Radio – Media & Communications Policy

September 6, 2024September 5, 2024 By Guest Author Gary Shapiro

Tech’s Role in Driving Innovation: Why Over-Regulation Stifles Progress

Recently, The Media Institute shared a commentary by Adonis Hoffman suggesting tech should be highly regulated, blaming it for many problems faced by traditional media. On behalf of the Consumer Technology Association’s (CTA)^®1,300 tech company members, many of which are leading competitors around the world and collectively are driving economic and stock market growth, I strongly disagree with this perspective. The notion of using government to “tear down” one industry to “boost” another is misguided and harmful to the competitive spirit that drives American innovation and economic success.

Tech is tackling global challenges and improving lives for billions of people. Indeed, CTA and CES^® partnered with the United Nations to provide and promote solutions for clean water, clean air, health care, and food availability. As innovators develop solutions saving lives, some media industry lobbyists whose businesses lost market share to innovative competitors push for unnecessary taxes and restrictions on tech – simply because it has disrupted traditional models.

February 2, 2023 By Stuart N. Brotman

A Ray of Hope for Media Literacy

Although the tidal wave of misinformation continues unabated, the New Year already has seen one ray of hope. In early January, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed the first-in-the-nation law that requires public schools to teach media literacy at all grade levels – K-12.

Murphy noted in his signing statement: “Our democracy remains under sustained attack through the proliferation of misinformation that is eroding the role of truth in our political and civic discourse. It is our responsibility to ensure our nation’s future leaders are equipped with the tools necessary to identify fact from fiction.”

January 29, 2021July 7, 2021 By Stuart N. Brotman

Why Distrust of News Needs More Sophisticated Analysis

With a start of a new year, some notable public attitudes about critical institutions seem to be on a downward trend. These include traditional media, like newspapers, broadcast stations, and cable networks, which are often thrown together in opinion polls aimed at gaining key insight into their credibility with audiences of readers and viewers.

The Edelman Trust Barometer found only 46 percent of Americans trust traditional media. This is the lowest number recorded since the data was first tracked two decades ago. It found 58 percent of Americans believe that “most news organizations are more concerned with supporting one ideology or political position than with informing the public” and found over half also think that the Fourth Estate is “trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.”

September 25, 2020September 25, 2020 By Guest Author Gordon Smith

First Amendment Still Shines During Toughest of Times

Two hundred and thirty-one years ago this week, Congress passed a collection of amendments to the U.S. Constitution, 10 of which would become the Bill of Rights. Foremost in the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment, which allows Americans to worship how they please, speak their minds openly, and have their voices heard by their government.

Our Founding Fathers, in their infinite wisdom, also included in the First Amendment the right to a free press. They understood that our democracy could not survive without the freedom to report the news without fear or favor. The times may have changed; that principle has not.

September 18, 2020September 18, 2020 By Guest Author Gary Arlen

Early Voting Brings New Media Challenges In Advertising and Editorial Endorsements

From shifting commercial placements to premature newspaper endorsements, this year’s early balloting procedures are having a massive effect on media operations. Political strategists are figuring out how and more importantly when to place ads in this unprecedented season of extensive early voting.

The Halloween weekend deluge of campaign ads just before Election Day on Nov. 3 may be meaningless if up to half of voters have already cast their ballots. In a related vein, the ripple effect of advertising decisions also affects ad timing for down-ballot races, where voters may need more coaxing.

July 7, 2020August 13, 2020 By Guest Author Gary Arlen

Ending the Media Versus Police Tumult

Whatever happens with police reform legislation in Congress, there is no reason to expect that protection of reporters and media will figure into the proposed “best practices” of how journalists should be treated during tense and often violent situations such as we’ve seen in the past month. Generalized protections already exist in the First Amendment, but as the brutal incidents of the past month show, law enforcement officers can recklessly bypass those enshrined barriers.

A slew of reports – some of them admittedly self-pitying – emerged in recent weeks with frightening details about how print and electronic journalists have been attacked by law enforcement officers. It appears that sometimes reporters were singled out as they sought to cover the protests and demonstrations that erupted around the world after George Floyd’s death-by-knee in Minneapolis.

April 10, 2019April 10, 2019 By Guest Author Gordon Smith

Broadcasting Today: Energized by Innovation

There is a saying that goes, “Everybody has a story to tell.”

My own NAB Show story began a decade ago – almost to this day, in fact – when I spoke at my first show as the new president and CEO. On that morning, I shared the story of broadcasters’ unrelenting commitment to always be there for their communities … to inform them … and to help them.

It is a deep-rooted commitment that manifests itself in many ways that often go unnoticed – in ways that have become ingrained in everyday life for millions of Americans.

Our communities turn on the radio to find out what the weather is like before heading to work … to learn how to help their neighbors in need … or to listen to the great personalities who seem like old friends. They turn on their televisions to watch their favorite local news anchor and to get an unbiased report of what is happening in their communities.

November 20, 2017November 20, 2017 By Richard T. Kaplar

Advertising Deductibility: For the Sake of Speech

The “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” introduced amid great fanfare on Nov. 2, has now been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives along an essentially party-line vote. The Senate’s version, introduced Nov. 9, is still undergoing intense scrutiny as groups from every quarter weigh the bill’s proposed cuts in tax rates versus the elimination of certain deductions, credits, and other tax breaks.

As ideas for reforming the tax code were tossed around in recent months and even years, one proposal – or some variation of it – would surface from time to time. This was the idea that the tax deduction for business advertising expenses should be eliminated.

This has always been an ill-considered idea (as we shall discuss below), and thus we were relieved that it did not find its way into the new tax bills of either the House or Senate. But since these bills are only the opening salvos in the difficult battle to revise the tax code, it would be worthwhile to examine why this ad-related provision should not be a part of the measure that finally reaches the president’s desk.

Continue reading “Advertising Deductibility: For the Sake of Speech”

November 7, 2017November 7, 2017 By Richard T. Kaplar

Repealing Media Ownership Regulations: It’s About Time

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has proposed the most reasonable of actions: repealing or revising 40-year-old media ownership rules that long ago outlived any marginal usefulness they might’ve once had.

This should be a no-brainer. But, Washington being what it is, entrenched interests and politicians bent on maintaining the status quo for their own purposes have pilloried Pai for trying to do something that should’ve been done decades ago.

First, the facts. On Oct. 26, Chairman Pai released an Order on Reconsideration and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. This proceeding seeks to accomplish the following:

Eliminate the Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Rule;
Eliminate the Radio/Television Cross-Ownership Rule; and
Revise the Local Television Rule to eliminate the Eight-Voices Test and to incorporate a case-by-case review provision in the Top Four Prohibition.

The proceeding would also seek to eliminate the attribution rule for television Joint Sales Agreements; retain the disclosure requirement for commercial television Shared Services Agreements; keep the Local Radio Ownership Rule; and create an incubator program to encourage new and diverse voices in the broadcast industry.

Continue reading “Repealing Media Ownership Regulations: It’s About Time”

March 21, 2017March 21, 2017 By Patrick Maines

Keep Big Bird, Ditch the News: A Path Forward for PBS With Budget Cuts

As was the case a half-dozen years ago, PBS and NPR are again the subject of a contentious debate about their taxpayer funding, this time courtesy of President Trump. The problem with that debate, then and now, is that like so many policy disputes, the arguments employed oversimplify the facts and ignore the obvious. I wrote about this matter in 2011 in a piece published in the now-defunct app called The Daily. What follows is an update of that piece.

For years, Republicans and conservatives have accused NPR and PBS of ideological and political bias. Things came to a head in 2010 when NPR fired Juan Williams as a commentator for allegedly making anti-Muslim remarks, and NPR successfully solicited funding for local reporting from a foundation controlled by the uber liberal George Soros.

This perception of bias would be noteworthy enough even if these broadcasters were not financially supported by taxpayers, conditioned on explicit statutory language requiring objectivity and balance. Since, however, they are, the ubiquity and durability of this perception becomes very nearly miraculous. Surely it’s not easy to so thoroughly offend one of the two major parties that, in the House vote in 2011, virtually every Republican member voted to defund NPR » Read More

Maines is president of The Media Institute. The opinions expressed are his alone and not those of The Media Institute, its board, advisory councils, or contributors. The full version of this article appeared in The Hill on March 21, 2017.