BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2017
Sorry we’re behind schedule this morning… as DC fans know, the game went a Bryce late on a fastball this morning.
COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
A New Salvo in President Trump's Offensive on the Free Press
Trump’s Attacks on the Press: Telling Escalation From Empty Threats - analysis
FCC Chairman Pai “refused” to rebuke President Trump over threat to take NBC off the air
President Trump’s threats amount to a First Amendment violation - CJR op-ed
Video -- Why President Trump isn't the first president to threaten FCC licenses [links to Washington Post]
Editorial: Trump takes his media-bashing to a new extreme [links to Los Angeles Times]
President Trump Chief of Staff Kelly: Media one of Trump's 'frustrations' [links to Benton summary]
President Trump: Media has 'such hatred' [links to Benton summary]
An Indiana lawmaker has drafted a bill to license journalists [links to Benton summary]
Corporations Have Utterly Failed to Protect Speech - Vice [links to Benton summary]
President Trump praises Hannity's ratings: 'I'm very proud of you' [links to Benton summary]
Op-ed -- Justice Holmes’s Free-Speech Lesson: The more certain you are, the more you should resist the temptation to silence those who disagree. [links to Wall Street Journal]
Editorial: The Guggenheim Surrenders on Free Expression [links to New York Times]
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
Russian-linked campaign used Pokémon Go to meddle in election [links to Hill, The]
Sandberg: Russian ads should 'absolutely' be released [links to Hill, The]
Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg criticizes Twitter over political ad censorship [links to Washington Post]
Memo to Facebook: How to Tell if You're a Media Company [links to Wired]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Trump Administration: Infrastructure Friend or Foe? - Blair Levin, Adie Tomer op-ed
Frontier, CenturyLink, Windstream see broadband wireless as a gap filler for CAF-II obligations, but is it optimal? - Fierce analysis [links to Benton summary]
SECURITY/PRIVACY
GAO to probe FCC cyberattack that struck amid net neutrality debate
Supreme Court declines to review computer hacking cases [links to Benton summary]
FCC OVERSIGHT
House FCC Oversight Hearing Slated for Oct 25
OWNERSHIP
Remarks Of Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel at the US Conference Of Catholic Bishops - speech
Tech Giants, Once Seen as Saviors, Are Now Viewed as Threats
Rep Ellison Seeks Google Info From FTC [links to Benton summary]
Sprint's Revived Push for T-Mobile Hurtles Toward Old US Foes [links to Benton summary]
‘Sprint’s stock would fall to under $3’ without merger speculation: MoffettNathanson [links to Fierce]
CONTENT
Facebook takes down data and thousands of posts, obscuring reach of Russian disinformation [links to Benton summary]
Rose McGowan’s Twitter Account Locked After Posts About Weinstein [links to New York Times]
Why fake news is a problem for Wall Street [links to Benton summary]
Why We Might Be Fighting Hate Speech All Wrong [links to New America]
Man acquitted of felony charge over Facebook police parody page sues [links to Ars Technica]
Four-in-ten Americans credit technology with improving life most in the past 50 years - Pew research [links to Benton summary]
ADVERTISING
Outcome, a Hot Tech Startup, Misled Advertisers With Manipulated Information, Sources Say [links to Wall Street Journal]
TELEVISION
Comcast found a way to raise other cable companies’ prices, rivals say [links to Benton summary]
NAB to FCC: ATSC 3.0 Future Is Now [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
Cord-Cutters Sap AT&T’s TV Business [links to Wall Street Journal]
JOURNALISM
Faking News: Fraudulent News and the Fight for Truth - PEN America analysis
The Pro-Free Speech Way to Fight Fake News - Foreign Policy op-ed [links to Benton summary]
CHILDREN & MEDIA
To Teach Digital Citizenship Effectively, Educators Say It’s Time to Unblock Social Media [links to EdSurge]
LABOR
Google to give $1 billion to nonprofits and help Americans get jobs in the new economy [links to Benton summary]
Amazon wants to hire 120,000 U.S. workers for the holidays [links to CNN]
DIVERSITY
Black lawmakers press Sandberg on Facebook’s lack of diversity [links to Hill, The]
Black lawmakers will travel to Silicon Valley to push diversity [links to Hill, The]
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
FirstNet: Efforts to Establish the Public-Safety Broadband Network - press release [links to Benton summary]
Lawmakers question FirstNet's funding [links to Benton summary]
Rep Scott Perry (R-PA) accuses CNN host of making up severity of Puerto Rico crisis [links to Hill, The]
How NTIA Ensures Responders Can Communicate During Hurricane Recovery Efforts [links to National Telecommunications and Information Administration]
Hurricane Maria Communications Status Report for Oct. 12 [links to Federal Communications Commission]
Responding to Disasters – Answering the Call in PR, USVI and CA [links to AT&T]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
GAO Report: 2020 Census [links to US Government Accountability Office]
Chicago Civic Tech Group Invites Illinois Gubernatorial Candidates to Sign Open Data Pledge [links to Government Technology]
COMPANY NEWS
Sheryl Sandberg Blitzes Washington in PR Push for Facebook [links to New York Times]
Sprint touts 33% increase in network speeds over 2016 [links to Fierce]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
US withdraws from UNESCO, the UN’s cultural organization, citing anti-Israel bias
Benton Foundation Saddened US is Leaving UNESCO
Germany: 'No evidence' Kaspersky software used by Russians for hacks [links to Reuters]
Taiwan fines Qualcomm $774 million for antitrust violations [links to Reuters]
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COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
A NEW SALVO IN PRESIDENT TRUMPS OFFENSIVE ON THE FREE PRESS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
Back in January, I wrote about the Trump Administration's first days and its combative relationship with the press. I asked then, "Will the people be the losers in this fight?" In the last two weeks, we're seeing signs that this Administration interprets the First Amendment as a responsibility of the press to report accurately -- or, at the very least, favorably -- on the president. I am left to wonder when Republican Commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission, who took an oath to uphold the Constitution, will speak out to protect the First Amendment.
benton.org/headlines/new-salvo-president-trumps-offensive-free-press | Federal Communications Commission
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TRUMP’S ESCALATING THREATS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Grynbaum]
[Commentary] Rage against the media is political Wagyu for the president’s base. And Trump’s notion of suspending television networks’ licenses — along with his proposal that late-night comedians be subject to the “equal time” rule — is essentially unworkable, given how government regulation of the airwaves actually works. So was it a genuine threat — or just another comment from a president who seemingly thrives on narrative tension simply trying to top himself? “One has to suppose that he’s looking for ways to shock people,” said Russell Baker. “It may go through, or he might probably forget about it,” said the former columnist for The Times. “Is anybody shocked anymore? He’s used it up. It can only last so long.” “What else could he say that he hasn’t already said?” said Bob Schieffer, the broadcasting eminence who formerly anchored “CBS Evening News”. Seen-it-all veterans may take Trump’s recent statements with a few grains of salt. But two former White House officials turned pundits, David Axelrod and Robert Reich, warned of creeping autocracy. And advocacy groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists were moved to point out that such words, issued from the presidential pulpit, can embolden dictators who are more empowered than President Trump to shape or censor coverage.
benton.org/headlines/trumps-attacks-press-telling-escalation-empty-threats | New York Times
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REPUBLICAN FCC COMMISSIONERS SILENT ON TRUMP THREATS
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai still hasn't publicly responded to President Trump's call for NBC and other networks to have their FCC licenses challenged, and Democratic lawmakers are stepping up the pressure. Reps. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) called for a Congressional hearing in which Chairman Pai and the other FCC commissioners "can publicly disavow President Donald Trump's repeated threats to revoke NBC's broadcaster license due to its reporting." They said, “Over the past few days, the President has repeatedly attacked news outlets and their FCC licenses. This threat alone may already be chilling free speech across the country. That is why we and others have called on the FCC chairman to immediately condemn this intimidation and promise to the American public that he will not follow through on the directions he has received from the president. Despite our calls, the chairman has refused to say if he agrees with the president. We therefore ask for a hearing as soon as possible with all five FCC commissioners so that they can publicly and under oath commit that they will not threaten broadcasters or their licenses because of the content of their reporting.”
benton.org/headlines/fcc-chairman-pai-refused-rebuke-president-trump-over-threat-take-nbc-air | Ars Technica
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TRUMPS THREATS AMOUNT TO A FIRST AMENDMENT VIOLATION
[SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Trevor Timm]
[Commentary] Many have commented on the First Amendment implications if President Donald Trump were to actually go after NBC’s license (or really, the licenses of local affiliates since NBC itself doesn’t need a license) or the NFL’s tax status. But President Trump need not act on his threats for his actions to be considered a First Amendment violation. There’s a compelling argument Trump is in violation of Constitution right now—after he crossed the line from criticism of protected speech to openly threatening government action. There’s plenty of case law on this subject from the Supreme Court to appeals courts around the country. Most recently, in a case in the Seventh Circuit called BackPage LLC vs. Thomas Dart, Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois, just-retired Judge Richard Posner articulated exactly why Trump may already be running afoul of the First Amendment merely through his threats.
[Trevor Timm is the executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation]
benton.org/headlines/president-trumps-threats-amount-first-amendment-violation | Columbia Journalism Review
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
TRUMP INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN
[SOURCE: Real Clear, AUTHOR: Blair Levin, Adie Tomer]
[Commentary] As a candidate, Donald Trump deserved credit for identifying a policy that damages jobs, competitiveness, and economic growth: underinvestment in infrastructure. Unfortunately, Trump’s plans as president, including his budget and tax proposals, in combination with congressional politics, suggest his overall impact on infrastructure will make a bad situation worse. Would the long-promised $1 trillion infrastructure fund more than make up for the problems the tax bill creates? The answer is no. As President Trump finally admitted, his plan will not work. Candidate Trump’s plan was premised on attracting private capital to fund infrastructure. But that would only help projects that directly produce revenues, leaving out such needed projects as local roads, schools, and fire stations, among others. Public funding is essential to building a broad coalition necessary to move forward with a national infrastructure bill. Private financing not only limits the kinds of projects financed, but also limits where the projects will be located. Other than in broadband, nearly all the kinds of infrastructure projects—airports, transit, bridges—capable of attracting the kinds of revenue necessary to secure funding, are in metropolitan areas. That would limit the political attractiveness of any legislation to rural congressional members, whose voting block is sizable. The administration’s tax plan, however, now makes the fiscal politics for public funds impossible. In short: Trump’s tax plan would decrease funds for the principal sources of infrastructure financing; his original infrastructure plan is dead; and his tax plan will put the country in a position where no infrastructure plan is likely to move forward. That combination would only intensify national infrastructure challenges.
[Blair Levin is a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program. Adie Tomer is a fellow at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program and leads the Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative.]
benton.org/headlines/trump-administration-infrastructure-friend-or-foe | Real Clear
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SECURITY/PRIVACY
GAO TO PROBE FCC CYBERATTACK THAT STRUCK AMID NET NEUTRALITY DEBATE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Morgan Chalfant]
The government's top watchdog has agreed to investigate the reported cyberattack that targeted the Federal Communications Commission earlier in 2017 while the agency was preparing to roll back net neutrality regulations. A spokesman for the Government Accountability Office confirmed it has accepted a request from two Democratic lawmakers to probe the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that the FCC said disrupted its electronic comment filing system in May. The spokesman said that the probe, which was first reported by Politico, is “now in the queue, but the work won’t get underway for several months.” The investigation will also examine the FCC’s broader cybersecurity efforts.
benton.org/headlines/gao-probe-fcc-cyberattack-struck-amid-net-neutrality-debate | Hill, The
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FCC OVERSIGHT
HOUSE FCC OVERSIGHT HEARING SLATED FOR OCT 25
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The House Communications Subcommittee plans to hold a Federal Communication Commission oversight hearing Oct 25. Democratic members of the committee on Oct. 12 called for a hearing at which the commissioners would pledge not to target news outlets over their coverage of the Administration—as President Donald Trump has urged—but a source said it was a routing hearing that had been in the works for several weeks as they tried to work out availabilities. The subcommittee postponed an earlier FCC oversight hearing, and this week referred a bill reauthorizing the agency and to the full committee with work still to do on it. Invites have gone out to all the commissioners and they have until noon Oct 13 to respond.
benton.org/headlines/house-fcc-oversight-hearing-slated-oct-25 | Broadcasting&Cable | The Hill
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OWNERSHIP
ROSENWORCEL REMARKS AT US CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel]
I am concerned the Federal Communications Commission is gearing up to approve a transaction that will hand a single broadcast company the unprecedented ability to reach more than 70 percent of American households. It hasn’t happened yet. But there are disconcerting signs. Before I returned to the Commission, the agency inexplicably resurrected an outdated and scientifically inaccurate system for tallying station ownership, known as the UHF discount. It also reversed an effort to investigate joint sales agreements. Both steps helped speed the way for this transaction—which would combine two broadcasting giants: Tribune and Sinclair The bottom line is we are not going to remedy what ails our media with a rush of new consolidation. We are not going to fix our inability to ferret fact from fiction by doubling down on a single company owning ever more of our public airwaves.
benton.org/headlines/remarks-commissioner-jessica-rosenworcel-us-conference-catholic-bishops | Federal Communications Commission | TVNewsCheck | B&C
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TECH GIANTS SEEN AS THREATS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Streitfeld]
At the start of this decade, the Arab Spring blossomed with the help of social media. That is the sort of story the tech industry loves to tell about itself: It is bringing freedom, enlightenment and a better future for all mankind. Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, proclaimed that this was exactly why his social network existed. In a 2012 manifesto for investors, he said Facebook was a tool to create “a more honest and transparent dialogue around government.” The result, he said, would be “better solutions to some of the biggest problems of our time.” Now tech companies are under fire for creating problems instead of solving them. At the top of the list is Russian interference in last year’s presidential election. Social media might have originally promised liberation, but it proved an even more useful tool for stoking anger. The manipulation was so efficient and so lacking in transparency that the companies themselves barely noticed it was happening. The election is far from the only area of concern. Tech companies have accrued a tremendous amount of power and influence. Amazon determines how people shop, Google how they acquire knowledge, Facebook how they communicate. All of them are making decisions about who gets a digital megaphone and who should be unplugged from the web. Their amount of concentrated authority resembles the divine right of kings, and is sparking a backlash that is still gathering force.
benton.org/headlines/tech-giants-once-seen-saviors-are-now-viewed-threats | New York Times
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JOURNALISM
FAKING NEWS
[SOURCE: PEN America, AUTHOR: ]
The rise of fraudulent news and the erosion of public trust in mainstream journalism, due in part to a deliberate campaign of denigration, pose a looming crisis for American democracy and civic life. It is our hope in this report to spotlight the dimensions of the problem, call out its serious implications, and stimulate greater urgency across multiple sectors of society that have a role to play in addressing it. Among PEN America's recommendations:
Educators should “adopt news literacy education as a core part of school curriculums.”
Social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook should “identify purveyors of fraudulent news . . . and take steps to ensure that they are not able to sustain themselves and profit from access to advertising services on your platforms.”
Social media networks also should “develop additional ways to offer users content that may differ from their own beliefs or views, in ways that are transparent to users and sustain their control over what they see.”
News outlets should “emphasize transparency of operations as a high priority, including finding new ways to be more open with readers about the journalistic and editing processes and the handling of errors.”
News outlets also should “clearly label different types of content as reporting, commentary, opinion, analysis, etc.”
benton.org/headlines/faking-news-fraudulent-news-and-fight-truth | PEN America | Washington Post
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
US WITHDRAWS FROM UNESCO
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Eli Rosenberg]
The United States will withdraw from UNESCO at the end of 2018, the State Department said Oct 12, to stop accumulating unpaid dues and make a stand on what it said is anti-Israel bias at the U.N.’s educational, science and cultural organization. In notifying UNESCO of the decision, the State Department said it would like to remain involved as a nonmember observer state. That will allow the United States to engage in debates and activities, though it will lose its right to vote on issues. The withdrawal follows longstanding issues the U.S. has had with UNESCO and does not necessarily foreshadow a further retrenchment of U.S. engagement with the United Nations, which the Trump administration has been pushing to bring about structural and financial reforms.
benton.org/headlines/us-withdraws-unesco-uns-cultural-organization-citing-anti-israel-bias | Washington Post
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BENTON FOUNDATION SADDENED US IS LEAVING UNESCO
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Adrianne Furniss]
Assistant Secretary of State William Benton, my grandfather, played an instrumental role in the creation of UNESCO in the wake of World War II and later served as United States Ambassador to UNESCO from 1963 to 1968. Benton realized that increased international understanding demanded that all people have access to modern means of mass communication, which, at the time, meant newspapers, radio, and motion pictures. The Benton-led American delegation to UNESCO’s charter conference wove Benton’s ideas into the fabric of UNESCO which aimed to facilitate continuous and close international contacts among scientists, teachers, and societies. UNESCO continues to work to ensure every child and citizen has access to quality education, lives in a cultural environment rich in diversity and dialogue, benefits from scientific advances, and enjoys full freedom of expression. These aims are as important now as they were in 1945. The Benton Foundation and I are saddened that the U.S. is backing away from our ideals and international commitments.
benton.org/headlines/benton-foundation-saddened-us-leaving-unesco | Benton Foundation
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