Op-Ed

[Commentary] To be sure, the Department of Justice has a right to appeal [the Sinclair/Tribune decision], and it has done so well within the 60 days allowed from the handing down of the Judge Leon decision on June 12.

[Commentary] Mitt Romney wasn’t unfairly maligned in 2012. But he was victim of a toxic media and political culture. American politics has always been brutish. But changes in the media over the last half-century, along with an intense focus on every word candidates say and every mistake they make has resulted in saturation coverage of peccadillos and blunders rather than policies. This may be a good business model for the media, and effective politically, but it has undermined attempts by both parties to overcome polarization and govern.

[Commentary] PolitiFact was among the first news sites dedicated to fact-checking, along with Snopes and FactCheck.org. The meter was innovative because it summarized our conclusions in handy ratings. But I’ve evolved. It’s been 11 years since we launched PolitiFact, and I think it’s time to move beyond my beloved meter. I am heading a project at Duke University that is developing ways to automate fact-checking—including new ways to present the conclusions. I think the Truth-O-Meter’s ratings (which now range from True to Pants on Fire) are still effective for many readers.

[Commentary] Talk about a curveball. Last week, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Pai struck a potentially fatal blow to a deal that President Donald Trump favored, the proposed merger of Sinclair Broadcasting and Tribune Media. If it had gone through, the deal would have had a major adverse impact on future election cycles, making Sinclair the king of the hill with unfettered capabilities to control political advertising and messages across all of its stations.

[Commentary] The digital age and its applications has the potential to eliminate density and geographic proximity requirements, that were so critical during the industrial age. It is possible then, in the digital age, for a rural community to maintain its “rural” feel and continue to leverage its natural amenities while taking advantage of what only dense urban areas enjoyed last century.

[Commentary] Telemedicine providers can’t catch senior citizens when they fall. But health services delivered over broadband can make it possible for seniors to live independently for longer periods of time. For all of the potential that telehealth holds for assisting the aging-in-place process, telehealth’s success rides squarely on the back of quality broadband in the community. Municipal fiber networks can drive telehealth and broadband use. Small towns such as Wilson (NC) and Sebewaing (MI) with gigabit capacity infrastructure, keep subscribers happy.

[Commentary]  Not only has voter participation in local elections fallen to dangerously low levels, but the health of local newspapers, traditional watchdogs for the most direct and abundant form of government in the United States, has also been deteriorating. The Republican Party — yes, the same party whose leader derides the media as “fake news” and “the enemy of the people”  — should be particularly alarmed.

[Op-ed] The court decision allowing AT&T to acquire Time Warner is an example of the inability of our current system of courts and enforcement to prevent the decline in competition in the modern US economy. In the case of that merger, the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice gets credit for making an attempt to block what it viewed as an anti-competitive transaction. What’s more, that view proved prescient after the now-merged firm almost immediately raised prices after executives testified that the synergies from the deal would immediately cause lower prices.

[Commentary] Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced last August that his department was pursuing more than three times as many leak investigations as were open at the end of the Obama years, and that he was reviewing the Department of Justice’s policy on obtaining information involving journalists—reportedly to make collecting that information easier. In a recent disclosure to Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR), the DOJ does little to quell fears that this crackdown will damage journalists’ ability to protect their sources and shine a torch on government misconduct.  

[Commentary] When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico last fall, President Donald Trump playfully lobbed rolls of paper towels to those taking shelter. What if the reporting on the ground had been taken seriously — as something to be heeded, and reacted to, instead of summarily dismissed? What if the president had pushed for help from wherever it could be found, including from outside the overstressed federal agency?