Regulation

The Trump Justice Department secretly seized the phone records of three Washington Post reporters who covered the federal investigation into ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, the newspaper said Friday.

Aug. 11 will be the date of the first national EAS test since before the pandemic began. Officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency officially informed the FCC on May 4, that it plans its sixth national EAS test on that day. They also plan to conduct a nationwide Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) test concurrently.

Public broadcasters are welcoming the FCC’s decision to rein in new rules governing foreign sponsorship of radio and TV broadcasts, which system leaders feared could be too burdensome for producers and stations. In a Report and Order released April 22, the FCC specified that its requirements for identifying program sponsorship by foreign governments will apply only to broadcasters that lease airtime to governmental entities. That largely excludes public broadcasters.

The Baltimore State’s Attorney filed the complaint against the Sinclair Fox affiliate, alleging a pattern of coverage of the state’s attorney’s office that is “blatantly slanted, dishonest, misleading, racist, and extremely dangerous.” It also claims the station “appears to be an intentional crusade” against Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby (above), “which given today’s politically charged and divisive environment, is extremely dangerous.” Sinclair defended WBFF’s reporting in a statement.

The Maine Attorney General’s Office has given up its fight to defend a law that would have required cable TV providers to give subscribers the option of purchasing access to individual cable channels rather than bundled packages. Maine lawmakers passed the first-of-its-kind measure in 2019, but cable companies quickly challenged it in federal court. They argued in part that the law violated their First Amendment rights by infringing on the “editorial discretion” of programmers and cable operators.

The conservative news network, in a statement published on its website and to be read on TV, said that while it aired accusations of voter machine manipulation against Dominion Voting Systems Security Director Eric Coomer made by Donald Trump’s lawyers and supporters, it found no evidence that they were true.

A months-long war of words between CNN and Project Veritas has escalated into an actual libel suit. On Tuesday, James O’Keefe’s operation filed a complaint in Georgia after a CNN anchor discussed Twitter’s suspension of Project Veritas and attempted to explain that “this is part of a much broader crackdown … by social media giants on accounts that are promoting misinformation.”

The fight between broadcasters (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC) and Locast is nearing its day in court, but the lawyers representing the broadcasters (plaintiffs) have filed a request for summary judgement with the U.S. District Court in New York as they do not believe, and provide reasoning, as to why Locast is not a nonprofit entity and therefore cannot rebroadcast their signals.

Usually, when social media executives are brought to testify in front of Congress, the hearings are centered on specific policies and types of content, misinfo and foreign interference, antitrust issues, and privacy concerns. What doesn’t quite get as much attention are the engines that drive these platforms: their algorithms. That’s what makes Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary hearing with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube different. The hearing is entirely focused on social media algorithms.

Fox News filed another response to Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit, contending that its on-air personalities were protected by the First Amendment as they amplified President Donald Trump’s unfounded allegations of massive election fraud following the 2020 presidential election. “Smartmatic strains to make this lawsuit seem like a garden-variety defamation suit rather than a glaring threat to core First Amendment freedoms,” the company’s legal team, led by Paul Clement of Kirkland & Ellis, said in a brief filed in New York Supreme Court. The legal team also is representing Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News.

The FCC is diving into Wireless Multi-Channel Audio Systems (WMAS), an emerging wireless microphone technology designed to enable more microphones per megahertz of spectrum. The commission has officially adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that is seeking public comment on whether WMAS technology should be granted a licensed basis in frequency bands where wireless mics are already authorized.

Two Democratic lawmakers are urging the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Google misleads parents by falsely representing that childrens’ apps on the Play Store comply with a federal privacy law. “New research suggests that Google misleadingly markets children’s apps as compliant with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act … despite evidence that many of those apps illegally track children’s behavior and share their personal information without consent,” Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Kathy Castor said Wednesday in a letter to the agency.

The FCC has voted to boost broadcasters’ disclosure requirements for programming on airtime leased by a foreign entity. The move comes amidst heightened focus on disinformation campaigns and despite some pushback from broadcasters, who argue the FCC is adding regs to an already overregulated service.

The FCC has denied Gray Television’s retransmission consent complaint against Frontier Communications, saying Frontier did not violate the agency’s good-faith standards, its totality of circumstances test or its notice requirements.

While the pandemic has focused much attention on streaming television services, at least some companies believe that over-the-air television still has a future, as evidenced by recent proposals to allocate new TV channels which, if adopted, could result in brand new TV stations.

Never before have so many countries, including China, moved with such vigor at the same time to limit the power of a single industry.

The FCC is seeking comment on whether it needs to update its rules limiting excessively loud commercials. That came in a request from the Media Bureau and following a letter to FCC acting chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel from Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), author of the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act.

NAB General Counsel Rick Kaplan: “The FCC should not simply saddle broadcasters with this needless obligation — or rather, multiple needless obligations — because it can regulate broadcasters but not social media companies. That is regulation at its worst, and it should not make a return. If the commission can’t address a widespread problem that occurs almost exclusively on other platforms, why not ask Congress to step in with regulations that actually meet the problem rather than reflexively burdening over-the-air broadcasters? If anything, the Commission should be reticent to add burdens on one industry that are wildly asymmetrical to the regulation of other industries and that will barely address the actual problem.”

A comprehensive look at references to the press in justices’ opinions revealed “a marked and previously undocumented uptick in negative depictions.”

The House Judiciary Committee lhas formally approved a report on monopoly power in digital marketplaces. The over 400-page document depicting ways that Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Facebook allegedly abuse their market power was approved on a 24-17 party-line vote.

The Writers Guild of America West announced on Thursday that it has reached a settlement with CBS that will see the network pay $3.4 million in residuals for 62 TV shows added to the since-rebranded CBS All Access streaming service.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), chair of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, says she is going to push for local broadcast and print media to be considered critical infrastructure that needs preserving. The Biden Administration has been pushing its massive $1.9 trillion American Jobs Plan infrastructure bill. That plan does not address local journalism as critical infrastructure in need of government support, but Cantwell said it should and she will work to try to make that happen.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) wants some answers from the FCC about enforcement of her CALM Act legislation that regulates the volume of TV commercials. In a letter to acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, Eshoo was looking for satisfaction she suggested she did not get from the former Republican FCC.