FCC
primary 3/18 on sinclair
see brendan carr trumpista
see ajit pai
net neutrality
"Trump's threat to defund all US public media has NPR and PBS on the back foot," The Guardian,December 28, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/201979?t=11&akid=423224%2E23137266%2EF-eWqS
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nyt
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F.C.C. Chair Orders Investigation Into NPR and PBS Sponsorships
Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said the inquiry could help Congress decide whether to continue funding local stations.
“I am concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials,” said Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, who was appointed by President Trump.
Benjamin MullinDavid McCabe
By Benjamin Mullin and David McCabe
Jan. 30, 2025
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission has waded into the politicized debate over NPR and PBS, ordering up an investigation that he said could be relevant in lawmakers’ decision about whether to continue funding the public news organizations.
Brendan Carr, the chairman, said in a letter to NPR and PBS on Wednesday that the inquiry would focus on whether the news organizations’ member stations violated government rules by recognizing financial sponsors on the air.
Mr. Carr said that NPR and PBS stations operate as noncommercial broadcast organizations, but that they may be airing “announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.”
“To the extent that these taxpayer dollars are being used to support a for-profit endeavor or an entity that is airing commercial advertisements,” Mr. Carr wrote, “then that would further undermine any case for continuing to fund NPR and PBS with taxpayer dollars.”
The letter is the latest action from President Trump’s allies to target NPR and PBS stations and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a taxpayer-funded organization that backs them. Executives at NPR and PBS stations have been bracing for a potential battle over government funding, gaming out financial worst-case scenarios.
Mr. Carr, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, said he did not see a reason for lawmakers to continue funding the organizations. He said that he planned to notify members of Congress about his investigation.
Katherine Maher, the chief executive of NPR, said in a statement that the organization’s practice of using sponsorships, also known as underwriting, “complies with federal regulations.”
“We are confident any review of our programming and underwriting practices will confirm NPR’s adherence to these rules,” Ms. Maher said. “We have worked for decades with the F.C.C. in support of noncommercial educational broadcasters who provide essential information, educational programming, and emergency alerts to local communities across the United States.”
PBS said in a statement that it was proud of “noncommercial educational programming,” and worked “diligently to comply with the F.C.C.’s underwriting regulations.”
Two F.C.C. commissioners released statements taking issue with Mr. Carr’s investigation. Anna Gomez, a Democrat, said that the investigation appeared to be an attempt to “weaponize the power of the F.C.C.” Geoffrey Starks, also a Democrat, said that Mr. Carr’s statement gave him “serious concern.”
NPR and PBS have for decades aired sponsorships under rules set forth by the government. While public broadcasters are restricted by law from accepting traditional commercials, the F.C.C. has become more permissive over the years about what public stations are allowed to air. The F.C.C.’s evolving stance on the issue has gradually allowed public radio stations to become less dependent on government funding.
Eric Nuzum, a former NPR executive and co-founder of the audio consulting and production company Magnificent Noise, said that sponsorships and underwriting differ sharply from advertising on commercial TV and radio in several respects.
“The difference is, in a commercial, the sponsor can say anything they want — it’s their time,” Mr. Nuzum said. “In an underwriting situation, the station provides an acknowledgment of who’s providing the funding, along with basic information about the underwriter.”
Earlier this week, NPR executives told staff members that a memo issued by Mr. Trump’s administration imperiled two grant programs benefiting local stations, citing guidance from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Mr. Trump’s administration rescinded that memo after it was blocked by a judge.
Seth Stern, the director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, said he believed Mr. Carr seemed to be setting up a legal pretext for interfering with public media.
“The end of Mr. Carr’s letter tellingly goes far beyond underwriting and talks about his thoughts on whether public media should be funded at all and notes that this underwriting issue might be relevant to a broader legislative debate,” Mr. Stern said. “That was troubling to read.”
A correction was made on Jan. 31, 2025: An earlier version of this article misstated the status of legislation that would defund public media. There is no legislation pending before Congress.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Benjamin Mullin reports on the major companies behind news and entertainment. Contact him securely on Signal at +1 530-961-3223 or at benjamin.mullin@nytimes.com. More about Benjamin Mullin
David McCabe is a Times reporter who covers the complex legal and policy issues created by the digital economy and new technologies. More about David McCabe
A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 31, 2025, Section B, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: New F.C.C. Chair Questions PBS and NPR Sponsorships. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
See more on: Federal Communications Commission, National Public Radio, Public Broadcasting Service
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Trump’s War With the Press Takes a Terrifying Turn
Donald Trump has nominated a Project 2025 author to lead the Federal Communications Commission.
Donald Trump has announced that the next Federal Communications Commission chair would be Brendan Carr, the senior-most Republican on the FCC and a contributor to Project 2025.
“Commissioner Carr is a warrior for free speech, and has fought against the regulatory lawfare that has stifled Americans’ freedoms, and held back our economy,” Trump said in a statement Sunday. The president-elect did not mention Carr’s involvement in Project 2025.
In his Project 2025 chapter, Carr outlined his agenda for the FCC. Carr wrote that one of the goals for Trump’s administration should be reining in Big Tech’s “attempts to drive diverse political viewpoints from the digital town square,” according to Business Insider. Carr suggested that companies be unable to censor content unless it is illegal, allowing consumers to choose their own content filters and fact-checking services.
Carr’s intentions for social media are perhaps best demonstrated by X, which has been transformed into a MAGA misinformation echo chamber by its owner, Elon Musk, who seems to have permanently attached himself to Trump’s side.
Carr also pushed to ban TikTok if its parent company, ByteDance, does not sell its U.S. operations, warning that Americans were receiving their news and information from China.
In addition to addressing Big Tech, Carr also wrote that the FCC should focus on “promoting national security, unleashing economic prosperity, and ensuring FCC accountability and good governance.”
House Democrats previously called for an investigation into Carr over his partisan activity, but it did not result in formal action, according to NPR. Carr said he received approval from FCC ethics officials to contribute to the right-wing playbook.
Trump spent months on the campaign trail disavowing Project 2025, an authoritarian policy road map cooked up by the right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation, only to now welcome its architects into the fold.
Last month, Carr railed against Kamala Harris’s surprise appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, calling it “a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule” and “biased and partisan conduct.” Trump was offered equal time on NBC, and the FCC said they had “not made any determination regarding political programming rules, nor have we received a complaint from any interested parties.”
Still, Carr took up the bullhorn on behalf of the president who’d appointed him to the FCC in 2017.
FCC rules dictate that only three commissioners can be affiliated with the same political party at any given time, and none can have a financial interest in any commission-related business. The FCC is responsible for regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. Under Trump’s first administration, the FCC repealed net neutrality rules, which were then reinstated this year.
3 23 Gigi scalp
We strongly urge you to reject Sohn’s nomination to the FCC and hold our regulators to the highest standard.
Sincerely,
Center for a Free Economy
Americans for Tax Reform
60 Plus Association
American Commitment
Center for Individual Freedom
Citizen Outreach
Conservatives for Property Rights
Consumer Action for a Strong Economy
Institute for Liberty
Less Government
Market Institute
Independent Women’s Voice
Eagle Forum
Affiliations listed for identification purposes only.
murdoch fuckery
12/22 demand progress
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation has cooked up a new fee to charge TV provider DirecTV — and if it goes into effect, DirecTV, DirecTV Stream, and U-Verse customers nationwide are likely to get stuck with higher prices for their cable service.1 Tell DirecTV: say NO to Fox’s new carriage fee!
we need DirecTV to stand up to Fox to save consumers from exorbitant fees because the Supreme Court has ruled cable networks like Fox fall outside of the Federal Communications Commission’s jurisdiction.2 In cases like these, smaller corporations can be our ally in fighting price gouging.
But the fact that Fox is largely insulated from the FCC hasn’t stopped Rupert Murdoch from fighting tooth and nail to sabotage this critical institution. We haven’t had a functioning FCC for the entirety of Biden’s presidency because the Senate — pressured by Fox and Comcast — has refused to confirm Biden’s nominee for FCC Chair, Gigi Sohn. Comcast and Fox News have paid for lobbyists to actively court swing votes in the Senate against Sohn.2
Fox News has been pushingfalse narrativesthat Gigi Sohn would harm rural America, that she wants to censor conservatives, and that she’s bad for media diversity. As telecoms reporter Karl Bode put it, “None of these are supported by any facts that you can find if you spend 30 minutes objectively researching her record.”2
Fox’s smear campaign makes clear: cable news will stop at nothing to clear the way for profiteering. We need TV providers to resist, and we demand the Senate get in gear!
new York’s attorney general says the nation’s largest broadband companies funded a secret campaign to influence the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of net neutrality rules. Attorney General Letitia James said Thursday an investigation by her office found that in 2017, “The broadband industry hired marketing companies that co-opted and created identities and filed nearly 18 million fake comments with the FCC and sent over half a million fake letters to Congress in support of the repeal.” Supporters of net neutrality say protections are needed to preserve an open internet and to bar internet service providers from stopping or slowing down the delivery of websites.
TOPICS:
AN 1220
Worse than Ajit Pai': Senate confirms Trump's unqualified FCC nominee
The U.S. Senate on Tuesday voted to confirm Nathan Simington, President Donald Trump's parting nominee to the Federal Communications Commission, despite serious questions regarding his lack of qualification for the cruciaL...
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One of the things that the FCC and FTC have not done effectively over the last few decades
is hold telecommunications companies like AT&T and Verizon accountable for their tax-subsidized infrastructure obligations. In fact, the FCC under Trump's choice and former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai, have done everything possible to protect big telecommunications from being held responsible for their fraudulent behaviors. The Republican-run FCC has done all of this in the name of deregulation and the promise that the invisible hand of the market will provide. Unsurprisingly, so far deregulating the system, giving out massive tax breaks to big telecoms and destroying net neutrality consumer protections have led to the opposite effect.
On Thursday, Mississippi Public Service Commission (PSC) officials sent a letter to the FCC calling on the corrupt body to investigate AT&T's claims of "providing internet service to 133,000 locations in Mississippi using federal aid from the Connect America Fund." How much federal-aid money did AT&T get their hands on? According to Arstechnica, thetelecommunications company has pulled in a sweet $283,000,000 "from the Federal Communications Commission's Connect America Fund to expand its network in Mississippi," since 2015. Ah, that sweet corporate welfare!
According to the PSC's letter, their investigation has turned up nothing but examples of AT&T falsely claiming to have created new broadband service in places they have not, for people that are not receiving broadband access. More specifically, saying you have provided internet access to 133,000 "locations" is incredibly vague when the point is to provide human beings with good service. Considering that AT&T has a history of taking taxpayer money to provide broadband and wireless services, only to not do that, and also make false claims of having done that, the news out of Mississippi isn't particularly surprising.
The PSC has been pushing the telecom giant for more information regarding their service providing in Mississippi since subpoenaing them in September, demanding "production of documents showing the number of actual subscribers to AT&T's fixed wireless service within the 133,000 locations where the company claims to have provided service, the number of complaints filed with the company by customers who have taken service and the number of Mississippians who applied for fixed wireless service based on AT&T's assertion that it was available and were later determined not to be in an area covered."
In 2015, AT&T made a deal with the U.S. government where they would get almost half a billion a year to bring very meager broadband 10MB service to rural areas. That money has been pulled from the Connect America Fund.
AT&T will get the money over six years with an option for a seventh, potentially bringing the total to about $3 billion, according to Multichannel News. AT&T and other carriers getting Connect America funding have to deploy Internet service to 40 percent of funded locations by the end of 2017, 60 percent by the end of 2018, 80 percent by the end of 2019, and to 100 percent of locations by the end of 2020, the article said.
For a very long time now AT&T has argued—somehow very successfully—that letting localities or individuals build out their own broadband networks stops the telelcom from taking our tax money. Seriously, they have argued that. AT&T has also argued that when they say one thing but do another thing, like not provide broadband service while taking federal money by saying they've provided that infrastructure, they haven't lied or mislead anyone because reporters have investigated them and exposed them. Seriously, they really have argued that.
The FCC has taken out its own teeth but ending net neutrality protections. Ajit Pai has argued that the FCC cannot regulate the industry that it was created to regulate. This, of course, means that without a new president and a new FCC, any chance of getting telecommunications companies to do what they're supposed to do for the general public is unlikely.
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/leaked-draft-of-trump-executive-order-to-censor-the-internet-denounced-as-unconstitutional-edict/
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Leaked draft of Trump executive order to ‘censor the internet’ denounced as unconstitutional edict
Written by Jon Queally / Common Dreams August 11, 2019
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Civil liberties groups are warning of a major threat to online freedoms and First Amendment rights if a leaked draft of a Trump administration edict—dubbed by critics as a “Censor the Internet” executive order that would give powerful federal agencies far-reaching powers to pick and choose which kind of Internet material is and is not acceptable—is allowed to go into effect.
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According to CNN, which obtained a copy of the draft, the new rule “calls for the FCC to develop new regulations clarifying how and when the law protects social media websites when they decide to remove or suppress content on their platforms. Although still in its early stages and subject to change,the Trump administration’s draft order also calls for the Federal Trade Commission to take those new policies into account when it investigates or files lawsuits against misbehaving companies.”
While Politico was the first to report how the draft was being circulated by the White House, CNN notes that if put into effect, “the order would reflect a significant escalation by President Trump in his frequent attacks against social media companies over an alleged but unproven systemic bias against conservatives by technology platforms. And it could lead to a significant reinterpretation of a law that, its authors have insisted, was meant to give tech companies broad freedom to handle content as they see fit.”
Following reporting on the leaked draft, free speech and online advocacy groups raised alarm about the troubling and far-reaching implications of the Trump plan if it was put into effect by executive decree.
The ¦¦¦¦¦¦ White House just ¦¦¦¦¦¦ leaked a draft executive order ¦¦¦¦¦¦ that would ¦¦¦¦¦¦ give the government the power ¦¦¦¦¦¦ to censor the Internet. ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ We have to stop it before it’s ¦¦¦¦¦¦. https://t.co/mQCoL86ifA
— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) August 11, 2019
“It’s hard to put into words how mind bogglingly absurd this executive order is,” said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, in a tweet. “In the name ofdefending free speech it would allow mass government censorship of online content. In practice, it means whichever party is in power can decide what speech is allowed on the internet.”
PEN America, which defends the free expression for writers, journalists, and others, warned that any executive order based on this draft rule would be an unconstitutional “anti-American edict.”
If this accurately reflects resulting EO, it’s an anti-American edict that would empower FCC & FTC to be viewpoint-based arbiters of online speech. Thankfully, 1st Amendment forbids that. It’s regrettable that this Administration doesn’t seem to know that. https://t.co/uKNqE6UKD4
— PEN America (@PENamerica) August 9, 2019
As detailed in an action alert put out by Fight for the Future over the weekend:
[The] leaked documents show that the Trump administration is drafting an executive order that, if upheld by the courts, could essentially end free speech on the Internet. The draft order would put the FTC and the FCC, headed by itsnotoriously corrupt chairman Ajit Pai, in charge of monitoring and policing online speech on social media platforms, online forums, and more.
It would give these bureaucratic government agencies unprecedented control over how Internet platforms moderate speech by allowing them to revoke the essential protections Congress laid out in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). CDA 230 is the basic law that makes it possible for online platforms to let users post our own content, and to make basic decisions about what types of content they as private entities want to host. Every meme, every social media post, every blog and user-created video on the Internet has been made possible by this crucial free speech protection.
In practice, this executive order would mean that whichever political party is in power could dictate what speech is allowed on the Internet. If the government doesn’t like the way a private company is moderating content, they can shut their entire website down.
“These leaks about a potential Executive Order from the White House are troubling on many levels, from the order’s potential to violate the First Amendment, to its apparent disregard for the independence of agencies like the FCC and the FTC, to its intent to unilaterally limit Section 230 which promotes moderated online communities free of hate speech and misinformation,” said Chris Lewis, president and CEO of Public Knowledge.
“If these reports are a trial balloon from the White House,” Lewis added, “then it’s time to pop it.”
While the Trump administration has tried to argue the new order is a tool to keep web platforms from censoring online speech, Fight for the Future warns “this plan would create terrifying new censorship powers for the government to do just that.”
While Fight for the Future acknowledged the serious and legitimate concerns about the behavior and outsized power of the major tech giants, it said the draft rule is a simply unacceptable way to address those issues:
Look, we’re also concerned about the growing power that mega-platforms like Facebook and Twitter have to control online speech.
But this draft Executive Order would make that situation SO much worse, by opening a pandora’s box of government censorship.https://t.co/mQCoL86ifA
— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) August 11, 2019
Despite loud and continued claims from right-wing forces that platforms like Facebook and Twitter are biased against them, Public Knowledge’s Lewis said the new White House proposal is yet another reason to push back against this unfounded mantra that Trump himself has helped proliferate.
“Political bias by digital platforms remains unproven. In fact, an independent study by The Economist points towards search platforms having a bias towards virality and attention, not political ideology,” said Lewis. “This matches reports from books like Tim Wu’s “The Attention Merchants” and others that study social media addiction. It is this sort of algorithmic bias towards virality that foreign adversaries use to sow disinformation and mistrust in our country.”
Given how much power the proposed would place in the hands of the FCC and FTC, Lewis said it is crucial for the heads of those agencies—including FCC chair Ajit Pai, a former telecom industry lobbyist and Trump appointee—to come forward and make clear their commitment to First Amendment protections.
“It is all the more important to hear from FCC commissioners given Chairman Pai’s strong condemnation of public positions taken by past administrations on net neutrality violating the independence of the FCC,” said Lewis. “If these reports are true, this Executive Order serves as a direct order to the FCC that if left unchallenged, could threaten the independence of these agencies altogether.”
As part of its effort to halt such an executive order in its track, Fight for the Future people urged people—”regardless of your politics”—to oppose the measure.
“Regardless of how you feel about the president,” the group said, “this is a terrible idea that will have the exact opposite impact of its stated purpose of protecting free speech.”
eshoo trying to get pai to expand broadband bd as now majority reps from telecomms
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https://kpfa.org/episode/the-ralph-nader-radio-hour-july-22-2019/
thom hartmann
RR got rid of fairness doctrine;
in 80's deal to let cable corps run thru public right of way was cspan and local public access shows; now 719 FCC looking to make a deal to get rid of;1996 Telecomm act BC, operating in public interest was traditionally interpreted on radio is news at the top on the hour (even on music/entertainment?) TH says his job was to do news, and he would be fired if even seen talking to sales side, firewall;
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how House Democrats plan to take on Trump's FCC — and its decision to axe net neutrality
By Matthew Chapman, AlterNet
The FCC lied to the public amid their commissioner's crusade to kill net neutrality rules. House Democrats plan to get answers. READ MORE»
8/18
https://www.alternet.org/sinclair-broadcast-group-tribune-merger-officially-dead
a victory for free and independent journalism, Tribune Media said 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 announced 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 largest owner of local news stations 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.
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Reporters at stations owned by Sinclair — which include nearly 200 local affiliate news channels across the country branded as ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and more — have been forced to run segments that attack Democratic politicians, discredit the FBI's investigation of Russia, call other media outlets "false news", and even run a regular commentary show by a former Trump adviser.
Leaving no doubt in anyone's mind whose tank they are in, Trump himself has endorsed Sinclair, calling it "far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC."
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 nearly 3 out of 4 U.S. households, 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 rolled back ownership rules 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 "serious concerns" 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 other ways 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.
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nation, hertsgaard cell phone
hy, after such acrimony, Carlo was allowed to make one last appearance before the CTIA board is a mystery. Whatever the reason, Carlo flew to New Orleans in February 2000 for the wireless industry’s annual conference, where he submitted the WTR’s final report to the CTIA board. According to Carlo, Wheeler made sure that none of the hundreds of journalists covering the event could get anywhere near him.
When Carlo arrived, he was met by two seriously muscled men in plain clothes; the larger of the two let drop that he had recently left the Secret Service. The security men steered Carlo into a holding room, where they insisted he remain until his presentation. When summoned, Carlo found roughly 70 of the industry’s top executives waiting for him in silence. Carlo had spoken a mere 10 minutes when Wheeler abruptly stood, extended a hand, and said, “Thank you, George.” The two muscle men then ushered the scientist to a curbside taxi and waited until it pulled away.
In the years to come, the WTR’s cautionary findings would be replicated by numerous other scientists in the United States and around the world, leading the World Health Organization in 2011 to classify cell-phone radiation as a “possible” human carcinogen and the governments of Great Britain, France, and Israel to issue strong warnings on cell-phone use by children. But as the taxi carried Carlo to Louis Armstrong International Airport, the scientist wondered whether his relationship with the industry might have turned out differently if cell phones had been safety-tested before being allowed onto the consumer market, before profit took precedence over science. But it was too late: Wheeler and his fellow executives had made it clear, Carlo told The Nation, that “they would do what they had to do to protect their industry, but they were not of a mind to protect consumers or public health.”
This article does not argue that cell phones and other wireless technologies are necessarily dangerous; that is a matter for scientists to decide. Rather, the focus here is on the global industry behind cell phones—and the industry’s long campaign to make people believe that cell phones are safe.
As happened earlier with Big Tobacco and Big Oil, the wireless industry’s own scientists privately warned about the risks.
That campaign has plainly been a success: 95 out of every 100 adult Americans now own a cell phone; globally, three out of four adults have cell-phone access, with sales increasing every year. The wireless industry is now one of the fastest-growing on Earth and one of the biggest, boasting annual sales of $440 billion in 2016.
Carlo’s story underscores the need for caution, however, particularly since it evokes eerie parallels with two of the most notorious cases of corporate deception on record: the campaigns by the tobacco and fossil-fuel industries to obscure the dangers of smoking and climate change, respectively. Just as tobacco executives were privately told by their own scientists (in the 1960s) that smoking was deadly, and fossil-fuel executives were privately told by their own scientists (in the 1980s) that burning oil, gas, and coal would cause a “catastrophic” temperature rise, so Carlo’s testimony reveals that wireless executives were privately told by their own scientists (in the 1990s) that cell phones could cause cancer and genetic damage.
Carlo’s October 7, 1999, letters to wireless-industry CEOs are the smoking-gun equivalent of the November 12, 1982, memo that M.B. Glaser, Exxon’s manager of environmental-affairs programs, sent to company executives explaining that burning oil, gas, and coal could raise global temperatures by a destabilizing 3 degrees Celsius by 2100. For the tobacco industry, Carlo’s letters are akin to the 1969 proposal that a Brown & Williamson executive wrote for countering anti-tobacco advocates. “Doubt is our product,” the memo declared. “It is also the means of establishing a controversy…at the public level.”
Like their tobacco and fossil-fuel brethren, wireless executives have chosen not to publicize what their own scientists have said about the risks of their products. On the contrary, the industry—in America, Europe, and Asia—has spent untold millions of dollars in the past 25 years proclaiming that science is on its side, that the critics are quacks, and that consumers have nothing to fear. This, even as the industry has worked behind the scenes—again like its Big Tobacco counterpart—to deliberately addict its customers. Just as cigarette companies added nicotine to hook smokers, so have wireless companies designed cell phones to deliver a jolt of dopamine with each swipe of the screen.
This Nation investigation reveals that the wireless industry not only made the same moral choices that the tobacco and fossil-fuel industries did; it also borrowed from the same public-relations playbook those industries pioneered. The playbook’s key insight is that an industry doesn’t have to win the scientific argument about safety; it only has to keep the argument going. That amounts to a win for the industry, because the apparent lack of certainty helps to reassure customers, even as it fends off government regulations and lawsuits that might pinch profits.
Central to keeping the scientific argument going is making it appear that not all scientists agree. Again like the tobacco and fossil-fuel industries, the wireless industry has “war gamed” science, as a Motorola internal memo in 1994 phrased it. War-gaming science involves playing offense as well as defense: funding studies friendly to the industry while attacking studies that raise questions; placing industry-friendly experts on advisory bodies like the World Health Organization; and seeking to discredit scientists whose views depart from the industry’s.
Funding friendly research has perhaps been the most important component of this strategy, because it conveys the impression that the scientific community truly is divided. Thus, when studies have linked wireless radiation to cancer or genetic damage—as Carlo’s WTR did in 1999; as the WHO’s Interphone study did in 2010; and as the US National Toxicology Program did in 2016—industry spokespeople can point out, accurately, that other studies disagree. “[T]he overall balance of the evidence” gives no cause for alarm, asserted Jack Rowley, research and sustainability director for the Groupe Special Mobile Association (GSMA), Europe’s wireless trade association, speaking to reporters about the WHO’s findings.
A closer look reveals the industry’s sleight of hand. When Henry Lai, the professor whom Carlo tried to get fired, analyzed 326 safety-related studies completed between 1990 and 2005, he learned that 56 percent found a biological effect from cell-phone radiation and 44 percent did not; the scientific community apparently was split. But when Lai recategorized the studies according to their funding sources, a different picture emerged: 67 percent of the independently funded studies found a biological effect, while a mere 28 percent of the industry-funded studies did. Lai’s findings were replicated by a 2007 analysis in Environmental Health Perspectives that concluded industry-funded studies were two and a half times less likely than independent studies to find a health effect.
One key player has not been swayed by all this wireless-friendly research: the insurance industry. The Nation has not been able to find a single insurance company willing to sell a product-liability policy that covered cell-phone radiation. “Why would we want to do that?” one executive chuckled before pointing to more than two dozen lawsuits outstanding against wireless companies, demanding a total of $1.9 billion in damages. Some judges have affirmed such lawsuits, including a judge in Italy who refused to allow industry-funded research as evidence.
Even so, the industry’s neutralizing of the safety issue has opened the door to the biggest, most hazardous prize of all: the proposed revolutionary transformation of society dubbed the “Internet of Things.” Lauded as a gigantic engine of economic growth, the Internet of Things will not only connect people through their smartphones and computers but will connect those devices to a customer’s vehicles and home appliances, even their baby’s diapers—all at speeds faster than can currently be achieved.
Billions of cell-phone users have been subjected to a public-health experiment without informed consent.
There is a catch, though: The Internet of Things will require augmenting today’s 4G technology with 5G, thus “massively increasing” the general population’s exposure to radiation, according to a petition signed by 236 scientists worldwide who have published more than 2,000 peer-reviewed studies and represent “a significant portion of the credentialed scientists in the radiation research field,” according to Joel Moskowitz, the director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley, who helped circulate the petition. Nevertheless, like cell phones, 5G technology is on the verge of being introduced without pre-market safety testing.
Lack of definitive proof that a technology is harmful does not mean the technology is safe, yet the wireless industry has succeeded in selling this logical fallacy to the world. In truth, the safety of wireless technology has been an unsettled question since the industry’s earliest days. The upshot is that, over the past 30 years, billions of people around the world have been subjected to a massive public-health experiment: Use a cell phone today, find out later if it causes cancer or genetic damage. Meanwhile, the wireless industry has obstructed a full and fair understanding of the current science, aided by government agencies that have prioritized commercial interests over human health and news organizations that have failed to inform the public about what the scientific community really thinks. In other words, this public-health experiment has been conducted without the informed consent of its subjects, even as the industry keeps its thumb on the scale.
“The absence of absolute proof does not mean the absence of risk,” Annie Sasco, the former director of epidemiology for cancer prevention at France’s National Institute of Health and Medical Research, told the attendees of the 2012 Childhood Cancer conference. “The younger one starts using cell phones, the higher the risk,” Sasco continued, urging a public-education effort to inform parents, politicians, and the press about children’s exceptional susceptibility.
For adults and children alike, the process by which wireless radiation may cause cancer remains uncertain, but it is thought to be indirect. Wireless radiation has been shown to damage the blood-brain barrier, a vital defense mechanism that shields the brain from carcinogenic chemicals elsewhere in the body (resulting, for example, from secondhand cigarette smoke). Wireless radiation has also been shown to interfere with DNA replication, a proven progenitor of cancer. In each of these cases, the risks are higher for children: Their skulls, being smaller, absorb more radiation than adults’ skulls do, while children’s longer life span increases their cumulative exposure.
The wireless industry has sought to downplay concerns about cell phones’ safety, and the Federal Communications Commission has followed its example. In 1996, the FCC established cell-phone safety levels based on “specific absorption rate,” or SAR. Phones were required to have a SAR of 1.6 watts or less per kilogram of body weight. In 2013, the American Academy of Pediatrics advised the FCC that its guidelines “do not account for the unique vulnerability and use patterns specific to pregnant women and children.” Nevertheless, the FCC has declined to update its standards.
The FCC has granted the industry’s wishes so often that it qualifies as a “captured agency,” argued journalist Norm Alster in a report that Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics published in 2015. The FCC allows cell-phone manufacturers to self-report SAR levels, and does not independently test industry claims or require manufacturers to display the SAR level on a phone’s packaging. “Industry controls the FCC through a soup-to-nuts stranglehold that extends from its well-placed campaign spending in Congress through its control of the FCC’s congressional oversight committees to its persistent agency lobbying,” Alster wrote. He also quoted the CTIA website praising the FCC for “its light regulatory touch.”
The revolving-door syndrome that characterizes so many industries and federal agencies reinforces the close relationship between the wireless industry and the FCC. Just as Tom Wheeler went from running the CTIA (1992– 2004) to chairing the FCC (2013–2017), Meredith Atwell Baker went from FCC commissioner (2009–2011) to the presidency of the CTIA (2014 through today). To ensure its access on Capitol Hill, the wireless industry made $26 million in campaign contributions in 2016, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and spent $87 million on lobbying in 2017.
Neutralizing the safety issue has been an ongoing imperative because the research keeps coming, much of it from outside the United States. But the industry’s European and Asian branches have, like their US counterpart, zealously war-gamed the science, spun the news coverage, and thereby warped the public perception of their products’ safety.
The WHO began to study the health effects of electric- and magnetic-field radiation (EMF) in 1996 under the direction of Michael Repacholi, an Australian biophysicist. Although Repacholi claimed on disclosure forms that he was “independent” of corporate influence, in fact Motorola had funded his research: While Repacholi was director of the WHO’s EMF program, Motorola paid $50,000 a year to his former employer, the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which then transferred the money to the WHO program. When journalists exposed the payments, Repacholi denied that there was anything untoward about them because Motorola had not paid him personally. Eventually, Motorola’s payments were bundled with other industry contributions and funneled through the Mobile and Wireless Forum, a trade association that gave the WHO’s program $150,000 annually. In 1999, Repacholi helped engineer a WHO statement that “EMF exposures below the limits recommended in international guidelines do not appear to have any known consequence on health.”
Two wireless trade associations contributed $4.7 million to the Interphone study launched by the WHO’s International Agency for Cancer Research in 2000. That $4.7 million represented 20 percent of the $24 million budget for the Interphone study, which convened 21 scientists from 13 countries to explore possible links between cell phones and two common types of brain tumor: glioma and meningioma. The money was channeled through a “firewall” mechanism intended to prevent corporate influence on the IACR’s findings, but whether such firewalls work is debatable. “Industry sponsors know [which scientists] receive funding; sponsored scientists know who provides funding,” Dariusz Leszczynski, an adjunct professor of biochemistry at the University of Helsinki, has explained.
The FCC grants the wireless industry’s wishes so often that it qualifies as a “captured agency.”
==
also time warner?
https://www.commondreams.org/tag/sinclair-broadcasting
FCC Commissioner Slams Her Own Agency for Policies 'Custom-Built' to Favor Sinclair-Tribune Merger
"We're burning down the values of media policy in this agency in order to service this company."
byJulia Conley, staff writer
FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel raised concerns about her agency's recent policy decisions, which could work in Sinclair Broadcasting's favor. (Photo: New America/Flickr/cc)
FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel on Tuesday argued against her own agency's recent policy rulings under the Trump administration, in light of President Donald Trump's defense of Sinclair Broadcasting as the conservative broadcasting giant attempts to merge with Tribune Media in a $3.9 billion deal.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/04/03/fcc-commissioner-slams-her-own-agency-policies-custom-built-favor-sinclair-tribune
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/26/fcc_eliminates_rules_preventing_media_consolidation
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.”
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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.
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12/12/17
At least 28 Senators are calling for the vote to be delayed after reports revealed that over 80 percent of the 22 million public comments sent into the FCC about this issue were fake comments sent by bots, almost entirely in favor of killing net neutrality. But the vote needs to be stopped entirely, and our representatives must do everything in their power to stop it.
Polling has shown that a clear majority of Americans support net neutrality, and upon further review, it now looks like 95 percent of legitimate comments submitted to the FCC supported keeping net neutrality.
Despite an ongoing investigation into the fake comments, Trump’s FCC chair, Ajit Pai, still plans to hold the vote this Thursday. It’s another example of this administration ignoring the will of the People and rushing full steam ahead to enact their corrupt, right-wing, corporate agenda while under a cloud of suspicion about the dirty tactics used by its supporters.
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https://www.alternet.org/activism/fcc-moves-end-net-neutrality-did-telecom-lobby-forge-tens-thousands-pro-industry-public
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, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed 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 New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, in an open letter posted on Medium.com 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 reported, 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,” Verge reported. “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 search of the duplicated text 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 2010 press release 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 spokesperson said.
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.
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https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/26/fcc_eliminates_rules_preventing_media_consolidation
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 FCC announced 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.”
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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.
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.
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 story 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, atSinclair 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 piece. 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.”
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https://www.alternet.org/media/what-news-wont-tell-you-about-news
...“Used to be,” I said, “that radio and TV stations had to deliver actual news in order to retain their over-the-air broadcast license. It was called ‘the fairness doctrine,’ and Reagan stopped enforcing it in ’87 and the Obama administration’s FCC removed it altogether.Then the media consolidated like crazy, in part because Reagan had stopped enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and no president since Jimmy Carter broke up AT&T has been willing to put it back into effect, and in part because of the media deregulation that Clinton signed in 1996.”
“So?” she asked. “Why does that mean that all we get now is nonstop hype and opinion-drivel?”
“It used to be that the metric news organizations used to determine if they were ‘doing their job’ was how well the American public was informed. That was actually a serious metric, pre-1987, because your station’s license depended on it. The public could – and did – complain that they weren’t being well-informed, and stations jumped when those FCC complaints came in. But now, the only metric the ‘news’ business uses is how many viewers they have and, thus, how profitable they are for advertisers.”
dissent on NN:
Mignon L. Clyburn served as Acting Chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, following her appointment by President Barack Obama on May 20, 2013. As Commissioner, she is serving a second term as a Democrat on the Commission, for which she was sworn in on February 19, 2013 following her re-nomination by the President and confirmation by the United States Senate.
Clyburn began her service at the FCC in August, 2009, after spending 11 years as a member of the sixth district on the Public Service Commission (PSC) of South Carolina. She served as its chair from July 2002 through June 2004.
Prior to her service on the PSC, Clyburn was the publisher and general manager of The Coastal Times, a Charleston-based weekly newspaper that focused primarily on issues affecting the African American community. She co-owned and operated the family-founded newspaper for 14 years.
A longtime champion of consumers and a defender of the public interest, Commissioner Clyburn considers every Commission proceeding with an eye toward how it will affect each and every American. She is a strong advocate for enhanced accessibility in communications for disabled citizens, and works closely with representative groups for the deaf and hard of hearing. She has fought to promote strong competition across all communications platforms, believing that the more robust and competitive the marketplace, the less need there is for regulation. However, when the market is not adequately addressing consumer concerns, Clyburn is an outspoken champion for smart, targeted regulatory action. She has pushed for media ownership rules that reflect the demographics of America, affordable universal telephone and high-speed internet access, greater broadband deployment and adoption throughout the nation, and transparency in regulation. Commissioner Clyburn is a member of the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, Federal-State Joint Board on Separations, and the Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Services, all of which she chaired for three years during her first term at the FCC.
Clyburn is a graduate of the University of South Carolina, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Banking, Finance and Economics.
==
dn
an award-winning reporter is speaking out after he was attacked and forced to leave the Federal Communications Commission headquarters Thursday—all for trying to ask a question. John Donnelly of CQ Roll Call said he tried to ask FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly a question after a press conference had ended. But two FCC security guards reportedly pinned Donnelly against the wall until O’Rielly had passed. Donnelly said O’Rielly witnessed the incident and kept walking. Donnelly is chair of the National Press Club’s Press Freedom Team and president of the Military Reporters & Editors association. He issued a statement after the attack, saying, "I have been working as a reporter in this town for years and dealing with the top leaders in our government every day and in the hustle and bustle of press scrums. I’ve never been in a situation where simply asking a question was treated as a crime."
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off bs
https://www.fcc.gov/about/leadership/mike-orielly
O’Rielly was nominated for a seat on the Federal Communications Commission by President Barack Obama on August 1, 2013 and was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate on October 29, 2013. He was sworn into office on November 4, 2013. On January 29, 2015, he was sworn into office for a new term, following his re-nomination by the President and confirmation by the United States Senate.
Prior to joining the agency Commissioner O’Rielly served as a Policy Advisor in the Office of the Senate Republican Whip, led by U.S. Senator John Cornyn, since January 2013. He worked in the Republican Whip’s Office since 2010, as an Advisor from 2010 to 2012 and Deputy Chief of Staff and Policy Director from 2012 to 2013 for U.S. Senator Jon Kyl.
He previously worked for the Republican Policy Committee in the U.S. Senate as a Policy Analyst for Banking, Technology, Transportation, Trade, and Commerce issues from 2009 to 2010. Prior to this, Commissioner O’Rielly worked in the Office of U.S. Senator John Sununu, as Legislative Director from 2007 to 2009, and Senior Legislative Assistant from 2003 to 2007. Before his tenure as a Senate staffer, he served as a Professional Staff Member on the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the United States House of Representatives from 1998 to 2003, and Telecommunications Policy Analyst from 1995 to 1998.
He began his career as a Legislative Assistant to U.S. Congressman Tom Bliley from 1994 to 1995.
Commissioner O’Rielly received his B.A. from the University of Rochester.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/5/19/headlines/fcc_vote_advances_bid_to_end_net_neutrality
in Washington, the FCC voted 2-1 Thursday, along party lines, to begin a process to replace net neutrality rules that were adopted in 2015 to keep the internet open and prevent corporate service providers from blocking access to websites, slowing down content or providing paid fast lanes for internet service. In response, Free Press President Craig Aaron warned the proposal would take away the rights of internet users, saying, "The federal courts rejected this kind of approach twice when the FCC tried it before."
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John Oliver Calls For FCC Website Flood Over Donald Trump Plan
deadline.com/2017/.../john-oliver-donald-trump-fcc-net-neutrality-ajit-pai-12020866...
https://www.recode.net/.../ro-khanna-ajit-pai-fcc-privacy-net-neutrality-competition-r...
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, a congressman in his first term representing California’s 17th district, is quick to denounce President Trump. But he also doesn’t mince words about Trump’s FCC chairman, Ajit Pai.
“I think he’s one of the worst picks possible in government,” Khanna said of Pai on the latest episode of Recode Decode, in discussion with Recode’s Kara Swisher and Tony Romm. “Did you see the Charter decision? It’s appalling.”
The “Charter decision” refers to a recent unanimous FCC vote ruling that Charter Communications would not have to expand high-speed internet access into areas already covered by competitors like Comcast. (Disclosure: Comcast subsidiary NBCUniversal is an investor in Vox Media, which owns Recode).
“I don’t know as much about technology as some of the people I represent, but I know this: We invented the internet, we invented a lot of broadband,” Khanna said. “Why are we paying five times more than people in Europe? The reason is, it’s basically a monopoly here.”
“[Pai] is carving up the map, no competition,” he added. “And the people who suffer the most are — actually — Trump voters, in rural America! They’re the ones whose prices go up. They’re the ones who have to think, ‘Do I subscribe to the internet or not? Do I get fast service?’ He has been a mouthpiece for telecom companies in one of the most economically concentrated industries in the country.”
Trump's new FCC chief is Ajit Pai, and he wants to destroy net ...
https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/.../fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-donald-trump-appointment
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/.../trumps-fcc-quickly-targets-net-neutrality-rules.htm...
Feb 5, 2017 - WASHINGTON — In his first days as President Trump's pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai has aggressively moved ...
Trump's FCC chairman has wasted no time enacting a conservative ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../trumps-fcc-chairman-has-wasted-no-time-enacting-a...
3 days ago - Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai (Ethan Miller/Getty ... Last week, President Trump celebrated his first 100 days in office ...
Ajit Pai | Federal Communications Commission
https://www.fcc.gov › About the FCC › Leadership
Pai’s regulatory philosophy is informed by a few simple principles. Rules that reflect these principles will result in more innovation, more investment, better products and services, lower prices, more job creation, and faster economic growth.
- Consumers benefit most from competition, not preemptive regulation. Free markets have delivered more value to American consumers than highly regulated ones.
- No regulatory system should indulge arbitrage; regulators should be skeptical of pleas to regulate rivals, dispense favors, or otherwise afford special treatment.
- Particularly given how rapidly the communications sector is changing, the FCC should do everything it can to ensure that its rules reflect the realities of the current marketplace and basic principles of economics.
- As a creature of Congress, the FCC must respect the law as set forth by the legislature.
- The FCC is at its best when it proceeds on the basis of consensus; good communications policy knows no partisan affiliation.
Selected Issues
Broadband
Broadband is critical in modern American life. Especially when it comes to innovation, the Internet has leveled the playing field. It’s created a phenomenon that Chairman Pai calls the “democratization of entrepreneurship.” With a good idea and a broadband connection, entrepreneurs anywhere can compete in ways unthinkable a generation ago.
Yet too many Americans still don’t have broadband. They are left on the other side of the “digital divide.” Chairman Pai has seen this for himself, from Barrow, Alaska to Fayetteville, West Virginia.
That’s why he has proposed a comprehensive plan to promote broadband deployment to all Americans. The federal government must make it easier to for broadband providers to retire increasingly obsolete copper lines in favor of next-generation technologies like fiber. It must enable rural residents to have the same choice for stand-alone broadband typically found in cities. It must create a roadmap for state and local governments so that companies that want to compete in the broadband market don’t have to jump through unnecessary regulatory hoops in order to lay fiber to consumers. It must promote common-sense policies like “Dig Once” and reform pole attachment rules to reduce the costs of building digital networks. It must streamline the process for deploying wireless infrastructure, from big towers to small cells. It must free up more licensed spectrum for use by wireless carriers and more unlicensed spectrum for things like Wi-Fi. And it must preserve Internet freedom here and abroad, so that the online world can flourish free from heavy-handed government intervention.
First Amendment
Chairman Pai has been an outspoken defender of First Amendment freedoms. When the FCC proposed to send researchers into newsrooms to question why reporters cover some stories and not others, Chairman Pai sounded the alarm. Soon after, the FCC canceled the study. Chairman Pai has also spoken out about threats to free speech here and abroad and has warned against government efforts to regulate the marketplace of ideas.
Public Safety
Public safety is a top priority for Chairman Pai. He took action to ensure that consumers can reach emergency services whenever they dial 911. He has also called on the FCC to help law enforcement combat the rising threat posed by contraband cellphones in our jails and prisons. And he’s pushed for the advancement of Next Generation 911, an Internet-based system which will help keep Americans safe.
Fiscal Responsibility
Chairman Pai has fought to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in federal programs. He was the first commissioner to demand an end to corporate welfare in a recent major spectrum auction; the agency ultimately agreed, saving taxpayers over $3 billion. He has been outspoken against the waste, fraud, and abuse in the Lifeline program, leading an investigation into the issue. And he wants to make sure that every federal program under the FCC’s purview gets the most bang for the buck.
Taking the Initiative and Getting Results
Jenner & Block, LLP. Partner, 2011 – 2012
U.S. Department of Justice. Senior Counsel, Office of Legal Policy, 2004 – 2005
Verizon Communications Inc. Associate General Counsel, 2001 – 2003
http://fair.org/home/trump-uses-power-of-fcc-to-pay-back-friends-at-sinclair-broadcasting/
This morning Sinclair Broadcast Group, the conservative media behemoth thatowns more local news stations than any other company in the country, just got even bigger. It announced it was buying Tribune Media for $3.9 billion, creating what Bloomberg (5/8/17) calls a “TV goliath.”
The purchase, which gives Sinclair a staggering reach of nearly 69 percent of the US population (Free Press, 5/8/17), would’ve been in violation of ownership restrictions just weeks ago. But last month, the Trump-appointed FCC chair, Ajit Pai, reinstated the “UHF discount,” an outdated loophole that allowed media conglomerates to exceed the nation’s 39 percent cap on ownership (New York Post,4/20/17). Sinclair made a $420 million deal to buy Bonten Media Group (Baltimore Sun,4/21/17) the very next day.
This sequence of events “sure looks like a quid pro quo,” as Craig Aaron of the media advocacy group Free Press has noted (5/8/17). Months ago, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner told business executives, according to Politico (12/16/16), that “Trump’s campaign struck a deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group during the campaign to try and secure better coverage.” The deal, Politico reported, was that Sinclair would give Trump more (uncritical) coverage (Washington Post, 12/22/16) in exchange for more “access to Trump and the campaign.”
Now, Trump appears to be using the considerable power of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as his own personal ATM for political currency—and his Big Media allies at Sinclair are now seeing the return on their investment.
Free Press’ Aaron said in a statement this morning (5/8/17):
It’s a scandal. Sinclair—the Trump-favoring broadcast mega-chain—gets some FCC rules changed and expects others to be erased. All so that Sinclair can air its cookie-cutter newscasts to nearly 70 percent of the country’s population in local markets across the country.
Pai had been meeting with Sinclair executives at Baltimore’s Four Season Hotel in the months preceding these FCC-enabled media buys (Bloomberg, 3/27/17). “The gleaming harbor-front hotel, home to fare including a $32 crab cake sandwich and a $15 ‘Ulterior Motive’ cocktail, offered a memorable perch for impressing Pai,” Bloomberg reported.
Sinclair also recently hired a former Trump spokesperson (CNN,4/17/17), adding to the cozy relationship between company and president. In the press release, they touted the new hire’s former role as “a surrogate and senior advisor to the Trump campaign.”Shareholders for Sinclair, and other broadcasters, had already been profiting from the Trump presidency. “Despite President Donald Trump’s numerous gripes about media coverage of his campaign and presidency, the sector has been on a roll since the New York real estate baron was inaugurated on January 20,” reported The Street (4/26/17):
...
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House Republicans jammed through a measure on Tuesday overturning the Obama administration’s rules that would have banned telecom and cable companies from sharing customers’ personal information, including web browsing history, without their consent.
The House resolution passed 215-205, mostly on party lines. Its companion passed the Senate last week on a:{ 50-48 vote:(style="box-sizing:inherit"):}:. If President Donald Trump signs the measure into law, internet service providers will win a regulatory victory. But advocates say consumers can kiss network privacy goodbye.
“ISPs will be able to sell your personal information to the highest bidder ... and they won’t have any real obligation to keep your personal information secure, either,” Gigi Sohn, who previously served as counselor to former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, said Monday.
The FCC :{adopted rules:(style="box-sizing:inherit"):}: last October that required companies like Comcast and Verizon to get their customers’ explicit permission before they could share “sensitive” data like Social Security numbers, or information pertaining to children or health. Under the rules — which are :{not yet in effect:(style="box-sizing:inherit"):}: — companies also had to tell customers and law enforcement if a potentially harmful data breach occurred. (Verizon is the parent company of The Huffington Post.)
In a heated floor debate on Tuesday, House Republicans sought to paint the rules as an example of government overreach. “These broadband privacy rules are unnecessary,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who introduced the resolution.
But House Democrats warned that Republicans were scrapping common-sense privacy regulations — and predicted a dim future without them. Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) pointed to a patent application from an ISP for a cable box that would detect whether people were cuddling on the couch through a thermal camera, then show them TV commercials for a romantic getaway or contraceptives. “That’s what this bill will allow, and you can’t turn it off,” he said, calling it “terrible.”
The measure uses the :{Congressional Review Act:(style="box-sizing:inherit"):}:, which allows lawmakers to undo any regulation within 60 days of its finalization, while also barring agencies from writing a “substantially” similar rule after the original one has been overturned. That means the FCC could be banned from regulating ISP privacy issues in the future, said David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress, a grassroots group.
Trump ran a populist campaign, but his vision for the FCC, a government agency that is supposed to protect consumers from predatory telecom and cable companies, is :{shaping up to be the opposite:(style="box-sizing:inherit"):}:, consumer advocates say. The current FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, also :{opposed:(style="box-sizing:inherit"):}: Obama’s privacy rules when he was the agency commissioner under the prior administration.
Internet service providers say it’s not fair they have to be subject to regulations that tech giants like Facebook and Google, which the Federal Trade Commission oversees, don’t have to follow. In response, Republicans have advocated for a privacy framework modeled on the FTC’s approach. But according to Sohn, the FTC rules come into play after harm occurs ― while the FCC’s regulations have the power to protect consumers before they are harmed.
Advocates, as well as Democrats, say that it doesn’t make sense to regulate an ISP, which has access to everything a person does online, like Google, which only sees some of a person’s internet traffic. As a consumer, “if I don’t like the practices of Google, I can go to Bing; if I don’t like the practices of Bing, I can go to Firefox,” Wheeler told HuffPost on Monday. “But if I don’t like the practice of my network provider, I’m out of luck.”
“Consumers have entered into a business relationship with ISPs that ISPs are now seeking to change ... [but] it’s not their information, it’s the consumers’ information,” he said.
Overturning the rules is a win for the 21st Century Privacy Coalition, a group led by former Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz. The coalition is backed by telecom companies and has spent millions of dollars on lobbying in the past few years.
“I can’t tell you [the House-approved bill] is not repealing privacy regulations,” Leibowitz told HuffPost on Monday. But, he said, “in a very partisan Washington, where often the only choices are binary, the FCC passed a very flawed regulation.”
He argued that if the bill is enacted, the FCC can still continue to protect privacy. To do that, it could write another rule ― “if that rule takes a different approach.”
When asked whether he thought a repeal would improve privacy for consumers, he said only that the Obama administration’s rule would “increase costs to consumers and reduce choices, and reduce competition for privacy.”
But consumer advocates aren’t buying it. “It’s special interest lobbying as usual,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.
“These companies are just trying to exploit consumers’ data towards ends of private profit,” said Segal of Demand Progress.
As of Monday, the Congressional Progressive Caucus said it was opposed to the measure and would be pushing for legislators to vote against it. The office ofRep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), first vice chair of that caucus, also noted that they had received a fair amount of calls and emails in favor of the Obama administration rule.
“Considering how much access providers already have to highly sensitive data, it is absolutely unacceptable for them to monetize personal information,” Pocan said.
But that wasn’t enough to stop most House Republicans from approving the resolution. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday asked ISPs to weigh in on the measure. “This is about profit,” she told her House colleagues in the House. “From America’s most intimate, personal information.”
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soda tax ads
Oakland Soda Tax Backers to File Complaint over Opposition Ads
By Lisa Aliferis July 14, 2016
https://ww2.kqed.org/stateofhealth/2016/07/14/oakland-soda-tax-backers-to-file-complaint-over-opposition-ads/
Three Oakland City Council members are calling on local and federal agencies to investigate opponents of the city’s proposed soda tax on the fall ballot. They say the beverage industry’s advertising is deceptive.
At issue are opposition
and a flier that label the effort a “Grocery Tax [that] can be applied to any item in the store, not just sodas.”
“This is not a tax on bread or vegetables or milk or cheese,” said Council member Annie Campbell Washington, one of the proponents of the ordinance. “It has been disgraceful to see that the American Beverage Association has put out these fliers with blatant lies.”
Washington and fellow Council members Rebecca Kaplan and Desley Brooks plan to file complaints both with the city’s Ethics Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.
In a statement Joe Arellano, spokesman for the No Oakland Grocery Tax Campaign, defended the choice of words:
The backers of the grocery tax need to read their own measure. It is not a tax on beverages. It is a tax on distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages, which means any retailer who sells soda can decide to spread that new tax over any item in their stores.
Arellano’s group is backed with “major funding” by the American Beverage Association.
The Oakland City Council voted unanimously in May to put a penny-per-ounce ‘health impact fee’ on the distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages on the November ballot.
Similar fees on sugar-sweetened beverages will also be on the ballot in San Francisco and Albany. All three cities’ proposals are modeled after the measure passed in Berkeley in 2014, the first community in the country to pass a soda tax.
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The Federal Communications Commission has made it easier for researchers, journalists and citizens to track dark campaign contributions by expanding its online political ad database
While the Federal Election Commission may be hopelessly gridlocked along partisan lines when it comes to campaign-finance regulation, another arm of the government is providing journalists and citizen watchdogs with an important new tool for understanding who is trying to influence the election and how much is being spent to do so.
On June 24, theFederal Communications Commission began requiring the nation’s radio broadcasters and cable television stations to upload all of their political ad contracts to a public online database. TV broadcasters have been doing so since the last presidential election. The FCC’s decision to expand its online public file is important in the context of campaign 2016 because it vastly expands the field of vision for reporters and citizen monitors who are trying to track the efforts of dark-money groups to influence the elections.
Dark-money groups refer to political organizations masquerading as social-welfare non-profits. Since the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in *Citizens United*, they have become popular venues for big political donors who’d rather remain anonymous. Because of their tax-exempt status, such groups never have to make public the sources of their funding. And because they are considered corporations, they can, thanks to Citizens United, raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections. Unless outside groups’ expenditures come within 60 days of a primary election or 30 days of a general election, they never have to be reported on campaign-finance disclosures.
For those who would like to try some political watchdogging at home, here’s a how-to guide.
But the TV (and now radio and cable) stations that take the groups’ money do have to provide the FCC with copies of invoices, contracts — and, most significantly, a form identifying officers and board members of the actual people behind mystery-meat groups with names like “Americans for A Better America.” Such anodyne monikers could be a front for seasoned political operatives who have spun off a 501(c) to help politicians for whom they used to work. Or they could be hiding a coalition of, say, your local sludge producers who are trying to influence a municipal referendum on putting a dump in your backyard.
By adding radio and cable providers to its online database, the FCC is making it much easier to investigate advertisers in lower-budget local races, in which such groups can have a big impact. Before Friday, searching these ad records would have meant making an in-person visit to each station and rifling through drawers of paper, a task so daunting that very few citizens, academic researchers or news organizations would undertake it.
Initially, only radio stations in the nation’s top 50 markets will be required to participate in the database; the rule will apply to all radio stations in 2018. But every cable outlet with more than 1,000 subscribers must begin uploading files now.
For those who would like to try some political watchdogging from your home computers, here’s a how-to guide:
1. Surf on over to the FCC’s new, improved public files site: https://publicfiles.fcc.gov
https://publicfiles.fcc.gov/
...
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3/15 1.6 mil robo emails to FCC on net neutrality by am comm
http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Incorporated-World-Post-Truth-Politics/dp/0307279596
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http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2014/04/the-comcast-fcc-revolving-door/
robbie4/14
proposed merger between cable giants Comcast and Time Warner is a hotly contested issue in Congress, and angers flared again at a recent Senate hearing on the merger last week.
Most of the senators seemed ambivalent about the merger and wouldn’t say whether they supported or opposed it, but one senator in particular stuck out from the rest: Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.).
“I don’t like this revolving door,” Franken said in an April 13 interview with CNN. “I don’t like this revolving door between regulators and Comcast. I thought that was kind of tacky that one of the FCC commissioners, I think just four months after they approved the Comcast/NBC deal, went over to work a high-paying job at Comcast. I just don’t like that.”
So how wide is the revolving door between the telecommunications giant and the FCC? For Comcast’s in-house lobbyists, it’s significant and still swinging. According to an analysis byOpenSecrets Blog, 18 people have both lobbied for Comcast and spent time in the public sector. Of those, 12 are currently registered lobbyists for Comcast, with five of them having spent time at the FCC.
From FCC chair to Comcast lobbyist
The most prominent example of the Comcast/FCC revolving door is former FCC commissioner and current Comcast lobbyist Meredith Baker.
Baker, whose views tended to side with the industry even before she went to the FCC, was appointed to to her FCC position in July 2009 and stayed there for nearly two years, cutting her four-year term short in June 2011 to move to Comcast as its senior vice president of government affairs.
When she made the move, Baker said she didn’t see any problem with moving from a regulatory agency to a company she regulated, explaining in a statement that she had “not participated or voted any item, not just those related to Comcast or NBCUniversal, since entering discussions about an offer of potential employment.”
Due to lobbying rules, Baker wasn’t allowed to lobby the FCC for the two years following her hire at Comcast, but she has lobbied the House and Senate on a range of issues. In 2013, she lobbied on 21 bills on behalf of Comcast, with much of the legislation dealing with deregulation of the Internet, including bills that would keep online purchases tax-free.
Baker’s transition from FCC leadership to industry isn’t unprecedented. Michael Powell, the FCC chairman from 1997 to 2005, made a similar move, heading to theNational Cable & Telecommunications Association, an industry group, in 2011 as its CEO. And Jonathan Adelstein, who was an FCC commissioner from 2002 to 2009, became the president and CEO of PCIA: The Wireless Infrastructure Association in 2012.
Four other former FCC employees have followed Baker’s path to Comcast. They include Rudy Brioche, who worked as an advisor to former commissioner Adelstein before moving to Comcast as its senior director of external affairs and public policy counsel in 2009. Brioche was so valued by the FCC, in fact, that he was brought in to join the commission’s Advisory Committee for Diversity in the Digital Age in 2011.
Other revolving Comcast lobbyists include James Coltharp, who served as a special counsel to commissioner James H. Quello until 1997, and Jordan Goldstein, who worked as a senior legal adviser to commissioner Michael J. Copps. John Morabito, who served a number of roles in the FCC’s Common Carrier Bureau, joined Comcast as one of its senior lobbyists in 2004. (He is no longer with the company.)
Comcast and Congress
But the revolving door doesn’t just swing from the FCC to Comcast. Lobbyists also can head back to the public sector. That’s been the case with David Krone. Krone has an extensive background with the telecommunications industry, holding leadership and lobbying positions with companies like AT&T, TCI Communications and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.
In 2008, Krone worked as Comcast’s senior vice president for corporate affairs. But since then, Krone has taken his telecommunications knowledge to the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Krone started as a senior advisor to the senator in 2008 and rose to become Reid’s chief of staff in 2011, a position he holds today.
Overall, Comcast has traditionally had a heavy lobbying presence Washington. The company has spent at least $12 million on lobbying every year since 2008, with that number peaking at $19.6 million in 2011. Last year, Comcast spent more than $18.8 million, making it the sixth-highest spender on federal lobbying.
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http://billmoyers.com/story/twenty-years-of-media-consolidation-has-not-been-good-for-our-democracy/
Wall Street’s sinister influence on the political process has, rightly, been a major topic during this presidential campaign. But history has taught us that the role that the media industry plays in Washington poses a comparable threat to our democracy. Yet this is a topic rarely discussed by the dominant media, or on the campaign trail.
The negative impact of the law cannot be overstated. The law, which was the first major reform of telecommunications policy since 1934, according to media scholar Robert McChesney, “is widely considered to be one of the three or four most important federal laws of this generation.” The act dramatically reduced important Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations on cross ownership, and allowed giant corporations to buy up thousands of media outlets across the country, increasing their monopoly on the flow of information in the United States and around the world.But now is a good time to discuss our growing media crises. Twenty years ago last month, President Bill Clinton
theTelecommunications Act of 1996. The act, signed into law on February 8, 1996, was “essentially bought and paid for by corporate media lobbies,” as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) described it, and radically “opened the floodgates on mergers.”
“Never have so many been held incommunicado by so few,” said Eduardo Galeano, the Latin-American journalist, in response to the act.
Twenty years later the devastating impact of the legislation is undeniable: About 90 percent of the country’s major media companies are owned by six corporations. Bill Clinton’s legacy in empowering the consolidation of corporate media is right up there with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and welfare reform, as being among the most tragic and destructive policies of his administration.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is not merely a regrettable part of history. It serves as a stern warning about what is at stake in the future. In a media world that is going through a massive transformation, media companies have dramaticallyincreased efforts to wield influence in Washington, with a massive lobbying presence and a steady dose of campaign donations to politicians in both parties — with the goal of allowing more consolidation, and privatizing and commodifying the internet.
This issue has not been central in the 2016 presidential election. But it is deeply concerning that, of all the presidential candidates running in 2016, the Big Media lobby has chosen to back Hillary Clinton. Media industry giants have donated way more to her than any other candidate in the race, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. In light of this, we must be mindful of the media reform challenges we face in the present, as we try to prevent the type of damage to our democracy that was caused by the passing of this unfortunate law.
A Threat to Democracy: The Telecommunications Act and Media Consolidation
:{When President Bill Clinton }
:{ into law, he did so}:{. The bill, which was lobbied for in great numbers by the }:communications and media industry:{, was sadly a }::{bipartisan misadventure — only 3 percent of Congress voted against the bill: five senators and 16 members of the House, including then-Rep. Bernie Sanders.}:
At the time, President Clinton as “truly revolutionary legislation … that really embodies what we ought to be about as a country.” House Speaker Newt Gingrich
projected consumer savings and private job growth. Rep. John Dingell (D-Michigan
for the bill that would “make this country the best served, the best educated and the most successful country … in all areas of communications.”
Despite all of these glowing words, the consequences of the bill were disastrous. The act “fueled a consolidation so profound that even insiders are surprised by its magnitude,” said one trade publication, according to Robert McChesney, in his book,Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times.
“Before the ink was even dry on the 1996 Act,” wrote S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press, in a 2009 :{report proposing a:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{national broadband strategy:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:, “the powerful media and telecommunications giants and their army of overpaid lobbyists went straight to work obstructing and undermining the competition the new law was intended to create.”
Media consolidation was already an extremely pressing concern long before 1996. In 1983, Ben Bagdikian published his groundbreaking book, The Media Monopoly, which revealed that just 50 corporations owned 90 percent of the media. That number gradually dwindled over the coming 13 years and was accelerated by the Telecommunications Act. This has led us to the aforementioned crisis where more than 90 percent of the media is owned by just six companies: Viacom, News Corporation, Comcast, CBS, Time Warner and Disney.
Radio has seen an equally appalling consolidation, which has been horrendous for both news media and music. In 1995, before the Telecommunications Act was passed, companies were not allowed to own more than 40 radio stations. “Since passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, Clear Channel [now called iHeartMedia]has grown from 40 stations to 1,240 stations — 30 times more than congressional regulation previously allowed,” according to a report from the Future of Music Coalition.
Local newspapers, too, have been stung by these deregulations. Gannett, for instance, owns more than 1,000 newspapers and 600 print periodicals. Layoffs havebeen the norm for the company, including at USA Today, the paper with the largest circulation in the country, where layoffs were described as a “total bloodbath” in the American Journalism Review.
Save the Internet: The Next Big Media Battle
There was a lot at stake when media companies lobbied for reform in 1996. There is just as much at stake today in the battle for a free and open press. Not only have big media companies continued to push for more consolidation and mergers, but they are also seeking to commodify and privatize the internet. This has become a major concern for advocates of“net neutrality,” who want to “save the internet,” and ensure it is protected as a public utility with equal access for everybody. An FCC ruling in February 2015 has protected the internet for now, but as Free Press warns, the internet is still “in danger.”
“Net neutrality has made the internet an unrivaled space for free speech, civic participation, innovation and opportunity. Net neutrality prohibits online discrimination and gives any individual, organization or company the same chance to share their ideas and find an audience,” explains Free Press’s website, Save the Internet. “Companies like Comcast and Verizon aren’t used to losing in Washington, and they’ll do everything they can to knock down the Title II protections the FCC approved on Feb. 26, 2015.”
The organization is right to be concerned. One reason for the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, as McChesney wrote in 1997, was the sheer power that the media and communications industry has in Washington. “Both the Democratic and Republican parties have strong ties to the large communication firms and industries, and the communication lobbies are among the most feared, respected and well-endowed of all that seek favors on Capitol Hill.”
Today that power and influence has only increased. “From 2002-2008, the industry increased its spending on lobbying efforts every year,” reports the Center for Responsive Politics. “The streak snapped when the Great Recession set in and most clients cut back on their DC efforts, and then reversed again in 2013. In 2014,cable and satellite providers spent nearly $8.1 [million] on lobbying.”
Big Media’s Relationship With Hillary Clinton
What is most revealing when analyzing the donation patterns of these industries in the data from the Center for Responsive Politics — be it cable television, print and periodicals, radio or telecom services — is that Hillary Clinton is, by far, the largest recipient of donations of any candidate in the 2016 election in either party. In fact, of all the top industries that have donated to Clinton, the TV/movies/music category ranks behind only the securities and investments category. (This data is from reports filed on January 31, 2016, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.)
More troubling is that these filings come on the heels of a report from *Politico* that the Clinton Foundation has received donations, some of them very large, from most of all the major media companies directly: Viacom, News Corporation, Reuters, NBCUniversal, Newsmax, Time Warner, Mort Zuckerman (owner of US News &World Report and the New York Daily News), Comcast, AOL Huffington Post Media and Robert Allbritton (owner ofPolitico). George Stephanopoulos, one of ABC News’ most visible journalist and a former staffer for President Clinton, has also been under scrutiny for not disclosing a $75,000 donation to the foundation.
Of course, the Clinton Foundation is not a political campaign and does some philanthropic work. So while this all might be legal, it is extremely unsettling, especially in tandem with all the campaign donations Hillary Clinton has received from the major players in this industry.
In March 2015, for instance, a Comcast executive held a $50,000 per plate fundraiser for Clinton’s super PAC.“Comcast NBCUniversal operates in 39 states and has 130,000 employees across the country,” said company spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice at the time. “It is important for our customers, our employees and our shareholders that we participate in the political process.”
Of course, media companies don’t just donate to Clinton, but also to members ofCongressfrom both parties. Further, as the Center for Responsive Politics reports, the FCC is filled with “revolving-door” employees, who have been switching back and forth between government work and lobbying for Comcast.
Their aggressiveness in Washington makes them a dangerous enemy in the fight for free and democratic media. In this environment, it should come as no surprise that the position ofFCC chairman is typically held by a former lobbyist for the cable industry, such as Tom Wheeler, the current chairman, who was once president of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, a major opponent of net neutrality.
And while it is good news that Clinton has come out in favor of net neutrality, it is a reasonable fear that she could change her views once elected, especially given her relationship with Big Media. It would not be the first time a president has changed a view after being elected, as we learned when Barack Obama embraced a mandate in health care, or when George H.W. Bush raised taxes, despite his
that he never would.
It is important to note that, whatever her relationship with the telecommunications industry, it is not fair to blame Hillary Clinton for the Telecommunications Act of 1996. As first lady, Clinton was not in charge of telecommunications policy and there doesn’t appear to be evidence she played a role in constructing or fighting for the law in the White House. In fact, 20 years later, it is difficult to find any public statements from Hillary Clinton expressing her opinion about the law or its impacts. She di
at the 2012 YearlyKos convention about the Telecommunications Act. Her response, however, did little to clarify her views on the subject. She said:
You’ll have to ask [then-Vice President] Al Gore. We’ve had a lot of media consolidation. We’ve had some good competition. We have a lot that we need to do to begin to create a more competitive framework. Al was very involved in designing and pushing that through — he is an expert; I am not … We’ve got to take a hard look at this and I don’t want to say something I may not really support. So I have to look at that proposal.
Clinton is now, however, deep into a presidential run and could well be responsible for appointing the head of the FCC. She owes it to voters to describe her views on the Telecommunications Act, and on media consolidation more broadly, in a way that goes beyond advising Americans to “go ask Al Gore.”
Why Media Reform Matters
When McChesney observed that the communications lobby was “among the most feared, respected and well-endowed of all” groups in Washington, he also pointed out one of the great challenges about trying to fight Big Media.
“[The] only grounds for political independence in this case,” he wrote about the debate over the Telecommunications Act, “would be if there were an informed and mobilized citizenry ready to do battle for alternative policies. But where would citizens get informed?”
This catch-22 is indeed one of the great difficulties about fighting for a vibrant media and a healthy democracy. But it is a challenge advocates of free media must embrace. Supporting independent media is one important way to help bring light to issues the corporate media ignores.In other words, how can we have a real debate about media issues, when we depend on that very media to provide a platform for this debate? It is no surprise, for instance, that the media largely ignored the impact of Citizens Unitedafter the Supreme Court decision helped media companies generate record profits due to a new mass of political ads. “Super PACs may be bad for America, but they’re very good for CBS,” said CBS president Les Moonves, in a rare moment of candor at an entertainment conference in 2012.
Media reform is the issue that affects all other issues. As the impact of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 has shown, democracy suffers when almost all media in the nation is owned by massive conglomerates. In this reality, no issue the left cares about — the environment, criminal legal reform or health care — will get a fair shake in the national debate.
TOPICS: MEDIA
TAGS: BILL CLINTON, FCC, HILLARY CLINTON, MEDIA CRITICISM, NET NEUTRALITY, SUPER PACS,TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT
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ch 10 what lib media
63 gaylord nelson made xcross cttry trip w/ jfk on enviro, but pres asked about
defense and power politics; inspired Earth day. crisis predicted now happeneding:
ashtma, fish poison, agw, end species at same rate as dinos 175
fed radio act 1927 "public interest' kids and community pgm, divrse ownership; in
60;s FCC used Fair Doctr to make cigs co incl surgeon warning in ads; car co ads
had to be balanced by those promoting fuel effec!?) Moyers; clear intent was to keep
commerical values from overwhelming democratic values" so fiinancial view (corp or
gov) would not be the only view of reality 176-7
88 RR 86 FDoct as favor to studio donors. NY station that aired 9 pro nuke ads
refused = time; 3 FCC appts who ran FCC said b/c of cable, FD obsolete. chair Mark
Fowler said tv "just another appliance--it's a toaster with pictures" 177.
Congress tried to reinstate, but vetoed.
Clear ChannelSIC 1995 40 radio stations now 1200, 11%. News corp #1 in world, one
of 7 in us own or control all 2k tv, 11k radio, 1100 paprrsand mag [now?];
stations no longer run by city, news no longr by jrnlists 178. few or none
reporters at statehouse; none at B if Int.
Ailes says no eco news b/c not fast-breaking
GE owns nbc, world's #1 polluter w/ 86n superfind sites (westinghouse cbs 39
biggest maker of nuke plants and 3rd in weapns 180
fox fla jane akre and steve wilson 9 mos 83 drafts on bgh; fired, sued 425K damges
whistleblow overtuned b/c rule created by judges not legis/ 182 5 networks amicus
briefs, makes it ok to lie; jeb judge will rule? on whether reports must pay 1.7m
in legal fees!? 182
cbs pulled RR docudrama . msnbc fired donohue for michael savage
Disney 86's Fahr 9/11 rek2 got grodin fired too. Bill o interv rfk, but not live;
nbc bumped for jackson
last vetige of free media is ownership, but b2 changed. clear ch and cumulus
(dixie chicks) Micael Powell gave waivers to overages. corp get up to 45% of
nation viewers and can have paper, tv and radio in same city 187
rules done in secrt w/ only 1 pub;ic mtg led to protest (2.4 mil ltrs) . sen votd
to halt, house about to but delay and lobbyists blocked vite; fed ct rejected b/c
of lack of "reasoned analysis"
**Van Jones is history- Is FCC Diversity czar Mark Lloyd next on Beck's hit list?**
Various ^| JessDuntno
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 3:41:31 PM by **jessduntno**
Van Jones is a gone pecan and the right wing libertarian movement led by the new de fecto head of the conservative party Glenn Beck smells blood . Fresh off the ousting of former special assistant for "green jobs" Van Jones Glenn Beck supporters are calling for the public lynching of FCC Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd . For conservatives to effectively target Mark Lloyd it looks like it will take more than it did to bounce Van Jones out of his position . Lets look into Mark Lloyd's back ground to see if there is enough rope.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bhoczars; bhofcc; glennbeck; lloyd; marklloyd; vanjones
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Van Jones is history - Is FCC Diversity czar Mark Lloyd next on Beck's (and FReeps' Hit list?)
Adopt a Czar...look them up and post your findings...
Notable links;
The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio By John Halpin, James Heidbreder, Mark Lloyd, Paul Woodhull, Ben Scott, Josh Silver, S. Derek Turner | June 20, 2007
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/06/talk_radio.html
Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America. Drawing on a wealth of historical sources, Lloyd demonstrates that despite the persistent hope that a new technology (from the telegraph to the Internet) will rise to serve the needs of the republic, none have solved the fundamental problems created by corporate domination. In the book he presents the idea the private broadcasters (private business) should pay a licensing fees which equals their total operating costs so that public broadcasting station can spend the same on their operations as the private companies do. By doing so he hopes to improve the Corporation for Public Broadcasting currently at $400 Million for 2009.
http://www.amazon.com/Prologue-Farce-Communication-Democracy-America/dp/0252073428
www.casttv.com/video/6dtwyv/mark-lloyd-praises-hugo-chavez-video
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The scrub is starting...give us a hand in tracking all we can about this petty scumbag...
1 posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 3:41:32 PM by jessduntno