Empire is “evaluating the situation” in light of Jussie Smollett‘s arrest for allegedly staging a racist and homophobic attack against himself, Fox announced Thursday.
The recently passed 2019 Appropriations bill — the one that avoided a second government shutdown — was a massive tome that included directing the FCC to provide a “full analysis” of its treatment of market modification petitions. Those are petitions by broadcasters or satellite operators or county officials to modify a market so that satellite viewers in a Nielsen market that crosses state lines can get local news and sports from TV stations from another Nielsen market in their own state instead.
Empire actor Jussie Smollett staged a racist and homophobic attack because he was unhappy about his salary and wanted to promote his career, Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnso said Thursday. Producers Fox Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Television issued a statement Thursday saying that they were “evaluating the situation” and “considering our options.”
Local journalists are reckoning with a new reality: The greatest threat to working in journalism is public contempt for us as a workforce. Journalists should be able to go to work without fear of being attacked or intimidated. In addition to providing training on increased safety measures, journalists need legislative action to ensure violence is not an acceptable form of criticism and to penalize those who recklessly interfere efforts to seek and report the truth on behalf of the public.
Exclusives
What Is FCC’s Role In Regulating ‘Vice’ Ads?
In recent months, there have been many calls to regulate e-cigs, and potentially to regulate the marketing of all sorts of vaping products, including a call last week by an FCC Commissioner in an op-ed article in USA Today. So far, the FCC has had no real role in regulating these products. In fact, one wonders if it really has any authority to take action against the advertising of e-cigs without congressional action.
Following three weeks of mounting suspicions, Empire actor Jussie Smollett was charged Wednesday with making a false police report, a charge that could bring up to three years in prison and force the actor, who is black and gay, to pay for the cost of the investigation into his report of a Jan. 29 beating. Smollett turned himself in to Chicago police Thursday morning and is expected to appear in court later in the day.
Nicholas Sandmann, a high school student from Covington, Ky., sued the Washington Post for defamation on Tuesday, claiming the newspaper falsely accused him of racist acts and instigating a confrontation with a Native American activist in a January videotaped incident at the Lincoln Memorial.
KOKI Anchor Arrested On DUI Charge
Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday called for the Supreme Court to reconsider New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 ruling interpreting the First Amendment to make it hard for public officials to prevail in libel suits. He said the decision was the product of unprincipled “legal alchemy” that had no basis in the Constitution as understood by the people who drafted and ratified it.
Broadcasters are telling the FCC its proposal to open up the 6 GHz spectrum for unlicensed wireless is not ready for prime time, and may never be. Broadcasters use the band for auxiliary (BAS) operations and NAB says the FCC’s proposed interference protections — limiting it to lower-power, indoor operations — miss the mark, particularly since some camera transmitters used to relay footage back to stations also operate indoors and at low power, so they would be in the interference line of fire even with those limitations on unlicensed devices.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is staying out of a lawsuit involving the television show “Empire.” The high court said Tuesday it won’t take a case involving the Fox […]
FCC Starts 2019 EEO Audits
On Friday, the FCC issued its first EEO audit of almost 300 radio and TV stations across the country, the day after announcing its intent to abolish the Form 397 EEO Mid-Term Report.
Here’s a timeline to help keep track of the twists and turns in the reported assault on Jussie Smollett, the Empire actor.
FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly has hired Joel Miller as his chief of staff. He succeeds Brooke Erickson who left the FCC for the private sector. Miller has been deputy chief of staff and legislative director for Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), working on communications for the congressman, who is a member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, which oversees communications issues.
The Federal Trade Commission and Facebook are negotiating over a multi-billion dollar fine that would settle the agency’s investigation into the social media giant’s privacy practices, according to two people familiar with the probe. The fine would be the largest the agency has ever imposed on a technology company, but the two sides have not yet agreed on an exact amount.
Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson contacted at least one Chicago news outlet to say investigators have no evidence to support their reporting that the attack against Empire actor Jussie Smollett was a hoax. The spokesman added that Johnson said the “supposed CPD sources are uninformed and inaccurate.”
The FCC gave a rather significant Valentine’s Day gift to broadcasters, eliminating the requirement that larger radio and television stations submit the EEO Mid-Term Report (FCC Form 397) at the midpoint of their license terms. While the FCC will continue to conduct EEO mid-term reviews, it determined that filing the EEO Mid-Term Report was no longer necessary, as most of the information required for an EEO mid-term review is already available in a broadcaster’s Online Public Inspection File.
KMSP Anchor Sues State For Slip And Fall
Georgia lawmakers, coaxed by dozens of lobbyists swarming the state Capitol, are pushing for a tax on digital video, books, music and video games.
FEC Wants To Change TV Political Disclosures
The Federal Election Commission has its own rules for political advertising that are binding on the candidates, rather than on the stations. But because these ads run on broadcast stations, stations need to pay attention to them to avoid getting caught up in arguments about whether candidate ads are legal, and because the FEC rules often get adopted by the FCC. For these reasons, broadcasters need to pay attention to an entry in today’s Federal Register, where the FEC gives notice of its receipt of a Petition for Rulemaking proposing changes to the textual disclosures made in TV political ads.
An amended lawsuit say stock sales from Leslie Moonves, Joseph Ianniello and other executives amount to evidence of knowing wrongfulness and fraudulent motive.
The FCC has released its status report on the post-broadcast incentive auction TV station repack, which involves most of 1,000 full-powers and 2,000 low-powers in a 10-phase plan, and as FCC Chairman Ajit Pai signaled last week, the commission is ahead of schedule. It is also making available more money for the TV station transition.
An attorney representing American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker says his client did not engage in extortion or blackmail against Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Speaking on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, attorney Elkan Abramowitz said the primary source for the Enquirer’s investigation into Bezos’ love life was a longtime tipster for the tabloid magazine.
Jeff Bezos Can Sue The Pants Off National Enquirer
A lawsuit could change the way we think about privacy in the digital age. Privacy is not quite dead. For egregious cases, there are remedies lying ready to hand in the civil law of torts, at least for the case that Bezos might want to bring against AMI.
Federal prosecutors are looking into the National Enquirer’s handling of a story about Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ extramarital affair to see if the tabloid’s publisher violated a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, the Associated Press reported on Friday.
