Pai Bak

main blank 11/17 but mebbe all in fcc?

=https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170120/10204436527/report-president-trump-picks-former-verizon-lawyer-ajit-pai-to-head-fcc.shtml
Report: President Trump Picks Former Verizon Lawyer Ajit Pai To Head FCCBroadband
from the populism-schmopulism deptFri, Jan 20th 2017 11:53am — Karl BodeAs many expected, Donald Trump has chosen former Verizon lawyer and current FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai to head the FCC, according to a report by Politico. According to two anonymous insiders "familiar with the decision," Pai, who met with Trump on Monday, should be formally announced as FCC boss in short order. Pai recently proclaimed that net neutrality's "days are numbered" under Trump, while stating that the reformed FCC would be taking a "weed whacker" to "unnecessary regulations" like the FCC's net neutrality rules and its new consumer broadband privacy protections.
Politico rather soft sells the controversy that Pai will represent to those who don't think technology policy should be dictated by Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Charter Communications:"Pai is already a familiar name in tech and telecom policy debates. He’s a fierce and vocal critic of many regulations passed by the commission's Democratic majority, including the 2015 net neutrality rules that require internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally and are opposed by the major broadband companies."Let's be clear here. Pai has supported the incumbent duopoly providers on nearly every issue of substance. He has vilified net neutrality to an often-comic degree, falsely claiming the rules encouraged dictators in North Korea and Iran and led to a massive slowdown in industry investment. He has consistently refused to even admit the U.S. broadband market has a competition problem. He's made it abundantly clear he wants to eliminate every FCC consumer protection function, and, alongside fellow Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, has even repeatedly voted down holding AT&T accountable for outright fraud.If you're looking for somebody who will rubber stamp every Comcast request shoveled in his general direction, Pai is certainly your man. If you're looking for an FCC leader who's going to care about consumer issues or the plight of the startup or small business in a word dominated by massive, ever-consolidating telecom conglomerates, you're about to get a master class in disappointment. The irony, of course, is that Pai is about as far from the "populist" rhetoric President Trump leaned on to get elected as one can get:[twt: realDonaldTrumpJanuary 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.]Yes, nothing quite says "man of the people" like a former Verizon lawyer who has fought tooth and nail against every single effort to hold large ISPs accountable to the public. On any given day, if the wind is right and with enough pressure, Pai may just be convinced to occasionally do the right thing. But as the leader of an agency tasked with keeping Comcast from viciously savaging both consumers and the competition, it's not really physically possible to make a more controversial and uninspired selection.Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, fcc, net neutrality, privacyCompanies: at&t, comcast, verizon320 bb<h2 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Raleway; margin: 0.1em 0px 0.25em; line-height: 1; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://boingboing.net/2020/01/28/capex-is-for-little-ppl.html" rel="bookmark" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Ajit Pai promised that killing net neutrality would spur network investment, but instead Comcast cut spending by 10.5%</a></h2>
<div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: " libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">When Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai used fraud and skullduggery to <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/10/07/california-exports-neutrality.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(17, 51, 170);">kill net neutrality</a>, he promised that clearing away the allegedly burdensome regulation of delivering the data your customers request would finally spur investment in America's worst-of-bread, ancient network infrastructure. <a href="https://boingboing.net/2020/01/28/capex-is-for-little-ppl.html" class="read-more" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(17, 51, 170);">Read the rest</a></div>==new<p class="yiv4262256041headline3" style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://rawstory.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=80b42ecc21f29763320aceb90&id=195e4e7e7b&e=4da1f92934" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">how House Democrats plan to take on Trump's FCC — and its decision to axe net neutrality</a><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Georgia, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-style="font-style" italic="italic" color="color" rgb="rgb">By Matthew Chapman, AlterNetThe FCC lied to the public amid their commissioner's crusade to kill net neutrality rules. House Democrats plan to get answers. <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://rawstory.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=80b42ecc21f29763320aceb90&id=2f341ebb5e&e=4da1f92934" class="yiv4262256041readmore" style="color: rgb(202, 133, 0); text-decoration-line: none; font-size: 9px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em;">READ MORE»</a>

=<a href="https://boingboing.net/2018/11/19/totally-inexplicable-silence.html">https://boingboing.net/2018/11/19/totally-inexplicable-silence.html</a>When Trump's FCC Chairman Ajit Pai killed Net Neutrality (by deliberately ignoring comments from actual humans in favor <a href="https://boingboing.net/2017/10/04/astroturf-by-comcast.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">of comments left by obvious bots</a>), he said that removing regulation from telcos would boost investment, finally ending the US's status as the <a href="https://broadbandnow.com/report/2018-fcc-international-data-insights/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">worst broadband nation in the world</a>.But it's impossible to say whether that is working, because Pai's office has ended the Obama-era practice of letting the American public view the results of its taxpayer-funded speed-tests. The FCC is still paying to have these tests conducted, but it's been two years since they've released the results. What's more, the FCC is stonewalling on Ars Technica's FOIA requests to find out why the reports are not in the public domain yet.It's a real head-scratcher. Surely releasing the telcos that used to employ Pai from any kind of public reponsibility or regulatory oversight must have resulted in a surge of investment and better value for money for the Americans who are paying Pai's wages during his brief holiday from his service as a senior telcoms executive. You'd think that he'd want to trumpet that new from the hilltops, right? I wonder why he won't release that data.It's just so weird.<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; border-left: 4px solid rgb(153, 153, 153); padding-left: 1em; margin: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">After denying our request for expedited processing, the FCC repeatedly extended its own deadlines for providing documents to us. FCC staff told us they needed more time because they were still "reviewing documents to determine if they are responsive to your request."The FCC, which has an annual budget of $450 million, asked us on October 4 to narrow the scope of our public-records request, telling us that searching for the documents would be "a pretty significant burden and would take a long time to process." We agreed to narrow the request to exclude testing data and to include only emails that relate directly to whether the FCC will release future versions of the Measuring Broadband America report and to whether testing has been discontinued.In response, the FCC's Office of General Counsel told us on October 10 that it would search the chairman's office emails "for records mentioning the Measuring Broadband America report since 2016" and "provide you with any records we locate, consistent with the FoIA statute."Despite that, the FCC didn't meet its new, self-imposed deadline of October 25. On that date, an FCC staffer told Ars via email that the FCC was "unable to meet our due date" and that "at this time, we do not know how long this process will take and cannot give you a due date."We contacted the FCC press office and the FCC official handling our records request again on Monday of last week, but we received no replies.</blockquote><a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/ajit-pai-isnt-saying-whether-isps-deliver-the-broadband-speeds-you-pay-for/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Ajit Pai isn’t saying whether ISPs deliver the broadband speeds you pay for</a>[Jon Brodkin/Ars Technica]=8/18<a href="https://www.alternet.org/sinclair-broadcast-group-tribune-merger-officially-dead">https://www.alternet.org/sinclair-broadcast-group-tribune-merger-officially-dead</a> a victory for free and independent journalism, Tribune Media <a href="https://www.axios.com/tribune-media-sinclair-merged-terminated-c9cdff73-6f13-4dea-83e7-457edafccdd0.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">said</a> on Thursday that it is pulling out of its $3.9 billion merger with Sinclair Broadcast Group, putting the final nail in the coffin of a deal that had seemed inevitable when it was first <a href="https://www.tribunemedia.com/sinclair-broadcast-group-to-acquire-tribune-media-company-for-approximately-3-9-billion/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">announced</a>in May of last year.According to Axios, Tribune is also filing a lawsuit against Sinclair, alleging breach of contract.Sinclair, a Maryland-based company which is the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-who-is-sinclair-broadcast-group-20180403-story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">largest owner of local news stations</a> in the U.S., is notorious for its right-wing, pro-Trump slant, and its unusual system of distributing slanted "must-run" content to its local stations to work into their broadcasts....Reporters at stations owned by Sinclair — which include <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/6/17202824/sinclair-tribune-map" style="text-decoration-line: none;">nearly 200</a> local affiliate news channels across the country branded as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sinclair-broadcast-group-stations-by-state-list-2018-4" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and more</a> — have been forced to run segments that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/business/media/sinclair-broadcast-komo-conservative-media.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">attack Democratic politicians</a>, discredit the FBI's <a href="https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/07/11/sinclair-broadcast-group-propaganda/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">investigation of Russia</a>, call other media outlets "<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/03/the-real-danger-in-sinclair-broadcasts-fake-news-scandal.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">false news</a>", and even run a regular commentary show by a <a href="https://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2017/07/10/boris-epshteyn-sinclair-broadcasting-240359" style="text-decoration-line: none;">former Trump adviser</a>.Leaving no doubt in anyone's mind whose tank they are in, Trump himself has endorsed Sinclair, calling it "<a href="https://nypost.com/2018/04/02/trump-praises-sinclair-for-scripted-false-news-promos/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC</a>."Had the merger with Tribune Media been approved, Sinclair would have completely dominated the local news market. By one estimate, the combined company would have owned stations in <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/5/15/15598270/sinclair-broadcast-imminent-conservative-takeover-of-local-tv-news-explained" style="text-decoration-line: none;">nearly 3 out of 4 U.S. households</a>, controlling an enormous amount of the content Americans see on local stations.Approval of the merger was widely considered inevitable because Trump's FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, is notoriously anti-regulation and pro-merger, and had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/11/16/the-fcc-just-repealed-decades-old-rules-blocking-broadcast-media-mergers/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">rolled back ownership rules</a> for broadcast media companies last year in a manner that seemingly paved the way for the deal.In a surprise move in July, however, Pai said he had "<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tribune-media-m-a-sinclair/fcc-raises-concerns-about-sinclair-tribune-deal-shares-skid-idUSKBN1K6216" style="text-decoration-line: none;">serious concerns</a>" and suggested Sinclair was trying to conceal anticompetitive practices in its proposed purchase and divestiture of certain stations. The FCC moved to refer parts of the deal for review by an administrative law judge, effectively leaving it on life support.With the Tribune merger dead for good, Sinclair will look for <a href="https://www.axios.com/tribune-media-sinclair-merged-terminated-c9cdff73-6f13-4dea-83e7-457edafccdd0.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">other ways</a> to acquire new stations. But for now, a potentially catastrophic change to media markets has been scuttled. And those who value the free press can breathe a little more easily.==

==

<a href="https://www.alternet.org/activism/fcc-moves-end-net-neutrality-did-telecom-lobby-forge-tens-thousands-pro-industry-public">https://www.alternet.org/activism/fcc-moves-end-net-neutrality-did-telecom-lobby-forge-tens-thousands-pro-industry-public</a>

no surprise that the GOP-dominated Federal Communications Commission announced plans Tuesday to jettison Obama-era net neutrality rules, which barred internet gatekeepers from imposing a matrix of new fees pegged to user habits.

In typical corporate double-speak, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-fcc-can-save-the-open-internet-1511281099" style="text-decoration: none;">FCC Chairman Ajit Pai wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed</a> that removing price-gouging barriers would “benefit consumers,” because, “instead of [websites] being flyspecked by lawyers and bureaucrats, the internet would once again thrive under engineers and entrepreneurs.”

Pai’s pro-consumer defense of corporate greed is hardly new. It’s an old trope honed by generations of Washington consultants selling unpopular policies as benefiting the public interest. But what’s different this time around is Pai’s FCC has been trolled by tens of thousands of fake pro-industry comments filed online, which the FCC chairman is citing as part of his public relations effort to repeal net neutrality.

This is the Washington equivalent of waving the propaganda flag put online by Russian trolls in 2016's election. And just like the GOP last year, or others who denied social media messaging had a serious impact, Pai’s FCC doesn’t care if the process was rigged or the target of fake lobbying-via-identity theft.

“The process the FCC has employed to consider potentially sweeping alterations to current net neutrality rules has been corrupted by the fraudulent use of Americans’ identities — and the FCC has been unwilling to assist my office in our efforts to investigate this unlawful activity,” wrote <a href="https://medium.com/@AGSchneiderman/an-open-letter-to-the-fcc-b867a763850a" style="text-decoration: none;">New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, in an open letter posted on Medium.com</a> Tuesday.

“Specifically, for six months my office has been investigating who perpetrated a massive scheme to corrupt the FCC’s notice and comment process through the misuse of enormous numbers of real New Yorkers’ and other Americans’ identities," he said. "Such conduct likely violates state law — yet the FCC has refused multiple requests for crucial evidence in its sole possession that is vital to permit that law enforcement investigation to proceed.”

Put bluntly, not only has the FCC been trolled by a pro-corporate marketing campaign based on identity theft and impersonating citizens, but the FCC is obstructing the New York State attorney general from investigating what is a serious and major crime.

Fabricating Consent

The “massive scheme” to fraudulently lobby the FCC on gutting net neutrality protections was first reported by theVerge.com, a technology website, in May 2017. As Verge <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/10/15610744/anti-net-neutrality-fake-comments-identities" style="text-decoration: none;">reported</a>, popular late-night television host John Oliver encouraged his “viewers to post to a public comment thread with support for strong regulation, and a massive number of people did so. But many others appeared to have a different point of view.”

Verge noticed that tens of thousands of the electronic comments opposed to net neutrality were identical.

“‘The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation,’ read thousands of identical comments posted this week, seemingly by different concerned individuals,” <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/10/15610744/anti-net-neutrality-fake-comments-identities" style="text-decoration: none;">Verge reported</a>. “The comment goes on to give a vigorous defense of deregulation, calling the rules a ‘power grab’ and saying the rollback represents ‘a positive step forward.’ By midday Tuesday, the thread was inundated with versions of the comment. <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/filings?proceedings_name=17-108&q=The%20unprecedented%20regulatory%20power%20the%20Obama%20Administration%20imposed&sort=date_disseminated,DESC" style="text-decoration: none;">A search of the duplicated text</a> found more than 58,000 results as of press time, with 17,000 of those posted in the last 24 hours alone.”

Verge reporters contacted some of the people submitting identical comments and found they did not write them, nor did the impersonated authors have any idea who sent them. Then Verge went fishing for explanations, or at least something approximating a plausible explanation.

“It’s unclear who may have orchestrated the comments,” it wrote. “A line of the language used in the comment, specifically about the ‘unprecedented regulatory power [of] the Obama administration,’ has some resemblance to <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cfif-launches-stop-net-regulation-campaign-as-opposition-mounts-to-stop-the-obama-administrations-attempt-to-take-over-the-internet-84705392.html" style="text-decoration: none;">a 2010 press release</a> from the Center for Individual Freedom, a conservative, anti-net neutrality group.”

When Verge contacted the group, its spokesman said that, yes, it “is asking our supporters and other activists across the nation to submit comments,” and that “our messaging on this general issue has been consistent for nearly a decade.” Verge theorized that a pro-industry group turned the center’s message into lobbying spam, which the center didn’t discount. “Your question about the possibility of someone corrupting the effort is something we need to look into,” a <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/10/15610744/anti-net-neutrality-fake-comments-identities" style="text-decoration: none;">spokesperson said</a>.

Schneiderman said the submission of thousands of fabricated comments violates the spirit of representative government and letter of the law on identity theft.

“In May 2017, researchers and reporters discovered that the FCC’s public comment process was being corrupted by the submission of enormous numbers of fake comments concerning the possible repeal of net neutrality rules,” he wrote. “In doing so, the perpetrator or perpetrators attacked what is supposed to be an open public process by attempting to drown out and negate the views of the real people, businesses, and others who honestly commented on this important issue.”

“Worse, while some of these fake comments used made up names and addresses, many misused the real names and addresses of actual people as part of the effort to undermine the integrity of the comment process. That’s akin to identity theft, and it happened on a massive scale,” Schneiderman continued. “My office analyzed the fake comments and found that tens of thousands of New Yorkers may have had their identities misused in this way. (Indeed, analysis showed that, in all, hundreds of thousands of Americans likely were victimized in the same way, including tens of thousands per state in California, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and possibly others.) Impersonation and other misuse of a person’s identity violates New York law, so my office launched an investigation.”

The FCC’s response to Schneiderman’s inquiries is what one would expect from the Trump administration—ignoring anything that clashes with its political goals.

But this quagmire goes deeper. The FCC’s Pai is siding with telecom companies that want to gouge consumers (just compare broadband costs in the U.S. to overseas), and turning a blind eye to lobbying fabrications that corrupt a public process—federal rule making. This shadowy behavior also runs counter to notable public support to keep net neutrality, Schneiderman said.

“This [New York] investigation isn’t about the substantive issues concerning net neutrality. For my part, I have long publicly advocated for strong net neutrality rules under the Title II of the Communications Act, and studies show that the overwhelming majority of Americans who took the time to write public comments to the FCC about the issue feel the same way while a very small minority favor repeal,” the New York attorney general said. “It’s about the right to control one’s own identity and prevent the corruption of a process designed to solicit the opinion of real people and institutions. Misuse of identity online by the hundreds of thousands should concern everyone — for and against net neutrality, New Yorker or Texan, Democrat or Republican.”

But this is the Trump era, where pursuit of corporate profits is the government’s most pressing purpose. If that means fabricating tens of thousands of online public comments in 2017—so be it. In another eyebrow-raising way, industry insiders wielding new technologies have hijacked a democratic process and the federal official in charge, the FCC’s Pai, couldn’t care less.

=main capt 11/17see FCC<div>
</div><div>=</div><div>net neutrality, eric schniderman</div><div></div><div><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/ready-for-trump-tv-inside-sinclair-broadcastings-plot-to-take-over-your-local-news/">http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/ready-for-trump-tv-inside-sinclair-broadcastings-plot-to-take-over-your-local-news/</a></div><div>...</div><div>
</div><div><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" bitstream="Bitstream" vera="Vera" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">David Smith was fired up. On the day after Trump’s election, he spoke at a media conference at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan. Trump’s victory, Smith <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/story/13888737/1/tv-companies-stand-to-win-if-trump-removes-media-ownership-limits.html" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(">told the audience</a>, was “a really serious opportunity to seek complete deregulation” of broadcasting. “If Donald Trump is as deregulatory as he suggests he is,” he said, “we’re going to be the first industry in line.”<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" bitstream="Bitstream" vera="Vera" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">On the day before Trump’s inauguration, Smith, Armstrong Williams, and Sinclair’s new CEO, Chris Ripley, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/06/trump-fcc-sinclair-broadcast-expansion-241337" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(">had a meeting</a> in Washington with FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. In his five years on the commission, the 44-year-old Pai, an ex-Verizon lawyer and staffer to former Sen. Jeff Sessions, developed a reputation as a sharp and well-spoken advocate for the industry, fighting Wheeler’s steps to limit concentration.<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" bitstream="Bitstream" vera="Vera" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; box-sizing: border-box;">
When Trump took office, he elevated Pai to serve as chairman. Since then the commission has made one move after another that has benefited Sinclair. Two weeks into the administration, the FCC tossed out what remained of Wheeler’s policy clamping down on sidecar agreements. Then, in April, the FCC voted to bring back the ultra high frequency discount, setting the groundwork for Sinclair’s purchase of Tribune Media’s 42 stations. Without the discount, the combined company is estimated to reach 72 percent of households—far above the 39 percent limit. Sinclair officials note that the new FCC changes benefit many companies, not just Sinclair. At an industry luncheon, Ripley praised the chairman’s work to cut regulation: “Thankfully, we’ve got Chairman Pai.”Pai was no stranger to Sinclair. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/us/politics/how-a-conservative-tv-giant-is-ridding-itself-of-regulation.html" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(">Just two months before</a>, he had spoken at the company’s annual meeting for general managers at the Four Seasons in Baltimore, taking a short private meeting with Smith afterward. (What he told the managers is unclear: Sinclair declined to comment for this article, and Pai’s office said it couldn’t locate any remarks or notes for the event in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.) In the January meeting, Smith, Williams, and Ripley argued that the sidecar agreements utilized by Sinclair were vital to the industry, and to a minority broadcaster like Williams. (In March, after opening with a brief disclaimer that he owned TV stations regulated by the FCC, Williams hosted Pai for a <a href="http://wjla.com/news/videos/the-right-side-with-armstrong-williams-fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-profile" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(">friendly interview</a> on his show The Right Side, which airs on Sinclair stations.)<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" bitstream="Bitstream" vera="Vera" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">...=</div><div><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/26/fcc_eliminates_rules_preventing_media_consolidation">https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/26/fcc_eliminates_rules_preventing_media_consolidation</a>major decision by the Federal Communications Commission Tuesday eliminated a decades-old rule that ensures community residents can have a say in their local broadcast TV station. This comes as the FCCannounced plans Wednesday to abolish long-standing media ownership rules. Opponents say these changes will accelerate media consolidation, allowing massive corporate media companies, such as the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group, to buy up and control even more local stations. We speak with Andy Kroll, senior reporter at Mother Jones magazine, whose story in their new issue is titled “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.”---major decision by the Federal Communications Commission that eliminates a decades-old rule that ensures community residents can have a say in their local broadcast TV station. The regulation is known as the “main studio rule,” and it requires broadcasters to have a physical studio near where they have a license to transmit.This comes as the FCC also announced plans, at a hearing Wednesday, to abolish long-standing media-ownership rules, including limits on how many stations or newspapers one company can own in a single market. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai testified Wednesday during a congressional hearing.<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px;">AJIT PAI: If you believe, as I do, that the federal government has no business intervening in the news, then we must stop the federal government from intervening in the news business. And that is why, this afternoon, I shared with my fellow commissioners an order that will reform our media ownership rules and help pull the government, once and for all, out of the newsroom. We will vote on this order at our November 16th meeting.The marketplace today is nothing like it was in 1975. Newspapers are shutting down. Many radio and TV stations are struggling, especially in smaller and rural markets. Online competition for the collection and distribution of news is even greater than it ever was. And just two internet companies claim 100 percent of recent online advertising growth. Indeed, their digital ad revenue alone this year will be greater than the market cap of the entire broadcasting industry. And yet the FCC’s rules still presume that the market is defined entirely by pulp and rabbit ears.</blockquote>AMY GOODMAN: But opponents say these changes will accelerate media consolidation, allowing massive corporate media companies, such as the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group, to buy up and control even more local stations. Earlier this year, Trump’s FCC appointees revived a regulatory loophole that could allow Sinclair to buy 42 TV stations from Tribune Media Company, on top of the more than 170 stations it already owns. The deal means Sinclair stations would reach about 72 percent—almost three-quarters—of U.S. households.This comes as former Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly has reportedly been negotiating for a position with Sinclair Broadcast Group. O’Reilly secretly settled a sexual harassment claim for $32 million in January, the sixth and by far the largest such settlement during his tenure at Fox, from which he was fired.For more, we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by Andy Kroll, senior reporter at Mother Jones magazine, where he’s written extensively about the FCC. His latest <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/ready-for-trump-tv-inside-sinclair-broadcastings-plot-to-take-over-your-local-news/" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px;">story</a> in the current issue is headlined “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.”Andy, welcome back to Democracy Now! You know, a lot of the meme going around is that Trump just can’t get anything done, but it sure doesn’t look that way at the FCC this week. Can you talk about what’s happened?ANDY KROLL: Well, at the FCC this week, as you described, the commission voted along party lines—three Republicans voting in favor, two voting in opposition—to eliminate the main studio rule, this rule from about 80 years ago saying that a local TV or radio station needs to have its studio, its primary studio, in or near the community it serves. And that served a number of purposes, not only for the community to be able to interact with that station, but also tethering that station to the community in which it’s reporting the news and delivering some value to the people who watch it. That rule has been eliminated.And then, as we saw in the clip that you just showed, the chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, a Republican, former staffer to Jeff Sessions, now the attorney general, has said that there is a whole bunch more deregulation in the works. This comes in a year, since President Trump’s inauguration in January, in which the FCC has consistently knocked down one barrier after another to enabling a massive deal frenzy, a consolidation in the broadcast business, which is exactly what companies like Sinclair want, going forward, so that they can gobble up as many TV stations around the country as they can, and basically dominate the local news business.NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Andy, before we get to Sinclair Broadcasting, I wanted to ask you about the context of this attempt—or, in fact, the overturning of the main studio rule. It’s been in effect, as you said, for several decades. Has any other administration attempted to overturn it?ANDY KROLL: No. The rule has been tweaked over time, on several occasions, to, what they say, modernize it. But the substance of the rule, having that studio in the community where the viewers, where the people who depend on that TV or radio station is, that has not changed over time. And the supporters of the rule say there’s a very clear reason for that. Yes, it’s true that with email and with social media you can send a message to your TV station, but the rule also gave that sense of locality. It gave that connection in the newsgathering and in the—you know, just the connection to a community that is so vital to local news. And that has been a bedrock of broadcast television for nearly 80 years and has gone unchallenged under Republican administrations and under Democratic administrations. And now, under President Trump and with Commissioner Pai at the FCC, that rule is ancient history.NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Andy, before—could you explain, because—as a result of overturning this rule, all of these different stations, TV stations and radio stations, can be increasingly consolidated. Now, one of the companies under which these stations have been consolidated is Sinclair Broadcasting. But this media organization, very few people know about. So could you tell us about this broadcasting channel?ANDY KROLL: Yeah. I like to say that Sinclair Broadcast Group is the most influential media organization that most Americans have never heard of. It owns nearly—owns or operates nearly 200 local TV stations around the country. It has a tremendous influence over the local news business.And it marries that influence, that size, reaching into 40 percent of households right now, with a unabashed conservative and pro-Trump agenda. You see that in the kind of programming that Sinclair produces and sends out to its local stations. These are called “must-run segments.” They take, you know, basically, a shamelessly pro-Trump message, repeating talking points of the administration’s through its commentators, and putting that into the local news.And as you mentioned earlier, Sinclair is eyeing a deal to acquire 42 new stations around the country, giving it a reach to almost three-quarters of American households. So this is a massive broadcast company, set to get even bigger. And it has a distinct conservative viewpoint that it is intent and bent on projecting out to the millions of people who watch its television channels.AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean when you say “intent and bent on.” Your headline of your piece, “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.” What are the edicts being handed down?ANDY KROLL: Well, Sinclair is a pioneer in what’s known as the “must-run segment.” This is a segment that is produced by Sinclair’s corporate headquarters here in the D.C. area and also in Maryland, that it produces, and then it sends out to its stations around the country—again, almost 200 of them—and says, “You are required to run this 90-second commentary or this two-minute editorial.” That content, that is being distributed out around the country, has a very clear, unequivocal conservative, partisan bent to it and, frankly, a pro-Trump bent to it.You know, the lead political analyst, if you could call it that, at Sinclair is a man named Boris Epshteyn, former Trump campaign aide and a former Trump White House aide, who left the administration and immediately went into this role at Sinclair. His segments are called “Bottom Line with Boris.” They are distributed, and they are required to run every day at Sinclair stations. And these are basically Trump talking points. And, I mean, you can go on YouTube, you can watch all of his clips in a row. They are 100 percent toeing the Trump line. And if they’re not that, they’re softball interviews with Trump administration officials.AMY GOODMAN: Well, I mean, of course, people might know who Boris Epshteyn is, because during the campaign he was one of his spokespeople, always interviewed on TV. This is one of Boris Epshteyn’s recent commentaries.<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BORIS EPSHTEYN: It is important to note that voter fraud goes beyond stealing or miscounting ballots. Intentionally improper voter registration is absolutely a type of voter fraud. The Commission on Election Integrity has gotten to work. … The extent of voter fraud in our elections has been hotly debated between the left and the right. The president’s commission has been established to come up with a factual, impartial answer to that question. The states should do everything within their power to cooperate with the commission. And that’s the bottom line.</blockquote>AMY GOODMAN: And that is required by every station to run, Andy Kroll?ANDY KROLL: That’s correct. You are—AMY GOODMAN: This is—ANDY KROLL: Yes, that’s right.AMY GOODMAN: This is another clip from a Sinclair station, featuring former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka. The show was broadcast earlier this month.<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SEBASTIAN GORKA: You do not make legislation out of outliers. Our big issue is black African gun crime against black Africans. It is a tragedy. Go to Chicago. Go to the cities run by Democrats for 40 years. Black young men are murdering each other by the bushel.</blockquote>AMY GOODMAN: “By the bushel.” That’s former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka referring to “black African [gun] crime” on “black [Africans],” saying black men are killing each other “by the bushel.” Andy Kroll?ANDY KROLL: Sebastian Gorka, of course, another alumnus of the Trump White House, who, upon leaving, went immediately to Sinclair and is now a talking head at Sinclair. So you see this trend of Trump officials going to Sinclair Broadcast Group and then them being put on the airwaves and either pushing a completely crazy message, that Sebastian Gorka just did, on a segment that was supposed to be about guns in America—AMY GOODMAN: I mean, I think “outright racist” is a very—ANDY KROLL: Outright racist, yeah.AMY GOODMAN: —more accurate way to describe it.ANDY KROLL: Yeah, it’s hard to find the words to describe what that was. You have Boris Epshteyn, as well. His segment, that we just listened to, is basically advocacy for the Trump administration in its deeply flawed, inept supposed commission on investigating voter fraud, which, of course, in most cases, doesn’t exist.So, you have this message, and you have stations around the country that, in a lot of cases, just want to do local news. But as they come under the Sinclair umbrella, they are being told by headquarters, “You will run these segments.” In Boris Epshteyn’s case, Sinclair doubled down and tripled the number of times that Boris Epshteyn was required to be run by its stations. And so, this is the progression we’re seeing this year. So we’re only seeing a more pro-Trump message, at the same time that Sinclair is looking to gobble up more stations and consolidate its control.NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, could you talk, Andy, about the founder of Sinclair Broadcasting Group, David Smith?ANDY KROLL: Yeah. David Smith is a media mogul with an incredible amount of sway over what goes on on the local airwaves. He’s not well known on the level of, say, a Rupert Murdoch, for instance, even though the two men would, I think, consider themselves contemporaries or competitors.David Smith built a small family company that had three TV stations, starting in the mid-’80s. They were based out of Baltimore. And he—by finding ways around the law and taking advantage of ways that the law was changed—in this case, deregulated—in the past few decades, he has grown Sinclair into this conservative TV behemoth that it is today, and one that stands to get even bigger if the Tribune Media merger goes through.David Smith, longtime donor to mostly Republicans, though Democrats, as well, who are in a position to help his company. And today, you know, he throws a party for a Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas. He travels in a, you know, elite, rarefied group of Republican supporters. He’s even bragged about dining at the White House with the president. So he is right at the top of a Republican-industry-donor pyramid, if you will. But he has managed to avoid the amount of attention that, say, a Rupert Murdoch or some other international media moguls that we do of have attracted.AMY GOODMAN: And the merging of Sinclair and Tribune? I mean, these are the smaller local stations that dot the United States, you know, crisscross the United States.ANDY KROLL: That’s right. The deal would give, again, 42 television stations from Sinclair—or from Tribune into Sinclair. It would add more of those dots on the map, as you mentioned. Right now, Sinclair has no presence in Colorado. This would give it a major presence in Colorado. But it would also bring stations in the three largest media markets in the country into the Sinclair company: New York, WPIX; KTLA in Los Angeles; and WGN, one of the most famous broadcast companies in America, in Chicago. So this would really seal Sinclair’s position as the sort of dominant broadcast company—and, of course, given that many more tens of millions of people who would be potentially seeing Boris Epshteyn, Sebastian Gorka, potentially Bill O’Reilly.AMY GOODMAN: Now, when we were talking about Sebastian Gorka, just to understand, as he’s talking about black African violence here in the United States, who he is, the whole controversy around him wearing that pin at the inauguration, of the Vitézi Rend, the newspaper The Forward reporting members of the Vitézi Rend elite order confirmed Gorka took a lifelong oath of loyalty to the Hungarian far-right-wing group, listed by the U.S. State Department as having been under the direction of the Nazi government of Germany during World War II. I mean, just the significance of what is being required by these local stations to run all over the country?ANDY KROLL: Yeah. And Gorka is—if you watch that clip, or the roundtable that that clip comes from, which is available on Sinclair’s website, I mean, Sebastian Gorka is more or less given an open mic to say what he thinks about, in this case, quote-unquote, “guns in America.” We see where he took that theme. But he was a foreign policy aide in the Trump White House. He was not a domestic policy expert. He was not someone working on the issue of guns, for all that we know. And yet he is just given this platform, as he has been on several other occasions with Sinclair.The company seems to have no qualms, given the background that you describe, the fantastic reporting that The Forward has done on his past. They seem to have no problem giving him that platform, just as they reportedly seem to be considering an arrangement with Bill O’Reilly, someone who, as you mentioned, has settled sexual harassment claims for tens of millions of dollars when he was at Fox News, to the point that Fox fired him.AMY GOODMAN: Well, explain that last part. What do you understand is the state of these negotiations? And have they been stopped by this latest news of his $32 million settlement with a Fox host for sexual harassment?ANDY KROLL: What I’ve heard and what I’ve seen reported in the past week is that there are negotiations underway between Sinclair and O’Reilly around either—whether it would be bringing him in as a host or a commentator or some kind of arrangement or partnership between O’Reilly having his own—potentially his own program, his own platform, and Sinclair as the megaphone, if you will, projecting that program, projecting O’Reilly out, using its empire of stations. Now, Sinclair has denied that it is talking with O’Reilly, and has repeatedly done that, though the reporting, that doesn’t go for the official comment from Sinclair, would suggest otherwise.I will say that I, you know, have talked to people in and around Sinclair, and among the rank and file, if you will, there is kind of shock and disgust that—in light of O’Reilly’s sexual harassment settlements and all the allegations at Fox, that Sinclair would be thinking about considering a partnership with him has a lot of people there upset, concerned about their futures, whether they want to work there if Bill O’Reilly joins the company in some capacity.AMY GOODMAN: Well, Andy Kroll, we want to thank you for being with us. We’ll certainly link to your <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/ready-for-trump-tv-inside-sinclair-broadcastings-plot-to-take-over-your-local-news/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border: 0px;">piece</a>. Andy Kroll, senior reporter at Mother Jones magazine, where he has written extensively about the FCC and Sinclair Broadcasting. His piece published this week, we’ll link to, “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.”=</div><div>=</div>==