Gary Shapiro – 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.

July 7, 2021July 7, 2021 By Guest Author Gary Shapiro

Attacking Free Speech Doesn’t Just Hurt Tech: America Must Stay True to Its First Amendment Principles

The First Amendment is one of the cornerstone principles that define this nation. There is no such thing as freedom if we cannot speak freely. 

Today, however, our nation seems less interested in protecting free speech than at any time I can recall. Major advocates of free speech like the ACLU are wavering in their support of our First Amendment, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are fighting for the government to censor online speech.

February 18, 2009January 30, 2017 By Patrick Maines

And Now for Something Entirely Different…

In Washington, the lingua franca of policy discussions is "lobbyspeak," a form of communication that seeks, among other things, to conceal any hint of personal belief or interest.

The allure of lobbyspeak is that it allows the speaker to say things in a way that inoculates him from the risk that someone might denigrate his arguments as being just his own opinions, as contrasted, say, with positions derived from case law, or precedent, or that runaway favorite, the “public interest.”

Considered in the larger scheme of things, this is not the worst thing in the world. Among the initiated, after all, it is easily spotted, and in some cases even appreciated — like a risqué double entendre — for its naughty cleverness. But it can be, and often is, remarkably tiresome.

Which is why I write today to commend a speech given in Washington this week by the president of the Consumer Electronics Association, the people who host the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Lobbyspeak it was not.

As reported Tuesday in the headline of a Broadcasting & Cable story, "CEA president Gary Shapiro says media has ‘failed’ the country by poorly analyzing important stories," the speech excoriated the press for their insufficient attention to the substantive aspects of the recently enacted stimulus legislation, and our financial crisis generally.

In a town in which many, association executives particularly, are loathe to say anything that might upset anyone — the press and policymakers especially — Shapiro’s speech before The Media Institute was stunningly different, and frank, and courageous.