Government & Communications

The Federal Communications Commission is taking dozens of meetings with companies, trade groups and public policy advocates as it gears up to change its regulatory classification of broadband and loosen its network neutrality rules. But FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s own calendar mostly has been filled with proponents of redoing the commission’s broadband classification and rewriting the rules.

Chairman Pai or his staff have sat down 15 times since he became chairman in January with companies and groups asking him to undo the FCC’s underlying regulatory classification of broadband and enact looser net neutrality rules. Pai or his staff have held four meetings with groups that have urged him to keep their priorities in mind in whatever approach he takes; and another three meetings with people urging Pai to leave the issue to Congress or the Supreme Court to resolve. Two of those meetings were with tech trade groups, CALinnovates and the Application Developers Alliance, who want Pai to let Congress rewrite the rules. AT&T is a member of both groups.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly tore into President Trump’s voter commission for reneging on a promise to fully disclose public documents before a July 19 meeting, ordering the government to meet new transparency requirements and eliciting an apology from administration lawyers.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly of Washington said the Election Integrity Commission released only an agenda and proposed bylaws before its first meeting at the White House complex. But once gathered, commissioners sat with thick binders that included documents the public had not seen, including a specially-prepared report and a 381-page “database” purporting to show 1,100 cases of voter fraud, both from the Heritage Foundation, and also received a typed list of possible topics to address from the panel vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Judge Kollar-Kotelly said the panel’s after-the-fact argument was “incredible” when it said it did not believe documents prepared by individual commissioners for the July meeting had to have been posted in advance.

[Commentary] President Donald Trump’s assault on journalistic integrity and shared verifiable facts has ignited a reaction among public intellectuals to demand fealty to scientific truth. Unfortunately, the reaction, like so many produced in the haste of political controversy, has oversimplified and overcorrected for the problem.

One common assumption within the resistance is that existing systems for regulating scientific claims are self-evidently wise. My new article, “Snake Oil“ (forthcoming in the Washington Law Review), is therefore coming out at a rather inconvenient time. I loathe the Trump administration’s disregard for and delegitimization of scientific institutions, including expert federal agencies. Nevertheless, the methods that some expert agencies use to constrain the information flow to consumers are highly flawed.

On July 6, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs issued a scathing report detailing what the Committee characterized as a seething epidemic of classified information making its way into the press. Titled, “State Secrets: How an Avalanche of Media Leaks Is Harming National Security,” the 23-page document cites “at least 125 stories” between Inauguration day and May 25 “with leaked information potentially damaging to national security.” That last part is debatable.

While the report does include a handful of truly astonishing disclosures—things like FISA warrants and transcripts of private phone calls with foreign leaders—most of the document essentially reads like a chronology of what the public has learned about the interlocking investigations into the Trump administration and its potential ties to Russia. The bylines of New York Times and Washington Post reporters are especially prolific. “Listing individual reporters who allegedly harmed national security is something that illiberal nations do,” the Committee to Protect Journalists wrote in response. Trump’s election was not a total sea change. Those who spoke with me agreed that the previous administration laid the groundwork for the current leak jihad. But his very public war on the press, along with his suspicion of his own intelligence agencies, has significantly raised the temperature.

[Commentary] It should be among the easier tasks of a cabinet member to affirm, without hesitation, that the president he or she serves represents the values of the American people. But that was more than Secretary of State Rex Tillerson could muster during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” Asked by Chris Wallace whether President Trump’s morally vacuous response to the racist march and deadly violence in Charlottesville (VA) made his job harder, Mr. Tillerson said, “I don’t believe anyone doubts the American people’s values or the commitment of the American government or the government’s agencies to advancing those values and defending those values.” “And the president’s values?” Mr. Wallace asked. Mr. Tillerson replied, “The president speaks for himself, Chris.” Coming from the man the president picked to represent the nation around the world, it was a stunning admission, devastating in its simplicity and painful in its accuracy.

In his first seven months as president, Donald Trump has generally drawn high job approval ratings among Republicans. But a new survey finds that nearly a third of Republicans say they agree with the president on only a few or no issues, while a majority expresses mixed or negative feelings about his conduct as president. A separate survey, conducted on Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel, finds stark divisions between those who approve and those who disapprove of Trump’s job performance in their impressions of the president.

Those who disapprove of Trump cite several concerns about him: 32% point to his personality, including his temperament; 25% mention his policies, particularly foreign policy and its impact on U.S. standing in the world; and 19% fault his intelligence or competence. Trump’s supporters raise different concerns: 17% of those who approve of his job performance cite his use of Twitter and other social media, while 16% say they are most concerned about obstruction from others, such as Congress and the news media. About one-in-ten of those who approve of Trump say their biggest concern is his personality (11%) and a similar share point to his policies (10%).

“The reality is that government, for a long period of time, has for whatever set of reasons become less functional and isn’t working at the speed that it once was. And so it does fall, I think, not just on business but on all other areas of society to step up.” That was Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, across the table from me over breakfast here in downtown Austin (TX) late last week at the end of a mini-tour across the country during which he focused on topics usually reserved for politicians: manufacturing, jobs and education. Now Cook is one of the many business leaders in the country who appear to be filling the void, using his platform at Apple to wade into larger social issues that typically fell beyond the mandate of executives in past generations. He said he had never set out to do so, but he feels he has been thrust into the role as virtually every large American company has had to stake out a domestic policy.

[Commentary] Three days before Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, President Trump told Americans that most journalists are “bad people” who “don't like our country.” As the media covers the devastation in Houston and the surrounding area, however, even Breitbart News has begrudgingly acknowledged that the president's characterization might not be entirely fair, reporting that “journalists are helping to direct emergency crews to save stranded drivers rather than encouraging enraged mobs to riot against the police.”

In all seriousness, the response to the storm has showcased the best of elected officials, first responders, next-door neighbors and, yes, even reporters. The media's reputation is hardly the most important thing at stake in the midst of a natural disaster. But my job is to write about the press, and it is impossible not to view the work of reporters on the ground — disseminating vital information and relaying the stories of victims and heroes — against the backdrop of Trump's ceaseless campaign to undermine the media's credibility.

[Commentary] Government and corporate control of the press is certainly not new but has gone in a new direction, exacerbated not just by the rise of right wing populism but also by digital technology and the far reach of the internet. It’s hard to remember now how many people thought the internet would secure the reign of independent journalism by boosting the flow of information. Instead, the loss of advertising revenues for traditional media has created a cascading effect that in some countries has left the press fighting for its life. This collapse of the old business model paved the way for media capture to take hold. Finding solutions to the problems of capture, or at least ways to limit its effects, is one of the crucial challenges of our time. Government regulation of cross-ownership, digital taxation, and financial support for quality media are just a few much-needed solutions.
[Schiffrin is the director of the Technology, Media and Communications specialization at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.]

A top executive from Donald Trump’s real estate company e-mailed Vladi­mir Putin’s personal spokesman during the US presidential campaign in 2016 to ask for help advancing a stalled Trump Tower development project in Moscow, according to documents submitted to Congress Aug 28. Michael Cohen, a Trump attorney and executive vice president for the Trump Organization, sent the e-mail in January 2016 to Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s top press aide.

“Over the past few months I have been working with a company based in Russia regarding the development of a Trump Tower - Moscow project in Moscow City,” Cohen wrote Peskov, according to a person familiar with the e-mail. “Without getting into lengthy specifics the communication between our two sides has stalled.” “As this project is too important, I am hereby requesting your assistance. I respectfully request someone, preferably you, contact me so that I might discuss the specifics as well as arranging meetings with the appropriate individuals. I thank you in advance for your assistance and look forward to hearing from you soon,” Cohen wrote. Cohen’s e-mail marks the most direct interaction yet documented of a top Trump aide and a similarly senior member of Putin’s government.