By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 7-22-20 The News Media for Open Government Coalition is renewing its call for passage of a bill to protect journalists. The Journalist Protection Act, which was introduced in a previous Congress, would "make it a federal crime to intentionally cause bodily injury or threaten a journalist in a manner designed to intimidate [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 7-21-20 U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) CEO Michael Pack's rip-and-replace approach to the agency's Open Technology Fund last month has run into a big legal problem – a court has concluded he likely does not have the authority to do so. OTF is an independent nonprofit funded [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 7-17-20 The Federal Trade Commission has released a report on the use of social media bots – algorithmically driven computer software – in online advertising and finds them to be thriving, out in the open, and easy, cheap and effective to sell, buy and use. The report came at the [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 7-15-20 A bill that would fund the FCC and Federal Trade Commission includes language that would limit the President's effort to regulate social media, as well as provide billions to help better identify and close the digital divide, and use secure technology to do so. A report on the [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 7-15-20 The House Energy & Commerce Committee has approved a number of bipartisan communication-related bills by voice vote, including a stand-alone bill to cancel the T-band auction, which almost nobody wants the FCC to have to go through with, and a bill that would require the FCC to [...]
Participated with the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and 166 other media organizations, outlets, and individuals in a letter to the county attorney of Polk County, Iowa, in the pending criminal case State of Iowa v. Andrea M. Sahouri. Ms. Sahouri is a reporter for the Des Moines Register who was covering a local [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 7-13-20 Broadcasters are telling the FCC that Microsoft and Microsoft-funded groups have no leg to stand on when they oppose those broadcasters' request to use distributed transmission systems (DTS) to improve viewers' reception of their licensed service. The National Association of Broadcasters joined by America's Public Television Stations [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 7-13-20 The FCC Monday (July 13) marked the end of the 39-month TV station repack into smaller spectrum space following the FCC's auction of some of that broadcast spectrum for wireless back in 2017. The FCC gave six stations an extension of their move until September but the [...]
Participated in an amicus brief (with the Reporters Committee and other amici) filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in Van Buren v. United States. This is the first time the Supreme Court has considered the appropriate scope of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). In this case, a police officer in Georgia [...]
Participated with the Reporters Committee and 50 other media organizations and outlets in a letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom and local officials urging them to take immediate, concrete steps to end the police arrests and attacks on credentialed and clearly identifiable journalists that occurred during civil protests. The letter makes the same legal [...]