Los Angeles Times

Thomas Rutledge, chief executive of Charter Communications, committed in a meeting with President Donald Trump to invest $25 billion on broadband infrastructure while joining a trend of business leaders touting previously announced job creation at the White House. In the case of Charter — Southern California’s dominant cable-TV and Internet service provider — Rutledge said he expected to hire 20,000 new US employees over the next four years. Charter had made the hiring promise in 2015 when it was purchasing Time Warner Cable. The new development was the time period in which it will occur. Nevertheless, President Trump indicated the job creation was triggered by his election.

“We are really in the process of announcements and you’re going to see thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs and companies and everything coming back into our country,” President Trump said, flanked by Rutledge and Gov Greg Abbott (R-TX). “They’re coming in far faster than even I had projected.” The large investment in broadband infrastructure was a new commitment from Charter. Rutledge signaled that it was made because of the policies of President Trump and congressional Republicans, who have promised to cut corporate taxes and reduce regulations.

An estimated 17,000 AT&T technicians in California and Nevada went on strike March 22, highlighting workplace tensions within the massive Dallas-based telecommunications giant. The strike follows a protracted dispute between AT&T and union members affiliated with the Communications Workers of America, District 9, who have been working without a contract for nearly a year.

Workers say they have been increasingly asked to perform the duties of higher-paid employees without the same level of compensation. Union members also have been upset by AT&T’s closure of US based call centers, including a facility near Anaheim, to hire workers in overseas locations. They contend that AT&T has moved thousands of call center jobs in recent years to the Philippines, Mexico and other countries. March 9’s walkout, which began at 6 a.m., was to protest what the union said was AT&T’s demand that technicians who typically install and maintain the company’s U-Verse TV service also work on the cables, hardware and other infrastructure used to provide landline phone service (AT&T’s wireless division is not affected by the action).

When Michael Flynn, President Trump’s short-lived national security advisor, resigned last month, Mark Levin was outraged. Not because Flynn had falsely denied speaking with the Russian ambassador about US sanctions before Trump took office. Rather, the conservative talk radio host was furious that US surveillance had picked up Flynn’s venture into freelance diplomacy.

“How many phone calls of Donald Trump, if any, have been intercepted by the administration and recorded by the Obama administration?” Levin demanded on his program, which reaches millions nationwide. “This, ladies and gentlemen, is the real scandal.” With that, what began as rumors and unverified accounts percolating through right-wing media coalesced into a wild conspiracy theory adopted by a president with an itchy Twitter finger, a penchant for intrigue and eagerness to embrace information — however sketchy — that reinforces, rather than tests, his beliefs. Trump’s unfounded claim that President Obama had wiretapped his telephone ricocheted throughout the country, shook Washington and stunned disbelieving US allies. The fallout continues to rattle the embryonic Trump White House.

The president’s own Justice Department, the head of the FBI and the bipartisan leaders of two congressional oversight committees have all said they’ve found no evidence to substantiate the outlandish assertion. But the president and his chief spokesman, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, have refused to back down, aligning themselves with Levin and others operating in what amounts to a hall of mirrors, where the unproven claims of one media outlet are cited as evidence by another and facts are twisted, misdirected or ignored in the service of political propaganda.

“Saying, ‘[regulation] is going to slow down our incentive to invest’ is everybody’s first line of defense...It’s balderdash.”

— Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler

[Commentary] The Trump administration’s determination to roll back regulations protecting the environment, voting rights and financial services consumers has been drawing most of the public’s attention. But a stunningly swift and thorough deregulatory campaign is happening elsewhere in Washington: at the Federal Communications Commission.

Under its new chairman, the Republican former telecommunications industry attorney Ajit Pai, the FCC has cancelled, suspended or stayed a whole checklist of consumer-friendly regulations affecting broadband services, telecommunications, video content and customer privacy rights. Consumer advocates say the consequences may include higher rates for Internet service, less privacy for customers going online and a narrower choice of content. In what may be his most far-reaching act, Pai announced Feb. 27 that the FCC would take a hands-off approach to the AT&T-Time Warner merger, an $85-billion deal between a content distributor and content producer that could remake both industries. That leaves jurisdiction over the merger to the Department of Justice, which is unlikely to block it. President Trump has said he opposes the merger, but he also held a closed-door meeting with AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson just before the inauguration, so whether he will intervene to block the deal remains unknown.

Media companies are preparing for some whirlwind courtships in what’s expected to be the biggest merger bonanza in years.

Verizon, the nation’s largest phone company with more than 114 million wireless subscribers, could pair up with Charter Communications, which has more than 17 million customers in such key markets as Los Angeles, New York and Dallas. This romance and others appear to be blooming one week after President Donald Trump took office and designated a new Federal Communications Commission chairman who favors a more hands-off approach to government regulation than his predecessor.

Traditional media companies desperate for growth don’t want to get left behind as rivals bulk up in an effort to survive a more difficult environment. “What is driving this [merger activity] is challenges in these businesses,” said Matthew Harrigan, a senior analyst with Wunderlich Securities. “There are not a lot of elephants on the savanna, and when one moves, you have to move too.” Trump administration appointees are expected to be friendlier to corporate mergers, returning to a traditional Republican openness to approving major deals after eight years of heightened scrutiny — and some major rejections — under Democratic appointees of former President Barack Obama.

Donald Trump’s presidential victory sent a shock wave through the socially liberal but generally politically detached tech industry, catalyzing something of an awakening in Silicon Valley. Some tech workers who had long toed their companies’ apolitical lines saw Trump’s win as a turning point; the moment when they should become more vocal about their views.

In the months since the election, some workers have organized protests. Others have joined fledgling activist groups such as the Tech Workers Coalition, or the recently-formed Tech Solidarity. Many are now looking for ways big and small to allay their own fears of how a Trump administration might affect issues such as privacy, immigration, and civil rights. The recent election has also made some in Silicon Valley reflect on the industry’s responsibility as creators of services used by governments and political candidates.

[Commentary] President Donald Trump named Ajit Pai to take over as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Chairman Pai, a Republican, has served on the five-member commission since 2012, and no one questions his smarts or his grasp of complex telecom issues. Unlike some other Trump appointees, this one knows his stuff.

That said, Chairman Pai has a solid track record of favoring deregulation of phone, cable and broadband companies. It’s a sure bet he’ll adopt a more hands-off approach to overseeing the telecom industry than his Democratic predecessor, Tom Wheeler, who believed government regulators have an important role to play in consumer protection. “Pai is the anti-Wheeler,” said Harold Feld, senior vice president of Public Knowledge. “Anything Wheeler tried to do, Pai would be the first to say it went too far.” For consumers, Feld said, a key change will be Chairman Pai renouncing Wheeler’s position that phone rules apply to broadband services — a stance that gave the FCC sweeping authority over high-speed Internet providers. It may sound wonky, but it’s a very big deal.

Hollywood had been backing the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, which President Trump formally withdrew from on Jan 23. Though the agreement wasn’t all that Hollywood hoped, its lobbying arm, the Motion Picture Association of America, supported the deal because it felt the deal would further open Asian markets to film distribution and combat piracy. The MPAA said the deal would:
1) Strengthen copyright protections: The treaty ensured that copyright owners of digital material had the exclusive right to make their works available online. It extended the length of copyright protection to the life of the creator plus 70 years, which protected film studios.
2) Forbid governments from requiring companies to turn over encryption keys: This measure was seen in Hollywood as a breakthrough to maintain security and curtail digital theft.
3) Eliminate tariffs on DVDs and other film storage products: For movie studios, the trade deal was seen as helpful because it would remove tariffs on digital cinema packs and 35-millimeter film.
4) Remove local partnership requirement: The agreement would prevent governments from requiring that a company or person, as a condition for importing movies or television shows, establish a contractual relationship with a local distributor.

Cable news networks had reason to feel bittersweet about the end of 2016 as Donald Trump’s historic campaign for the White House drove their ratings to record levels. But in the days leading up to his inauguration as the 45th president of the United States, Trump’s continuing love-hate relationship with them is providing a compelling sequel.

CNN, Fox News and MSNBC have seen a surprising surge in their audience levels this month as they report in real time on the unpredictable saga of Trump, who can dictate their programming day with his Twitter account. After Trump takes the oath of office Jan 20, they will be covering a president whose distrust and ridicule of the media is unlike anything they have seen from a commander in chief. While it’s apparent Trump’s combative nature is lifting viewer interest, the uncharted territory of his presidency is likely to test the journalistic spine of the organizations as well.