Journalism

Connecting the Challenges to Our Democracy

We don’t need to rank in importance the issues of special interest money, ludicrous redistricting, and big media.  They are each part of a linked democratic challenge.  There can be no real democracy without curbing big money.  There can be no real democracy without making Congressional districts representative of the areas they encompass.  There can be no real democracy without an electorate informed by media that digs for the facts citizens need to help chart the future of our country.   Bring these three abuses under control and democracy can flourish again.  Only We the People can make

News Blues

I have a bad case of news blues. Journalism is fast becoming a vast wasteland. Newsrooms across the land are hollowed out, or in many cases shuttered.

Takeaways From Attorney General Nominee Williams Barr's Confirmation Hearing

William Barr’s nomination as President Doanld Trump’s attorney general is in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which conducted a confirmation hearing Jan 15. Below are some key communications policy takeaways:

This is the moment all of Trump’s anti-media rhetoric has been working toward

Don’t believe your eyes and ears. Believe only me. That has been President Trump’s message to the public for the past two years, pounded in without a break: The press is the enemy. The news is fake. President Donald Trump has done his best to prepare the ground for a moment like Aug 21. In a divided, disbelieving nation, will this really turn out to be the epic moment it looks like? Or will Trump’s intense, years-long campaign to undermine the media — and truth itself — pay off now, in the clutch? 

The Press, The People, Are Not The Enemy

I trust that the people of this country have not so lost their love of truth that they would allow their leaders to vilify our brothers and sisters who seek out and report on the truth so that we can aptly practice our democracy.  Who can argue with the importance of a free press to our nation, our democracy, our liberty? And who would try to turn the people against our own tool for holding government accountable? That is the work of tyrants – and tyrants are the true enemy of the people.

Is Facebook a 'Bug' in Our Democracy? Part 2

[Commentary] Is it time to recognize that Facebook, and ‘Big Tech’ at large, may be a bug in our democracy? In Part 1, I examined how the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica story illustrates the harmful effects of “Surveillance Capitalism.” The erosion of our privacy is contributing to the declining health of our democratic discourse.  Moreover though, Facebook has facilitated the proliferation of hate speech, fake news, and international electoral interference.

Year One: Trump vs The Free Press

January 20, 2018 marks the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration. Last week, we documented the Federal Communications Commission’s policy priorities of the past year. This week, we look at President Trump’s war with the press. One of the greatest concerns going into the Trump Presidency was how his Administration would interact with the press. Just eight days into the Trump administration, we published The First Casualty is the Truth: Trump's Running War With the Media, which described the first combative week of the President Trump-press relationship.

Sen Jeff Flake: From our very beginnings, our freedom has been predicated on truth

I rise today to talk about the truth, and its relationship to democracy. For without truth, and a principled fidelity to truth and to shared facts, our democracy will not last. 2017 was a year which saw the truth – objective, empirical, evidence-based truth -- more battered and abused than any other in the history of our country, at the hands of the most powerful figure in our government. It was a year which saw the White House enshrine “alternative facts” into the American lexicon, as justification for what used to be known simply as good old-fashioned falsehoods.

Ajit Pai: Media Ownership Rules Must Adjust to the Digital Era

[Commentary] For over four decades, the Federal Communications Commission has restricted the ability of broadcast media outlets to also own newspapers, and vice versa, in the same market, under what is known as the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule. This rule was established in 1975 with the stated purpose of preserving and promoting a diversity of viewpoints. Arguably, it made sense at the time. But with the internet now dominating the news landscape, the rule is no longer needed, and may actually be undermining the diversity of viewpoints it was intended to foster.

Think of the Public Before the Broadcasters

[Commentary] As the son of a broadcast pioneer who got his license from the Department of Commerce in 1923 and as a former broadcaster myself, I read with great sadness “FCC to Lift Limits on Media Deals.” Although Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai justifies his proposal by saying it will lead to more news gathering locally and more news for consumers, my experience tells me it will be the opposite. First, viewers and listeners don’t need more news, they need better news.

FCC Announces Inflation-Based Caps for E-Rate and Rural Health Care Programs

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureau) announced the E-Rate and Rural Health Care (RHC) programs’ annual caps for funding year 2024. The adjusted amounts represent a 3.6% inflation-adjusted increase to both programs’ funding year 2023 annual caps. The E-Rate program funding cap for funding year 2024 is $4,940,076,139. The RHC program funding cap for funding year 2024 is $706,926,603.

How the Media Industry Keeps Losing the Future

The slow crash of newspapers and magazines would be of limited interest save for one thing: Traditional media had at its core the exalted and difficult mission of communicating information about the world. From investigative reports on government to coverage of local politicians, the news served to make all the institutions and individuals covered a bit more transparent and, possibly, more honest. The advice columns, movie reviews, recipes, stock data, weather report and just about everything else in newspapers moved easily online — except the news itself.

How Gen Z gets its news

For Gen Z, catching up on the news is often a side effect of time spent on social media apps like Instagram and, in particular, TikTok—and media outlets are adapting to serve that behavior. "Gen Z is being fed the news whether they want it or not," Stephanie Kaplan Lewis, CEO of the college-aged media portfolio Her Campus Media, tells Axios, noting that Gen Z news consumers are less likely than Millennials to visit trusted news sources directly. 

Three technology trends shaping 2024’s elections

Three of the most important technology trends in the election space that you should stay on top of. 

Federal Communications Commission Adopts Proposal to Support Local Journalism

The Federal Communications Commission adopted a proposal to advance its longstanding policy goal of supporting local journalism and broadcasters’ commitment to meet the needs and interests of local communities.

The news business faces a reckoning in 2024

A new report saying billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong has sunk hundreds of millions of his own money into an unprofitable Los Angeles Times underscores how desperate the news industry is to chart a plan for survival in the digital era. If billionaire owners can't make the L.A. Times or the Washington Post profitable, then the news industry has to ask itself: What can?

Using a Digital Entertainment Tax to Strengthen Local Information Infrastructure in The United States: A Conceptual Exploration

As traditional local media decline, how might state and local governments provide support for local information infrastructure?

News Publishers Are Fighting Big Tech Over Peanuts. They Could Be Owed Billions.

A bitter battle is taking place between Big Tech and the free press over how to share in the income that news content generates for technology giants. The future of our news ecosystem, a linchpin of democracy, depends on the outcome. Platforms gained their audience in part by sharing news content free.

One-third of US newspapers as of 2005 will be gone by 2024

The decline of local newspapers accelerated so rapidly in 2023 that analysts now believe the U.S. will have lost one-third of the newspapers it had as of 2005 by the end of next year — rather than in 2025, as originally predicted. Most communities that lose a local newspaper do not get a replacement, even online. Over the past two years, newspapers continued to vanish at an average rate of more than two per week, leaving 204 U.S. counties, or 6.4%, without any local news outlet.

More Americans are getting news on TikTok, bucking the trend seen on most other social media sites

A small but growing share of U.S. adults say they regularly get news on TikTok. This is in contrast with many other social media sites, where news consumption has either declined or stayed about the same in recent years. In just three years, the share of U.S. adults who say they regularly get news from TikTok has more than quadrupled, from 3 percent in 2020 to 14 percent in 2023. TikTok, primarily known for short-form video sharing, has become especially popular among teens—two-thirds of whom report ever using the platform—as well as young adults. More of TikTok’s U.S.

Will Broadband Be Affordable? Highlights from an Expert Panel

On October 2, AEI hosted an expert panel to discuss how price controls might affect broadband affordability and ways to ensure broadband is affordable for all Americans. The panel featured New Street Research’s Jonathan Chaplin, Duke University’s Michelle P.

Senators Urge FCC Improve Access to Local Journalism

Twenty senators penned a letter to the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency to improve access to local media on streaming platforms. Current law and FCC rules state that traditional cable and satellite networks must work directly with a local television station before broadcasting local news, sports, and other programming. However, linear streaming services over the internet are not required to negotiate directly with local television stations.

Silicon Valley Ditches News, Shaking an Unstable Industry

The major online platforms are breaking up with news. Some executives of the largest tech companies, like Adam Mosseri at Instagram, have said in no uncertain terms that hosting news on their sites can often be more trouble than it is worth because it generates polarized debates. Others, like Elon Musk, the owner of X, have expressed disdain for the mainstream press. Publishers seem resigned to the idea that traffic from the big tech companies will not return to what it once was.

Newsrooms try AI to check for bias and error

After months of experimenting with artificial intelligence (AI) to make their work more efficient, some newsrooms are now dipping their toes in more treacherous waters: trying to harness AI to detect bias or inaccuracies in their work. Confidence in the news media is at