With Greg Walden now retired as a Member of Congress and at the helm of brand-new K Street strategic advisory firm Alpine Advisors, the Ranking Member of the influential House Energy & Commerce Commission has become Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers, from the state of Washington.
She’s making her mark in fast fashion. And, she’s steaming mad at her Democratic colleagues for actions she and Communications and Technology Republican Subcommittee Leader Bob Latta (R-Ohio) believe put a threat to freedom of speech, and Freedom of the Press.
Now, Latta and McMorris Rodgers on Wednesday want the acting Chairwoman of the FCC to take action.
The Republicans on Wednesday co-wrote a letter urging Jessica Rosenworcel “to defend free speech and freedom of the press.”
How so? They’re asking for something Rosenworcel may not actually do. That would be, in their words, to “unequivocally denounce recent efforts by House Democrats to threaten fundamental American liberties protected under the First Amendment.”
As reported by RBR+TVBR, the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday afternoon was scheduled to conduct a fully remote hearing that takes aim at how “disinformation and extremism” has been fueled by U.S. media. Witnesses include journalist Soledad O’Brien, who serves as CEO of her own production company in addition to the five-year old Matter of Fact, will be joined by Emily Bell, Director of The Tow Center for Digital Media at Columbia University; George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley; and by Marked by COVID co-founder Kristin Urquiza.
With the event already on the books, California Democrat Anna Eshoo, now a senior member of the influential House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, is also busy seeking to “combat the spread of misinformation” via not only the Internet’s biggest social media platforms, but also via cable, satellite and streaming TV companies.
Her actions are what has raised the ire of Republican colleagues.
Eshoo penned a letter with another California Democratic House Member, Communications and Technology Subcommittee colleague Jerry McNerney, seeking further information about the actions of MVPDs “to address misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and lies spread through channels they host.”
Companies receiving letters include DirecTV parent AT&T, Verizon, Roku, Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Charter, Dish, Cox, Altice, Google parent Alphabet Inc., and Hulu.
NcNerney and Eshoo state, “Nearly half of Americans get their news primarily from TV. However, not all TV news sources are the same. Some purported news outlets have long been misinformation rumor mills and conspiracy theory hotbeds that produce content that leads to real harm. Misinformation on TV has led to our current polluted information environment that radicalizes individuals to commit seditious acts and rejects public health best practices, among other issues in our public discourse.”
While cable TV services providers are the distributors of such “news” channels as MSNBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, One American News Network (OANN), and Newsmax, they are responsible for any of the content. As such, the inquiry is intriguing and suggests MVPDs have the right to remove a channel based on questionable content.
Of course, the determination of what’s questionable puts MVPDs as the distributors in an odd position — are they the ultimate arbiter of what channels they should provide paying subscribers based on content, in an environment where cord-cutting remains a huge problem for an industry more than ever reliant on broadband internet packages than TV plans?
The very suggestion that a MVPD should be held accountable for the editorial content of a channel it carries, or perhaps be coerced into dropping a network, is what Latta, McMorris Rodgers and other Republicans are highly worried about.
“A free and independent press is a foundational principle in the United States,” they said in their letter to Rosenworcel. ‘As the Acting Chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission), you play a critical role in advancing the public interest and are obligated to encourage national policies that ‘seek to promote the polices and purposes of [the Communications Act] favoring diversity of media, voices, vigorous economic competition, technological advancement, and promotion of the public interest, convenience, and necessity.’ As Acting Chairwoman of the Commission, it is incumbent upon you to use your position to preserve and protect our fundamental freedoms that are protected by the First Amendment. You can, and must, denounce any attempts by government officials to use their power to threaten a free press at such an important time in our Nation’s history.”
Read the full letter HERE.
