Free Press Newswire

Public television attempts to placate David Koch.

Have you ever sat with your TV remote, aimlessly flipping through hundreds of channels you have no interest in, and wondered, “Why do I have to pay for all this?”

Big phone companies have begun to sell the vast troves of data they gather about their subscribers' locations, travels and Web-browsing habits.

America's 100 million cable and satellite subscribers are forced to pay ever-higher bills for a growing number of channels they do not watch. The American people are being ripped off.

Aren't cable companies great? They force their broadband customers to help pay for the rapidly rising fees the cable-channel owners demand … and actively thwart their broadband customers’ quest to find a better way to get their video entertainment.

The Justice Department's investigation and surveillance of the Associated Press and Fox News have led to perhaps the most sustained wave of criticism for the Obama administration's media policies since the president took office.

The Obama Justice Department has come under fire over the past week following revelations that investigators secretly seized AP phone records in one leak investigation and accused Fox News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen of possibly being a criminal "co-conspirator" for doing basic reporting in another. While continuing not to comment on specifics in ongoing investigation, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia issued a statement "to correct numerous factual inaccuracies currently being reported in the media about both that case and the ongoing leak investigation involving the AP."

House Republicans are considering holding formal hearings into the Department of Justice’s spying campaign against multiple news organizations as part of a widening probe of what critics call a pattern of intimidation by the Obama administration.

Despite this fact, many journalists and mainstream media organizations purposefully stayed silent when WikiLeaks first came under attack by the Justice Department in early 2011. That disappointing silence left open the possibility that the Justice Department could use those same tactics against others in the future. And unfortunately now it's clear: virtually every move made by the Justice Department against WikiLeaks has now been deployed on mainstream U.S. journalists.

A bipartisan group of House members advocated for a shield law to protect the press in light of two recent cases in which the Justice Department obtained journalists’ records.

I want to believe Wheeler can transform himself into the leader the FCC so desperately needs. I want to trust those who say the 30 or 40 years he spent advocating for the biggest media and technology companies won't cloud his judgment. I really hope his advocates are right. But I need more evidence to believe that Wheeler has what it takes to stand up to the industry giants he's cozied up to all these years.

The journalism world has been rightly outraged by the Justice Department dragging the Associated Press (and now a Fox News reporter) into one of its sprawling leak investigations. But there are several other important lessons that this scandal can teach us besides how important free and uninhibited newsgathering is to the public’s right to know.

The Kochworld media strategy is simple: Annihilation through snark. Ask Kochworld for comment, and you either get nothing or you get crumbs. Publish the story, and Kochworld hits you for whatever reason might be handy.

FCC Mignon Clyburn took over as acting chairwoman of the agency. She's the first woman to lead the FCC, and she will remain chairwoman until the Senate confirms her successor. President Obama has nominated Tom Wheeler, a former industry lobbyist and a major donor to the Obama campaign, for the position.

For more than a century, Americans have made and received phone calls in their homes over a network of copper wires. Now one of the biggest American phone companies, citing the damage inflicted by Hurricane Sandy, is asking regulators to let it start switching residential customers from wired to wireless service.

Freshly-nominated FCC boss Tom Wheeler has dumped around $500,000 to $1 million in AT&T and Verizon stock ahead of his assignment at the FCC. The stock was dumped, according to the report, "to resolve possible conflicts of interest before taking office."

If you were going to look for ground zero in the fight against a rapidly consolidating telecom and cable industry, you might end up on the fifth floor of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York.

In the wake of the AP scandal, in which federal investigators obtained the phone records of journalists using only a subpoena, four lawmakers have introduced legislation in the House that would prevent federal agencies from seizing any phone records without a court order.

Just days after news broke that the Justice Department had secretly obtained AP journalists’ phone records as part of its ongoing crackdown on leaks, the New Yorker released a new tool -- Strongbox -- to enable people to safely and securely leak electronic files. The late Aaron Swartz largely built the system.

America is on the verge of a wireless traffic data jam so bad, it could bring America to its knees. Or not.