Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP
Federal Communication Commission (FCC) Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel takes her seat before the start of their open hearing and vote on Net Neutrality in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015.
Tuesday, April 10, 2018 | 2 a.m.
Jessica Rosenworcel, the commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, is familiar with the term “fake news.” So are her elementary school-age children.
“The older sister needles her younger brother, she lightly pokes and prods him, with really only one verbal jab,” said Rosenworcel, speaking Monday at a panel discussion at the NAB Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center. “In response, he scrunches his face and remains surprisingly calm. Instead of letting lose a torrent of defensive words, he just waves his hand and pronounces her statement 'fake news.'”
With the term being used in a variety of situations, the meaning behind it is getting lost. The accuracy of information is becoming increasingly blurred — depending, of course, on the source.
“I am stunned at the casualness that my second-grader told his fifth-grade sister to take a hike, “she said. “It shows how this divisive term, fake news, has made its way deep into our national vernacular.”
A free press plays a vital role in advancing the mix of facts necessary for ordinary citizens to make decisions daily, Rosenworcel said. The media and government have a long history of friction between them, Rosenworcel explained, citing Watergate and other scandals. Despite past occurrences, the issues the media are facing now are different.
“It is a relentless criticism, with a bigger design and higher stakes,” she said. “What is happening now … is not just attacking the press, but conditions to make it possible for news reports to serve as any kind of check on power. That’s not a state of affairs that we should accept.”
With the public increasingly becoming less trusting of the media, claims of fake news, especially by those in power, play a big role in that, she said.
Key politicians, including President Donald Trump, denounce credible news outlets that aren’t favorable to them — the Republican even threatening to challenge the broadcast license of NBC, citing fake news.
“That’s very alarming to me as a First Amendment attorney,” said panelist Katie Townsend, litigation director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Townsend continued touching on Trump’s recent calling out of Amazon over the course of several tweets on social media platform Twitter.
“I am not a tax attorney but when the president says that Amazon isn’t paying its fair share of taxes or it's taking the postal service for granted, perhaps over a feud he has with the Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, that’s concerning.”
It is important for everyone to watch how leverage of power is utilized to target specific news media outlets that the president has made clear he does not support, Townsend said.
These incidents are just a couple of many that threaten the role of the media to make checks on power, Rosenworcel said, citing the FCC, under Trump, changing policy rules bringing back the UHF discount, changing the number of stations a cable broadcast company can own and ending the rule requiring the ability to broadcast from a city where it is licensed.
“We watch as this sentiment is used to stir up anger and we see how those in power bestow favors on those that flatter, rather than give us the hard-hitting assessments we need,” Rosenworcel said.
The FCC changes are clearing the way for a transaction to allow Sinclair Broadcast Group to reach 72 percent of the nation’s households, via buying Tribune Media and its 42 stations, Rosenworcel said.
“This is not only a company getting special treatment from the FCC, but it’s getting a special callout from the executive branch,” she said.
Despite the increase in attacks on the media from a variety of sectors, Rosenworcel said it is vital now to “stand up, speak out and call out when government is being used as a tool to attack the conditions that make it possible for news to serve as a check on power.”
“We cannot allow the cry of fake news to distinguish our inquiry into hard subjects, diminish out willingness to seek the truth, or temper our support of the First Amendment. These, after all, are American values.”
