January 2017

New Lenses on the First Social Media Presidency

At the end of October, we shared our plans for preserving and passing on the digital history of the Obama administration, and invited the American people to “come up with creative ways to archive this content and make it both useful and available for years to come.” The White House social media archive tells the story not just of how we’ve used these platforms to engage with people wherever they are, but also of how the digital landscape has changed over the past eight years. Citizens, students, companies, and organizations answered this call to action—and today we’re excited to share some of their innovative archival projects with you.

“Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”: Local news could see a windfall from the FCC’s spectrum auction

In 2016, the Federal Communications Commission launched an auction that will allow broadcasters to sell all or parts of their broadcast spectrum, which could then be purchased by wireless carriers looking to expand their reach. Some analysts initially projected that just public TV stations could bring in as much as $2.3 billion, according to reported federal estimates. Though New Jersey lawmakers have lowered their expectations for a potential windfall, the advocacy group Free Press last month launched a campaign to encourage New Jersey and other public station license holders participating in the FCC auction to invest at least a portion of the incoming revenue in local news and information.