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July 2015

Inside Jon Stewart’s Secret Visits With President Obama

Jon Stewart enjoyed access to President Barack Obama that many journalists would fight tooth and nail to obtain. “The Daily Show” host met privately with the President at the White House on a number of occasions, including during the 2011 budget debate and the 2014 Ukraine crisis. “I can’t say that because Jon Stewart was unhappy policy changed,” former Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod said. “But I can say that he had forceful arguments, they were arguments that we knew would be heard and deserved to be answered.”

Some claim that it was the influence of Stewart and his show that helped end major political holdups, such as a bill that would provide health benefits to those who had become ill during the clean up after 9/11 at Ground Zero. “What took us eight years of walking the halls of Congress, Jon Stewart in 22 minutes literally moved mountains and gave us a heartbeat again when we were flat lined,” Army veteran and 9/11 clean up worker John Feal said.

Op-ed

Taking Care of America: Whose Job Is It?

While we should be investing in expanding our communications infrastructure, many legislators are at work to cut the budget of the FCC

We live in an exceptional country, we like to tell ourselves. If that’s really so, why are we letting it crumble around us? Let’s take a quick and random look around.

Over-the-top video firms push back against FCC MVPD rule making

The nation’s biggest online video distributors would rather the Federal Communications Commission not do them any favors by regulating over the top services like cable. Representatives from Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple, companies that haven’t been regulated by the FCC, have been increasing their face time at the FCC to keep the agency from advancing a proceeding that would regulate some over-the-top services like facilities-based multi-channel video distributors. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has promised to move on at the order this fall in what is likely to be another divisive proceeding at the agency. While Chairman Wheeler sees the order as a way to bring some competition to cable and satellite services that may begin to migrate their linear line-ups to the Internet.

Over-the-top services, even those that don’t now currently provide linear streaming programming, see the order as “premature,” shoe horning an old business model onto an emerging online video distribution business that is still experimenting with bundles, streaming and on-demand offerings. In a recent filing with the FCC, representatives from the Digital Media Association, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft said there’s no case for regulating a growing, innovative industry. “Subjecting newly covered OVDs to regulations adopted for facilities-based MVPDs could adversely affect the continued growth of the marketplace for online video content,” the Gregory Barnes, general counsel for the Digital Media Association wrote in the ex parte. “Right now, millions of hours of video are being made available for consumers to enjoy online, and most of that content is of exceptional quality. The FCC’s rush to regulate in this area could stymie such progress -- to the detriment of consumers,” Barnes added.

Jon Stewart’s progressive legacy

[Commentary] When I appeared on “The Daily Show” in late 2002, host Jon Stewart wanted to know why conservatives seemed to have a more effective message than progressives. “Are they better at selling their ideas, or they just have better ideas?” he asked. Although I disputed his premise, the Bush Administration and its allies clearly had marginalized progressive opposition to the impending war in Iraq, and Stewart still thought of himself as an impartial observer. “Join us in the center,” he said as the interview concluded. “That’s my movement.” But it wouldn’t be long before Stewart, whose 16-year run on “The Daily Show” comes to an end the week of August 3, became one of the most important and influential voices on the progressive left -- an improbable icon who cut through right-wing talking points with satire while making progressive ideas sound like common sense.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Stewart, however, is the vast influence he commanded from his perch on late-night cable. For a generation of Americans, Stewart provided a political education that helped shape their worldview. Indeed, as early as 2004, there was evidence that young people were increasingly getting their information from “The Daily Show” instead of more traditional sources. And for the past decade, public surveys have consistently rated Stewart among the most popular and trusted names in news. Although it’s impossible to prove, Stewart is almost certainly one of the reasons that younger Americans are so progressive.

Watts 'hackathon' takes a step toward narrowing the digital divide

As high schooler Geovany Gonzaga typed lines of HTML code on a Mac laptop, a green Web page sprang to life on the screen. “If I could learn more coding I’d get more hooked on it,” said Gonzaga, 16, who was trying his hand during a “hackathon” organized by Teens Exploring Technology, a South Los Angeles (CA) nonprofit that teaches computer science and entrepreneurship skills.

Gonzaga doesn’t have a computer of his own, so he uses school computers during lunch or after classes for homework, rushing to finish. But on July 25, the hackathon provided laptops and the guidance of tech-savvy mentors who had gathered at Nickerson Gardens in Watts, LA’s largest housing project. It followed the model of other hackathons that draw professional and hobbyist computer programmers for hours of nonstop coding and software tinkering. For Teens Exploring Technology, known as TXT, the event was a step toward easing the digital divide in a neighborhood low on technology access compared with more affluent parts of the city.

Four reasons the FCC is ill-suited to handle spectrum allocation

[Commentary] Today, only 16 percent of US spectrum resources are allocated to fuel the mobile boom in the private sector. Meanwhile, government sits on as much as 70 percent of valuable beachfront spectrum, either leaving it fallow or wasting it with inefficient technologies. The significant shortcomings in the supply of spectrum are getting attention in Congress. During the week of July 27, both chambers will tackle the lack of wireless spectrum and what must be done to refill the spectrum “pipeline” to fuel the burgeoning Internet of Things (IOT). On July 29, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the Internet of Things and the Senate Commerce Committee will tackle the overall spectrum landscape in the US, hearing testimony from CTIA, among others. Let’s hope Congress will take on the major underlying question in spectrum allocation: Is the FCC, in its current form, suited to handle this task? There are several reasons to think otherwise:

  1. The FCC has been dragging its feet on spectrum auctions for decades.
  2. Regulators are generally not well-suited to handle spectrum allocation.
  3. The FCC is incentivized to limit the amount of spectrum available.
  4. The FCC has down-prioritized their spectrum allocation duties.

[Roslyn Layton studies Internet economics at the Center for Communication, Media, and Information Technologies at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, Denmark]

For Smartphone Users, Spectrum Is Speed

[Commentary] Why is the federal government against faster smartphone Internet access? Your smartphone surfing is only as fast as the spectrum (wireless frequencies) available for it to use. In just eight years, a remarkable three quarters of Americans have become smart-phone users. More wireless users are using more apps and video streaming, more often, which means that US wireless data traffic will increase six-fold over the next five years, per CTIA estimates. However, this exploding speedy smartphone demand is not being met with any government urgency to make more spectrum supply available to the marketplace for consumers. That’s because the controller of roughly two-thirds of the nation’s spectrum resource -- the US government -- already allocated most all of the nation’s spectrum to federal bureaucracies for 20th century bureaucratic priorities prior to the advent of the mobile broadband revolution. It is also because of an Obama Administration decision to no longer make available under-utilized government spectrum for commercial auction. As CTIA, the wireless association explains: “the traditional licensed spectrum pipeline is empty” and the US has “no plan beyond 2020 to accommodate mobile growth.”

The only spectrum coming into the marketplace in the next five years is not from the federal government’s spectrum hoard. TV broadcast spectrum is being repurposed for commercial wireless broadband use in the FCC’s planned 2016 Incentive Auction. In sum, think of the federal government’s no-more-commercial-spectrum-for-consumers policy as the little spinning wheel on a smartphone as one waits longer for apps or websites to load, because spectrum is speed. No more spectrum supply and exploding demand will slow smartphone Internet access to the speed of government.

[Scott Cleland is President of Precursor LLC, a research consultancy for Fortune 500 companies]

Bernie Sanders Faces Uphill Battle for Hollywood Support

As the media continue to obsess over Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT) phenomenon is quickly and aggressively gaining momentum. A new CNN poll shows that the Vermont senator would defeat every single major Republican candidate, some by double digits. The Sanders surge has caught even his own campaign by surprise. “It happened a lot faster than we expected and with a lot more speed,” said Sen Sanders’ press secretary Michael Briggs. “I don’t think anyone saw it coming.” But even though he’s been packing stadiums with adoring supporters -- he filled the 10,000-seat Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Wisconsin earlier in July -- he has made only modest in-roads so far among Hollywood Democrats and LA-based donors. Progressive industry figures like Mark Ruffalo and Neil Young have publicly backed the self-described socialist, and about 300 people turned out for two of his fundraising events in LA in June, which together raised about $100,000.

Since announcing his candidacy in April, Sen Sanders has raised an impressive $15 million nationwide, mostly from small, grass-roots donations. “Bernie offers authenticity,” said Mimi Kennedy, the costar of CBS’ “Mom” who hosted one of the LA events. “He understands the middle class and income inequality.” That sentiment was echoed by the host of Sanders’ other LA fundraiser, longtime activist Betty Sheinbaum. “We love everything he says,” Sheinbaum said. “Everybody who came to our event was impressed.” While Sen Sanders has enough money to run a credible campaign and his favorable rating has doubled since March, rising from 12 percent to 24 percent, experts say he’s going to need a lot more Hollywood movers and shakers if he wants to take the nomination from Clinton (whose favorable rating has slipped 5 points from 48 percent to 43 percent).

ASNE releases 2015 Newsroom Diversity Results

The percentage of minority journalists in daily-newspaper newsrooms remained relatively stable in 2014 at 12.76 percent even as newsroom employment declined by 10.4 percent, according to the annual census released July 18 by the American Society of News Editors and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Florida International University. 2015's census also found that the percentage of news organizations that reported having at least one woman among their top three editors remains steady at 63 percent. The number of minority leaders has dropped by 3 percentage points, with 12 percent of participating organizations saying at least one of their top three editors is a person of color. This was the second year the questions about women and minorities in leadership were asked.

Overall, the survey found, there are about 32,900 full-time journalists at nearly 1,400 daily newspapers in the United States. That's a 3,800-person decrease from 36,700 in 2013. Of those 32,900 employees, about 4,200, or 12.76 percent, are racial minorities. That's a 0.58 percent decrease from last year's 13.34 percent despite the substantially smaller newsroom employment in 2014. The percentage of minority journalists has hovered between 12 and 14 percent for more than a decade. In 1978, when ASNE launched its Newsroom Employment Census of professional full-time journalists, 3.95 percent were minorities.

July 28, 2015 (AT&T-DirecTV; Broadband Stimulus)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2015

House Communications Subcommittee hearing, "Continued Oversight of the Federal Communications Commission -- https://www.benton.org/node/223243

Policy Seminar from the Free State Foundation, "Implementing Real Regulatory Reform at the FCC" -- https://www.benton.org/node/224298

OWNERSHIP
   FCC's Pai Calls AT&T-DirecTV Conditions 'Forced Tribute'
   Commissioner Clyburn Calls For Carriage/Access Rules Inquiry
   FCC Public Notice Accepting Charter/TWC/Bright House Merger Applications for Transfer - public notice [links to web]
   CBO Scores Senate Bill 1182 on JSAs - research [links to web]

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   Wired to Fail
   Chairman Wheeler to Hill: ISPs Have Certainty to Invest
   AT&T: FCC Fine Is 'Indefensible,' 'Coercion'

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   Groups Ask FCC to Revamp Auction Reserve
   FCC’s Pai Pans Wireless Repack of TV Stations [links to web]
   How to Feed a Data-Hungry Public - Genachowski, McDowell op-ed
   Kill Switch Is No Dead Certainty to Stop Phone Theft [links to web]
   Denver tech community ponders morality of building Internet of Things [links to web]

PRIVACY/SECURITY
   NSA promises to delete old records [links to web]
   950 million Android phones can be hijacked by malicious text messages [links to web]
   Google Rolls Out New Consent Policy in European Union [links to web]

CONTENT
   New Court Evidence Reveals Hollywood’s Plan to Smear Google
   ESPN will likely be sold directly to consumers in a few years [links to web]
   OTT: A Net Neutrality Can of Worms? [links to web]

TELEVISION
   CBO Scores Senate Bill 1182 on JSAs - research [links to web]
   Comcast and Discovery Announce Long-Term Distribution Deal [links to web]
   Retransmission War Heats Up [links to web]

JOURNALISM
   A Clinton Story Fraught With Inaccuracies: How It Happened and What Next? - NYT's Public Editor [links to web]
   Can The New York Times Salvage Its Clinton Coverage? - Media Matters for America analysis [links to web]
   RTDNA Research: Newsroom employment rises - press release [links to web]
   Where Are All the Minority Journalists? [links to web]

ELECTIONS & MEDIA
   Donald Trump is a superhero – but not in a good way - Reuters op-ed [links to web]
   A Clinton Story Fraught With Inaccuracies: How It Happened and What Next? - NYT's Public Editor [links to web]

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   The Secret Agents Who Stake Out the Ugliest Corners of the Internet [links to web]

TRANSPORTATION
   Merely receiving a phone notification is enough to distract a driver [links to web]

ACCESSIBILITY
   Bay Area tech innovators honored for helping the disabled [links to web]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   Issues Mount as Negotiators Gather to Wrap Up Trans-Pacific Trade Pact [links to web]
   China to End Ban on Videogame Consoles [links to web]
   Google Rolls Out New Consent Policy in European Union [links to web]

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OWNERSHIP

FCC'S PAI CALLS AT&T-DIRECTV CONDITIONS 'FORCED TRIBUTE'
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Commissioner Ajit Pai of the Federal Communications Commission outlined his partial dissent from the AT&T-DirecTV merger approval on July 27 with a lengthy statement. Commissioner Pai approved the underlying merger, as did all the commissioners. But he dissented from the "17 pages of conditions" put on the deal. Commissioner Pai has long argued against "regulating by condition" -- applying conditions that serve a particular regulatory agenda but are not merger-specific -- and suggested the FCC's demands on the deal were not supported and constituted a regulator "wish list" that had nothing to do with deal at hand. "These conditions are the forced tribute that the company must offer to mollify the Capitol," he said. In fact, Commissioner Pai said that the deal needed no conditions, and pointed to the Justice Department approval of the deal as not threatening competition. While Commissioner Mignon Clyburn praised the condition mandating high-speed, low-cost broadband to low-income households, Commissioner Pai saw it very differently. "When the Commission instructs a regulated entity that it must offer a particular service for no more than a particular price, there is a name for that: It is called rate regulation." He also says the FCC condition preventing the combined company from discriminating against unaffiliated over-the-top providers is not justified. In fact, he says, the evidence suggests the opposite, that any attempt to hamper broadband customers access to OTT providers would hurt the company, not help it.
benton.org/headlines/fccs-pai-calls-att-directv-conditions-forced-tribute | Broadcasting&Cable | The Hill
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COMMISSIONER CLYBURN CALLS FOR CARRIAGE/ACCESS RULES INQUIRY
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Commissioner Mignon Clyburn of the Federal Communications Commission has called on FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to launch an inquiry into the program access and carriage rules and ongoing barriers to independent and diverse programming in the wake of the FCC's decision to approve the AT&T/DirecTV deal. Those are the rules meant to insure nondiscriminatory access for distribution outlets to programming and programmers to distribution outlets. Commissioner Clyburn voted for the deal, and said she believed the public interest benefits of the conditions and commitments on broadband deployment and affordable stand-alone broadband for lower income residents. But she said she is concerned with the potential impact of the deal on smaller carriers and independent programmers given that the combined company will have over 25 million video subs. The American Cable Association, in particular, has expressed concerns about access to programming and the price of that programming and sought conditions on the deal to protect against possible abuses. While Commissioner Clyburn said that the FCC analysis concluded the deal would not demonstrably worsen those "challenges," she said it was time to "reevaluate our program access rules" and their impact on diverse and independent programmers. Not surprisingly, the American Cable Association was pleased.
benton.org/headlines/commissioner-clyburn-calls-carriageaccess-rules-inquiry | Broadcasting&Cable
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

WIRED TO FAIL
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Tony Romm]
When it came to funding broadband projects, the Rural Utilities Service never found its footing in the digital age. Sometimes, RUS ignored its rural mission by funding high-speed Internet in well-wired population centers. Sometimes, it chose not to make any loans at all. Sometimes, RUS broadband projects stumbled, or failed for want of proper management; loans went delinquent and some borrowers defaulted. Yet despite years of costly missteps that left millions of Americans stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide, a stable of friendly lawmakers swallowed their doubts about RUS and made sure the politically protected agency wasn’t cut out of the historic stimulus effort. It should come as little surprise, then, that four years and four directors later, RUS has failed to deliver on the promise of the stimulus bill. Roughly half of the nearly 300 projects that RUS approved as part of the 2009 Recovery Act have not yet drawn down the full amounts they were awarded. All RUS-funded infrastructure projects were supposed to have completed construction by the end of June, but the agency has declined to say whether these rural networks have been completed. More than 40 of the projects that RUS initially approved never got started at all, raising questions about how RUS screened its applicants and made its decisions in the first place. But a bigger, more critical deadline looms for those broadband projects still underway: If these networks do not draw all their cash by the end of September, they will have to forfeit what remains. In other words, they altogether may squander as much as $277 million in still-untapped federal funds, which can’t be spent elsewhere in other neglected rural communities. And either way, scores of rural residents who should have benefited from better Internet access — a utility that many consider as essential as electricity — might continue to lack access to the sort of reliable, high-speed service that is common in America’s cities.
benton.org/headlines/wired-fail | Politico
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CHAIRMAN WHEELER TO HILL: ISPS HAVE CERTAINTY TO INVEST
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler plans to tell Congress that a court's denial of Internet service provider efforts to stay part of the FCC's network neutrality order means those companies have "the certainty and economic incentive to build fast and competitive broadband networks." ISPs have argued that new interconnection-targeted complaint processes and a general Internet conduct standard will work against such investment, but according to Chairman Wheeler's testimony for a House Communications Subcommittee FCC oversight hearing, the Chairman cites statements by the CEOs of T-Mobile, Sprint, Cablevision, Charter and Frontier that Title II reclassification "does not discourage their investment." He also said that announcements by ISPs including Comcast, Cox, Time Warner Cable and others that they were expanding broadband service suggested "healthy" network investment would continue. Chairman Wheeler cited the court's denial of the stay as a recent FCC accomplishment, along with the rules themselves. Chairman Wheeler says the broadcast incentive auction had more moving parts than a Swiss watch, but that it is still on track for a first-quarter 2016 launch. The FCC plans to vote Aug. 6 on the incentive auction framework and bidding rules. Chairman Wheeler reiterates that the reserve would be 30 MHz, but only "provided that eligible bidders pay their fair share of auction costs." He also said the FCC would issue a notice of proposed rulemaking in the fall on broadband privacy, or what he called the "non-monetary cost" of using broadband -- broadband privacy oversight moved from the Federal Trade Commission to the FCC with the reclassification of ISPs under Title II common carrier regulations.
benton.org/headlines/chairman-wheeler-hill-isps-have-certainty-invest | Broadcasting&Cable
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AT&T VS FCC FINE
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
AT&T has come out swinging at the Federal Communications Commission over the agency's proposed $100 million fine for allegedly violating the transparency rule in the FCC's 2010 network neutrality order, calling it "unprecedented and indefensible" -- and in part unconstitutional -- and saying a court will throw it out if it is imposed. AT&T wants the FCC to withdraw the proposed fine. The FCC proposed the fine in June 2015, and this is AT&T's chance to respond before the FCC decides whether to rule the apparent liability an actual one. Signaling that slowing broadband speeds is not an acceptable business model, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau on June 17 proposed fining AT&T Mobile $100 million over its maximum bit rate approach to what AT&T says is a small minority of unlimited plan users whose heavy use could impair others’ online experience. Swallowing that fine was not one of the conditions on the AT&T-DirecTV deal, which was obvious from AT&T's response Monday (July 27) to the FCC notice of apparent liability (NAL). It called the FCC decision arbitrary, excessive and beyond its statutory authority.
benton.org/headlines/att-fcc-fine-indefensible-coercion | Multichannel News | The Hill
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

GROUPS ASK FCC TO REVAMP AUCTION RESERVE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Public Knowledge, Save Wireless Choice, and T-Mobile lobbyists and former Rep Henry Waxman are pushing the Federal Communications Commission to revamp its broadcast spectrum forward auction reserve trigger to prevent it from being gamed by dominant wireless carriers. Currently, the FCC is planning to set aside 30 MHz of spectrum for monodominant carriers. Public Knowledge's Harold Feld pointed out on a conference call with reporters that they would prefer a larger reserve, but in any event says the FCC should no longer condition that reserve on reaching a spectrum clearing and total bidding financial targets that the AWS-3 spectrum auction's success has essentially rendered unnecessary. The groups argue that AT&T and Verizon would be able to game those triggers and extend the auction until, by the time the reserve is triggered, competitive carriers won't be in a position, or as good a position, to take advantage of it, which Waxman says would run counter to the intent of Congress in the spectrum auction legislation that it promote wireless competition. Feld likened the issue to the dominant carriers being able to hack the FCC's computer model for the auction to advantage themselves. The commission was scheduled to vote on its reserve proposal July 16, but put that vote off until Aug. 6. Feld said he understood the FCC's reluctance to start adjusting the auction software and the staff's inclination to just "put it to bed." But he also said that given that T-Mobile had shown the double-trigger for the reserve could be gamed, it clearly would be gamed. "Why wouldn't you give yourself an advantage through strategic bidding," he asked.
He said that they had pressed their case to the commissioners that while it was a tough call, including politically, they should not let the work put into coming up with the reserve to be "washed away."
benton.org/headlines/groups-ask-fcc-revamp-auction-reserve | Broadcasting&Cable
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HOW TO FEED A DATA HUNGRY PUBLIC
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Julius Genachowski, Robert McDowell]
[Commentary] Congressional hearings will take up the need for more wireless spectrum—the invisible radio frequencies that transmit information to and from mobile devices. Auctioning government spectrum to fulfill this need would not only provide significant revenue for the Treasury; it would also greatly benefit data-hungry American consumers. And because these auctions take years to prepare and implement, now is the time to begin the work. Concepts in the Senate’s Wireless Innovation Act or the Wi-Fi Innovation Act in the House are a constructive place to begin. Congress can create financial incentives—such as allowing government agencies to share in auction proceeds—to encourage agencies like the Pentagon or the Transportation Department to relinquish spectrum that they aren’t efficiently using. But if the agencies balk, Congress should make them give it up. Congress should also consider spectrum sharing. The FCC proposed an idea, endorsed last year by the White House panel of science and technology advisers, to use database technology that would enable the sharing of radio frequencies among commercial broadband, military and other government systems. Spectrum sharing would benefit the armed services, helping to reduce the growing gap between communications technologies available to consumers and those available to our troops. It might also reduce Pentagon equipment costs. Unlicensed spectrum, for which government permission isn’t required for consumers to use, is another opportunity. If we fail to adopt a plan to transfer federal spectrum to private users, policy makers may inadvertently undermine US competitiveness and job creation. Keeping discussions bipartisan and focused on solving problems through investment, innovation, job growth and new revenue for the Treasury will best ensure that new technologies pioneered in the US are first enjoyed by US consumers.
[Genachowski is a managing director at the Carlyle Group and former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. McDowell, a former FCC commissioner, is a partner at Wiley Rein LLP and a senior adviser to Berenson]
benton.org/headlines/how-feed-data-hungry-public | Wall Street Journal
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CONTENT

NEW COURT EVIDENCE REVEALS HOLLYWOOD'S PLAN TO SMEAR GOOGLE
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Davey Alba]
Over the years, Google and Hollywood have fought bitterly over the Stop Online Piracy Act, an anti-piracy bill that would have granted the US government and private corporations extraordinary power to battle copyright infringement on the web. It failed to pass in 2012. But it lives on. The Motion Picture Association of America is still seeking to revive it, and with Google still very much opposed to the idea, the MPAA is apparently doing its best to make life difficult for the internet giant. Back in December, the search giant complained in a blog post of efforts by the MPAA to push an investigation of Google through the office of Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood. Now, in a new court filing, the company submitted additional evidence that appears to show just how deep the relationship between the attorney general and the Hollywood studios goes. An e-mail sent between AG Hood’s staffers and Brian Cohen, a director of external state government affairs for the MPAA, describes a coordinated plan to hurt Google, including a recommendation that “NewsCorp… develop and place an editorial in the WSJ emphasizing that Google’s stock will lose value in the face of a sustained attack by AGs”; the suggestion that NBC’s government relations department could help place an anti-Google segment on the today show; and that AG Hood’s office look into hiring a PR firm “to create an attack on Google (and other players who are resisting AG efforts to address online piracy).”
benton.org/headlines/new-court-evidence-reveals-hollywoods-plan-smear-google | Wired
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