Op-Ed

Tens of thousands of journalists are losing their jobs, newspaper chains are going under, and vulture capitalists are picking over the remains. We need a news bailout — but one that overhauls the existing corporate model and pushes the media to put the public before profits. Journalism needs more than just stimulus; it needs a major structural overhaul. And it requires permanent and public support.

More than 700 telecommunications companies have signed on to the Federal Communications Commission's Keep Americans Connected Pledge. These collective efforts stand as a proud point of American solidarity, a silver lining in our hyper-polarized political climate. Unfortunately, these efforts do not go far enough to ensure that our most vulnerable students have online access. The fine print in many Internet service providers’ offers excludes those who enrolled within certain time frames or had debt histories with the company or other issues.

The ordinary laws no longer govern. Every day, new rules are being written to deal with the crisis. We are living under an emergency constitution invoked by Facebook, Google, and other major tech platforms. In normal times, these companies are loath to pass judgment about what’s true and what’s false. But lately they have been taking unusually bold steps to keep misinformation about COVID-19 from circulating. As a matter of public health, these moves are entirely prudent.

The impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the daily lives of billions of people — including elites in nearly every country — has set the stage for many profound changes that will take place when the current pandemic is over. High on the list of things that will look different to almost everyone is the internet. For billions of people in dozens of countries, the internet will no longer be an exotic medium of interest to some people. It was their lifeline for weeks or months.

In countries with fragile peace, such as South Sudan, or those under newly proposed ceasefires, such as Yemen, the need for communication is keen. The coronavirus is hampering communication such as women’s networks that have helped to disrupt terrorist cells, counter violent extremism, and resolve disputes through nonviolent mediation and negotiation. Government-enforced lockdowns in some countries have torn away this part of the social fabric. Governments may suspend some human rights during crisis and conflict. Not so humanitarian principles, which are specific to crisis and war.

Just two weeks after Congress passed the $2.2 trillion CARES Act to provide relief to businesses and families hammered by the coronavirus lockdown, discussions are turning to another legislative package, which simply must address two urgent problems: Too many Americans don’t have access to banks, and they don’t have high-speed broadband. If they don’t get both soon, they will be in desperate straits.

Our years-long failure to ensure universal access to essential internet service means that millions of kids aren’t getting the same educational opportunity as their peers. Congress and the Trump administration can fix this in their next emergency response to the deadly pandemic — and they must.

While COVID-19 has highlighted the deficiencies in broadband availability in the homes of our school-age kids around the country, the absence of a broadband connection for our older adults is equally concerning. Lack of internet access sets the stage for growing isolation and harm to our seniors across the country. Although broadband adoption has increased among those 65 and older in recent years, there is still a significant gap. A 2017 Pew Research revealed that over half of those 65+ have a broadband connection at home, and about 67 percent use the internet.

The European Union has embraced a heavy-handed regulatory scheme designed to allocate access to the existing network, while the US has emphasized private investment to expand network capacity. As the internet emerged and developed, the work of European regulators was guided by the legal system developed to govern traditional telephone service largely built with taxpayer funds. This approach presumed that significant parts of the phone network were likely to remain monopolies.

The COVID-19 pandemic’s emergence and exponential spread has highlighted the mission-critical nature of residential networks. Home networks are now lifelines, connecting us to colleagues, customers, co-workers, patients and investors, not to mention friends, family and entertainment. Many more people would be unemployed or be contributing less to the economy if not for this connectivity. Data shows that demand for downlink bandwidth in areas affected by the pandemic have risen on average by 30% and uplink bandwidths by 50%-100%.