Journalists Should Pay Attention to the FCC’s New Chairman
A report by the Columbia Journalism Review
Out of all Trump’s appointees, Ajit Pai has perhaps received the dimmest spotlight. But as the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, he fits the pattern; from the EPA head’s questioning of climate change to Betsy DeVos’s allergy to public education, Trump seems to favor those whose public stances run counter to the department to which they are assigned.
Pai says he will focus on closing the digital divide—the stratification between those with access to the internet and its myriad devices, and those without. But Pai, who was formerly employed as a lawyer by Verizon, has a mixed record. Pai voted against an order that would have brought high-speed internet to schools and libraries in poor neighborhoods, citing concerns it would raise charges on phone bills. (It did, by 16 cents.) Because Pai was already a member of the agency, he bypassed Senate confirmation.
Pai is also opposed to net neutrality—the doctrine leveling the playing field for internet delivery—in favor, apparently, of a smaller role for the FCC. He unleashed a dozen actions in his first week in office “rolling back consumer protection regulations,” reported The New York Times.
Even prior to Pai’s appointment, there was concern that Trump would use the FCC for his own aims. As Klint Finley wrote for Wired in January, Trump’s transition team was already united against net neutrality—a good indication of policy to follow. Finley suggests Trump could also “use the FCC as a weapon against perceived enemies in the media”—through selective enforcement of net neutrality in a consolidated media industry.
Why should journalists care about the FCC, when newspapers are not affected by airwaves licenses? Tracie Powell laid out the case for CJR in 2013: Besides ensuring a free marketplace, neutrality, and transparency, “the FCC is the only agency with a mandate to make the media more diverse, local, and accountable.”
A few reads on net neutrality:
- From the CJR archives: A letter from the desk of a former FCC Commissioner, who makes a forceful argument against media consolidation in the age of the internet.
- The Intercept reports that civil rights groups have a conflict of interest when it comes to supporting or opposing net neutrality.
- In “The Trump Administration’s Other War on the Media,” Katrina vanden Heuvel enumerates the ways in which Pai has “declared war on consumers” in favor of making friends with large companies.
Your Editor Urges: Journalism is a weapon. Use it.
