest groups as possible so everyone felt involved, with an anodyne sentence or two thrown in so these interests felt included. Long on generalities and short on specifics, platforms in recent years were routinely adopted at the party’s convention—and then promptly forgotten.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has upheld the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rules. So what does that mean, and what will happen now?

– Free Speech, Net Neutrality, and Election 2016

Pretend you’re a journalist (if you really are one, ignore that but read on anyhow) and someone calls and says “I’ve got a good and timely story that I think your readers/listeners would like to know about. There is a government agency that has both the authority and the responsibility to help clean up our broken big-money election campaigns—and it is refusing to do its job.” Let me explain.

Adrianne B. Furniss
Presentation of Charles Benton Digital Equity Award to David Keyes
May 18, 2016
as prepared for delivery

“Functional Internet access is essential for full participation in society.”

“Broadband Internet access service is essential to education, public health, and public safety.”

Blair Levin
Brookings Metropolitan Policy Project
Kansas City Gigabit Summit
May 17, 2016

My topic today is Cities, Technology, the Next Generation of Urban Development and the Next Administration.