Regulation

CNN, The Miami Herald and The South Florida Sun Sentinel filed a civil lawsuit in Broward Circuit Court today in an effort to obtain footage of the outside of the building where the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School took place earlier this month.

America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) will present the Champion of Public Broadcasting Award to Rep. Charles W. Dent (R-Pa.) during its Public Media Summit today, Monday, Feb. 26, at 2:20 p.m. at the Fairmont […]

MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va. (AP) — A West Virginia judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by coal company Murray Energy against HBO host John Oliver. A segment of Oliver’s Sunday show “Last Week Tonight” […]

At its meeting yesterday, the FCC adopted a notice suggesting the abolition of the EEO Mid-Term Report, FCC Form 397. That form is filed at the mid-point of the renewal term of TV stations with five or more fulltime employees and radio clusters with 11 or more fulltime employees. As the content of the report is principally made up of the broadcaster’s last two EEO Public Inspection File Reports, and those reports are available in a broadcasters online public inspection file, the FCC concluded that there is no real reason that these reports need to be separately submitted, and thus proposed its elimination.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai received the National Rifle Association’s “Charlton Heston Courage Under Fire Award” at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday. The NRA-sponsored award was given to Pai in recognition of months of heavy criticism over his successful push to repeal the agency’s net neutrality rules last December.

Well, it’s official: the Open Internet rule, better known as Net Neutrality, will go bye-bye starting April 23.

“While the commission has a long history of facilitating the introduction of new technologies and services,” the commission said, “the regulatory path from technological breakthrough to authorization of service has often been too long and arduous.”

The FCC plans to make its net neutrality repeal official on Thursday, when it will publish the revocation order, dubbed “Restoring Internet Freedom,” in the Federal Register. The expected move will trigger a 60-day window during which Congress can rescind the FCC’s move by passing a resolution of disapproval.

The Independent Television Group says the commission’s retention of the ban “was arbitrary and capricious and contrary to the evidence in the record before the agency.”

Sinclair will sell WPIX New York and WGN Chicago — as well as KSWB San Diego to smooth the way for its purchase of Tribune’s stations, the station group says in a filing. But the stations will remain in the Sinclair orbit. A footnote to the filing says Sinclair “will enter into an option and services agreement(s)” with the buyer or buyers of the stations. In addition, it will spin off one of the two top-four stations it would own post-merger in seven markets — Seattle, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Oklahoma, Grand Rapids, Richmond and Des Moines.

One of the first proposals in FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s initiative for the modernization of media regulation was to repeal a rule that many did not even know was a rule — one requiring that broadcasters who have secondary licenses maintain a paper copy of the FCC rules. Not even waiting for the commission meeting tomorrow at which this proposal was to be considered, the FCC issued its Report and Order yesterday, repealing the rule.

The government should require social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to use an  open application programming interface. This would make it possible for third parties to build software to monitor and report on the effects of social media algorithms. To be clear, the proposal is not to force companies to open up their algorithms — just the results of the algorithms.

The saga of the sale of The Weinstein Co. took another turn as the leading bidders for the company are seeking to loosen a Gordian knot with the New York State Attorney General’s office. Discussions are underway to hold a Wednesday meeting between AG Eric T. Schneiderman and the investor group leader Maria Contreras-Sweet and Yucaipa’s Ron Burkle, sources confirm.

Smiley claims PBS used a sexual misconduct investigation as a pretext to get rid of him, but the network says the decision to suspend his show was justified.

A U.S. District Court judge has ruled that the State of California’s SAG-AFTRA-backed law making it illegal for the entertainment news site IMDbPro to publish actors’ ages is unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.

Lawmakers are concerned that advances in video manipulation technology could set off a new era of fake news. Now legislators say they want to start working on fixes to the problem before it’s too late. Technology experts have begun to sound the alarm on the new software, which lets users take existing videos and make high-quality altered video and audio that appears real. The emergence of the technology opens up a new world of hoaxes driven by doctored audio or video, and threatens to shake faith in the media even further.

The president’s decision to attend the Gridiron Club dinner seems conciliatory, though bitter feelings remain on both sides.

Siding against Charter, a New York state judge has refused to dismiss Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s lawsuit alleging that the company duped consumers by delivering broadband speeds that were slower than advertised.

State governments are becoming pivotal players in the battle over net neutrality. In recent weeks, legislatures from California to Massachusetts have introduced bills aimed at restoring the FCC’s broadband rules, which banned Internet providers from arbitrarily speeding up or slowing down websites. Their novel approach, analysts say, is largely untested in court — and it could drive the fight over the Internet’s future into hazy legal territory.

The Department of Justice on Friday moved to prevent AT&T from arguing that politics played a role in the government’s decision to stop its merger with Time Warner Inc, a deal that President Donald Trump had publicly criticized. “There was no selective enforcement,” Justice Department lawyer Craig Conrath said at a pre-trial hearing. “The president is unhappy with CNN. We don’t dispute that. But AT&T wants to turn that into a get-out-jail-free card for their illegal merger.”

AT&T is demanding that the Justice Department hand over additional evidence to prove that President Trump did not wield political influence over the agency as its antitrust enforcers reviewed the company’s bid to acquire Time Warner.

Public interest group MMTC had petitioned the US Court of Appeals for a rehearing on its decision upholding the FCC decision deciding not to impose any multilingual EAS obligations on broadcasters. The full Court of Appeals has just issued a one sentence order denying that reconsideration request. While, theoretically, MMTC’s next appeal would be to the Supreme Court, lacking an issue of major significance or constitutional importance, that is unlikely.

The creation of the First Amendment by our nation’s founders demonstrated a profound commitment to human dignity, reason and the search for truth. First Amendment confusion reigns today in America. Today, too many Americans take a self-centered approach, claiming their own individual rights, but not acknowledging that the First Amendment protects the free speech of the other guy, too.

In a huge surprise, a New York federal judge on Thursday delivered a blow to nine news organizations defending their use of a Tom Brady photo. The judge’s decision is sure to be controversial and could prove quite consequential, too, potentially disrupting the way that news outlets use Twitter and causing many in technology to re-examine ubiquitous practices from embedding to linking.

RTDNA on Thursday demanded that the press office for the Georgia State Senate rescind its threat to revoke press credentials for a WGCL Atlanta reporter who had the audacity to ask questions of a state senator in the public hallway of a public building, the Georgia State Capitol.

In another proceeding initiated as part of its effort to modernize the rules that apply to broadcasters, the FCC is seeking comment on whether and how to update the requirement that licensees file paper copies of certain contracts and other documents with the agency within 30 days of their execution. As a result of the publication of the notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register, comments are due on March 19 and reply comments are due on April 2.