Editorial

[Editorial] Consider this a plea to Alden — owner of Digital First Media, one of the largest newspaper chains in the country — to rethink its business strategy across all its newspaper holdings. Consider this also a signal to our community and civic leaders that they ought to demand better. Denver deserves a newspaper owner who supports its newsroom.

[Commentary] Many people, including many Republican lawmakers, dismiss President Trump’s attacks on The Washington Post, CNN and other news organizations as just one of those crazy — but ultimately harmless — things he does to blow off steam.

[Commentary] As we remember the 50th Anniversary of the silencing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream; as we March for Our Lives to end the senseless violence that continues to silence the dreams of so many; and as we continue to fight for justice and equality in social, economic, and digital treatment; we urge the Federal Communications Commission to take its rightful place in history by mirroring Dr. King’s legacy of compassion, equality, and opportunity. A good start would be for the FCC to act on several imperatives that will help to close the digital divide:

[Commentary] The affiliates want the Federal Communications Commission to impose a 39 percent ownership cap on the networks to keep the networks’ power in check. But that’s not what regulations are for — they should protect the public, not one business from another. 

I hope that individually or collectively affiliates find a way to bring back a balance of power so that their relationship with the networks becomes a true partnership. But the FCC should not be that way.

[Commentary] Over and over in the last 20 years we’ve watched low-cost or free internet communications platforms spring from the good intentions or social curiosity of tech folk. We’ve watched as these platforms expanded in power and significance, selling their influence to advertisers. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google—they grew so fast. One day they’re a lovable new way to see kid pix, next thing you know they’re reconfiguring democracy, governance, and business. This is an era of breaches and violations and stolen identities.

[Commentary] Sen John Kennedy (R-LA) has been flirting for months with the idea of being the fifty-first (read: deciding) vote for the Congressional Review Act effort to overturn the Federal Communications Commission's Restoring Internet Freedom Order in the Senate. Yet,recently, Sen Kennedy introduced the Senate companion to Rep Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) phony “net neutrality” bill. This legislation is at least fourteen steps in the wrong direction.

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote on a measure which would exempt 5G infrastructure from environmental and historic reviews. And more than a dozen states have passed laws stripping their local governments of any meaningful say on issues relating to where to put the 5G boxes. A smarter approach would bar localities from turning the permitting process into a cash cow, but would give them input on where 5G boxes go and what they should look like. This kind of buy-in might seem burdensome.

[Commentary] In 2004, Congress delivered what seemed to be an unmistakable message about ownership limits in the TV broadcasting industry. It ordered the Federal Communications Commission to institute a new cap: No company could own stations that collectively broadcast into more than 39% of US homes. So why hasn't the FCC summarily rejected Sinclair Broadcast Group's proposed purchase of Tribune Media, which would allow Sinclair-owned stations to beam their programs to more than 70% of U.S. TV viewers?

[Commentary] A large and growing group of voices, including those from legislators, journalists, FiberTower shareholders and trade associations, argues that AT&T’s purchase of FiberTower’s millimeter wave licenses is a sweetheart deal that undervalues that spectrum—spectrum those in the industry believe is critical to the rollout of 5G.  Most recently, Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA), in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, claimed that the agency signed off on AT&T’s FiberTower purchase without holding an open debate about the transaction.

[Editorial] When we decided to devote our April 2018 magazine to the topic of race, we thought we should examine our own history before turning our reportorial gaze to others. Race is not a biological construct, as writer Elizabeth Kolbert explains in this issue, but a social one that can have devastating effects. “So many of the horrors of the past few centuries can be traced to the idea that one race is inferior to another,” she writes. “Racial distinctions continue to shape our politics, our neighborhoods, and our sense of self.” How we present race matters.