AT&T Chairman William E. Kennard, CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell and NAB CEO Gordon Smith will be honored at the Media Institute’s Free Speech America virtual gala on Oct. 20.
In what is likely to be one of his last major speeches as FCC chairman, Ajit Pai used a good portion of his time speaking virtually with the Media Institute on Tuesday, Dec. 15, about the continued fight over new media ownership rules.
Former FCC Commissioner and acting chair Mignon Clyburn made a case for the “public-private” partnership of regulator-industry as the blueprint for advancing a more diverse and inclusive media landscape. Clyburn was delivering her virtual acceptance speech at the Media Institute’s First Amendment awards ceremony.
The Media Institute will honor Tegna President-CEO Dave Lougee and Newseum President-CEO Jeffrey Herbst at its annual Friends & Benefactors Awards Banquet Sept. 27 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, […]
Exclusives
Rebecca Hanson of the Sinclair Broadcast Group was elected to the board of trustees of the Media Institute at the board’s annual meeting today in Washington. Hanson is SVP, strategy and […]
Online video company Aereo “threatens the existence of the American broadcast industry as the nation has come to know it,” the Media Institute says in papers filed this week with the Supreme Court. The nonprofit think-tank is asking the Supreme Court to hear broadcasters’ challenge to earlier rulings allowing Aereo to continue operating.
FCC Charts A Wise Course For Media’s Future
The long-awaited FCC report, “The Information Needs of Communities,” was released last week. Had the report endorsed radical (and preposterous) things, like a federal tax credit for investigative journalism, it would have attracted more ink, and been the subject of conversation far longer. But it’s a credit to its authors, and to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, that it did not do so, because it shows they possess both a realistic view of the scope of the FCC’s limited authority and a healthy respect for the First Amendment.
Michael Copps’ Excellent Adventure
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps is now in his 10th and final year as commissioner and he still isn’t happy with the state of media and the journalism it supports. If he and the rest of the FCC couldn’t fix things during the last decade, perhaps the problem all along hasn’t been consolidation or avarice as he argues. Maybe it’s been that what ails the media, and the way forward, are more complex than to be availing of the kind of nostrums Copps has been peddling.
In remarks before the Media Institute this week, FCC adviser Steve Waldman said the agency’s Future of Media report would be released “soon.” According to Waldman, local TV news is “more important than ever,” and the source from which Americans still get most of their news.
