Nancy Pelosi documentary Pelosi in the House debuts on HBO December 13. Pelosi’s daughter, Alexandra Pelosi, directed the film.

Alexandra Pelosi’s films include Journeys with George, Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County and Diary of a Political Tourist. She’s done 14 documentaries for HBO.

HBO promises “a candid, behind-the-scenes chronicle of the life of her mother and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, through her career milestones leading up to the inauguration of President Joseph Biden in January 2021. Filmed in a cinéma vérité style over the course of three decades, Pelosi in the House provides a unique, longitudinal window into the life of a longstanding Democratic politician and history in the making.”

The film tracks Pelosi’s life in public office, from her election to Congress in 1987 and becoming the first female Speaker of the House in 2007 through the 2020 election and President Biden’s inauguration. “The film offers a unique look at American politics through her efforts on the Affordable Care Act, the COVID-19 relief package, two impeachments as well as a record of the events of January 6, 2021, following Pelosi and other lawmakers at a secure location as the crisis unfolded,” added HBO. 

IndieWire gave Pelosi in the House a so-so mark. “The director is (understandably) too protective of her subject to risk making a film that leaves the Speaker vulnerable to attack or arms her mouth-foaming enemies on the fascist side of the aisle with any free ammunition. Or maybe the problem is that — even though her mom is now 82 — Alexandra can’t keep up with her,” it reads. 

Alexandra Pelosi produced the film. Nancy Abraham and Lisa Heller executive produce for HBO. ■

Two of the top Democrats in the House have written the Federal Communications Commission to express their strong concerns with the Standard General-Tegna merger, which the agency is currently vetting per its mandate to ensure such deals are in the public interest.

Tegna, which owns 64 TV stations in 51 U.S. markets, agreed to be acquired by Standard General in February for $8.6 billion including debt. Tegna also owns multicast networks True Crime Network, Twist and Quest, as well as advanced advertising company Premion.

The FCC recently asked for more information about the deal's impact on jobs, local news, and retransmission consent.

Also: FCC Seeks Staffing Information on Standard General-Tegna

According to a copy of a letter provided to B+C dated Thursday (Oct. 6), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Commerce Committee chair Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) have written FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel asking her to “fully examine” the deal and the concerns raised by public comments, which they said are shared by “many of our colleagues in Congress.”

Those concerns, according to Pallone and Pelosi, include that the deal would restrict access to local news coverage, cut jobs and raise prices for consumers via increased retransmission consent fees to cable operators and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs).

“By structuring the transaction to apparently trigger ‘after-acquisition’ clauses in retransmission-consent contracts, the proposed new owners of Tegna could immediately charge higher fees to pay TV providers, which may, in turn, be passed on to pay TV consumers,” they wrote Rosenworcel, saying the deal’s complicated structure would obscure the ownership of the stations, which would undermine localism, competition and diversity.

Cable operators have also expressed their concerns to the FCC about what they called the complex web of license transfers and spinoffs in the deal. They contend those transactions could prove a way to end-run the FCC’s ban on joint, coordinated, retrans negotiations by two stations in a market unless they are commonly owned, joint negotiations that can drive up the price cable operators pay for local TV-station signals. 

Among the principal opponents of the deal is NewsGuild-CWA, which has petitioned the FCC to block it and has asked President Joe Biden to request that the FCC block the purchase of Tegna TV stations by investment fund Standard General and Apollo Global Management, which is funding the deal and getting some stations in a spinoff side deal.

NewsGuild-CWA is the nation’s largest union representing journalists. But Standard General and Tegna executives have countered that they have no plans to cut news jobs, and point to a history of boosting local news output at their stations.

Standard General CEO Deb McDermott wrote Tegna news staff to tell them of the company's commitment to news and news jobs.

Those executives have also pointed out that the “complicated” structure would boost women and minority ownership of media, an FCC public-interest goal.

Standard General provided a lengthy rebuttal:

“Standard General’s proposed acquisition of TEGNA will yield significant public interest benefits without any countervailing public interest harms, including creating the largest minority-owned and female-led broadcast station group in U.S. history.  We were therefore disappointed to see the FCC petitioners enlist the involvement of Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Pallone by misleading them with the same false statements they have been making to the FCC.

“While the Pelosi-Pallone letter decries the UHF Discount, the Tegna transaction does not rely on the UHF Discount in any way.

[Editor's note: Dating from the pre-digital days when UHF signals were the weaker ones, the FCC only counts half a UHF station's audience reach toward its local ownership caps]

“While the Pelosi-Pallone letter complains of media consolidation, TEGNA will actually be smaller after the proposed transaction, creating the opposite of consolidation.

“While the Pelosi-Pallone letter repeats the petitioners’ claim that Standard General will supplant local news content with news produced in DC, there is utterly no support in the FCC record for that claim and Standard General has made clear in the record that it will not.

“The Pelosi-Pallone letter speculates that Standard General will cut station jobs at Tegna, when in fact Standard General made a commitment in the FCC record that it was not planning any such actions — a commitment no prior FCC broadcast station applicant has ever made.

“The Pelosi-Pallone letter falsely claims that Standard General stated several years ago that TEGNA has “too many employees,” when in fact, Standard General publicly protested TEGNA’s furlough of employees during the pandemic.

“The Pelosi-Pallone letter speculates about the influence of foreign ownership, when 100% of the voting shares and the right to appoint the entire TEGNA board is held by a U.S citizen.

“The Pelosi-Pallone letter speculates about ‘price increases on American families’ when TEGNA, as a broadcaster, makes its content available to the public for free over-the-air. Only cable companies decide what price their own subscribers pay.

“We are therefore very disappointed to see the petitioners’ package of misstatements at the FCC being used to also mislead our elected representatives into applying improper pressure upon the FCC.    

“Soo Kim [who heads Standard General] and Deb McDermott have a proven track record of enhancing stations’ service to their local communities, increasing local news output, and investing in the resources that stations need to compete successfully. Standard General has increased newsroom staffing at its current stations by 28% since acquiring them in February 2021, while, in comparison, the employee headcount at other major broadcasters, including Tegna, dropped during the pandemic. Soo Kim and Deb McDermott are committed to bringing that same dedication to competition and localism to the Tegna stations, creating the largest minority-owned and female-led television station group in U.S. history and dramatically increasing minority broadcast ownership and viewpoint diversity.

“The proposed Tegna transaction complies with all FCC rules without the need for any waivers, divestitures, or special treatment. Standard General seeks nothing from the FCC other than to be treated in the same fashion as other applicants whose transactions were promptly approved in the past two years, including Gray’s acquisition of Meredith, which, unlike the Tegna transaction, involved a station divestiture to comply with FCC local ownership rules, and Scripps’ acquisition of Ion, which involved the divestiture of 23 stations to meet FCC ownership limits. The Gray-Meredith transaction was approved in less than six months and the Scripps-Ion transaction was approved in less than three months. The Tegna transaction has been under review at the FCC for almost nine months at this point, and the time has come to approve the transaction and unleash an almost 300% increase in the number of minority-owned TV stations in the U.S., bringing badly-needed diversity to the nation’s broadcast station ownership.

 "We continue to work collaboratively with FCC staff in their review of the proposed transaction.”

Said NewsGuild of the letter: “NewsGuild-CWA members are thankful that Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Pallone have joined us in calling on the FCC to scrutinize the takeover attempt of Tegna, one of the largest producers of local TV news,“ the guild said of the letter. “Hedge fund Standard General, backed by anonymous investors located in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere in the world, will treat Tegna as just another part of its portfolio of casinos, cruise lines and other non-media properties. ■

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is troubled by reports that YouTube continues to amplify extremist content after pledging to crack down on dangerous misinformation and disinformation.

Last month, she joined dozens of other legislators on a letter to Big Tech CEOs, including of YouTube, saying they needed to deal with "fundamental design features of their social networks that facilitate the spread of extreme, radicalizing content to their users."

Also Read: Sec. 230 Policy Becomes Personal

Citing an AntiDefamation League analysis, Pelosi responded with a statement Friday (Feb. 12) in an e-mail to media outlets.

“The ADL released a well-researched and troubling report showing that white supremacy and extremist content is proliferating on YouTube and that YouTube’s recommendation algorithms are pushing users to more extreme content," she said. "These findings are damning. They make a crystal-clear case for why YouTube needs to rethink the core design of its product and why Congress needs to pass the Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act, which I introduced with Rep. Tom Malinowski."

That bill would make social media sites liable for "algorithmic amplification of harmful, radicalizing content that leads to offline violence."

Also Read: Senate Democrats Target Sec. 230

Pelosi is no fan of social media sites' Sec. 230 immunity from civil liability for third party content.

She tried unsuccessfully to exclude Section 230 language from the USMCA trade deal among the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Fox News Sunday has snagged an interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). 

Host Chris Wallace will host the April 18 interview, the speaker's first on Fox News Sunday since 2017. 

Pelosi is expected to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to pass a new aid bill. 

The interview wil re-air at 2 p.m., 7 p.m. and 2 a.m., the normal re-airings of the Sunday morning show.  

Wallace and Pelosi have something in common. Both have been the objects of President Trump's twitter ire.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will head up a press conference Wednesday (April 1) on Democrats' infrastructure priorities for the the next coronavirus aid package. 

Broadband will almost certainly be part of that if House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) has anything to do with it. Pallone will join with Pelosi, Majority whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) at the press conference.  

Pallone is particularly concerned with rural broadband access, which has become a big issue now that remote work and education and healthcare are the new normal. 

The CARES Act, the $2 trillion aid package that was the third virus aid bill, included $200 million for telehealth. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai signaled this week that the FCC would be asking for money for distance learning in this latest package, as it did unsuccessfully for the CARES Act.  

Tech companies were celebrating the Senate's passage Thursday (Jan. 16) of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which includes key digital trade provisions. 

Tech trade group ITI had sent a letter Wednesday (Jan. 15) to all the members of the Senate urging that passage. 

The bill, which passed the House last month, includes digital trade provisions that those companies say appropriately promote cross-border data flows and storage.  It now goes to the President's desk for his signature.

Related: Sec. 230 Language Remains in USMCA 

Social media platforms will continue to be held harmless for third-party content on their web sites under the agreement, though according to the compromise, though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and other Dems, had wanted it scrubbed.  Sen. John Warner (D-Va.) was one of those.  He said the section "has allowed internet intermediaries to ignore misuse of their platforms by bad actors." 

Increasingly legislators are challenging the provision, which gives online platforms like Google and Facebook copyright liability protection from third-party content. 

Language in the compromise USMCA maintains that the civil liability carve-out "enhances the economic viability of these engines of growth that depend on user interaction and user content."  

“The Motion Picture Association applauds the Senate for passing the USMCA today," said MPA Chairman Charles Rivkin. "Currently, the U.S. film, television, and streaming content industry accounts for $17.2 billion annually in exports and registers a positive trade balance with nearly every country in the world. The USMCA will help the future of our industry look brighter, particularly in Mexico. This deal includes provisions that facilitate the growth of the legal, digital market for creative content while improving tools to address the threat of online piracy, which costs the industry up to $71 billion of revenue lost annually." 

He said he hoped future trade deals would similarly account for a "constantly changing digital landscape." 

“The North American Free Trade Agreement will receive a welcomed update in the form of USMCA," said Computer & Communications Industry Association President Matt Schruers. "The parties are bringing North American commerce into the digital age with robust rules that will prove critical to the continued growth of the Internet economy.” 

"“Ratification of the USMCA offers first-of-its-kind, cutting-edge digital trade provisions that recognize the reality of the 21st century economy and represents a key step forward for U.S. leadership in innovation and digital trade,” said ITI President Jason Oxman. "Half of all value created in the global economy over the next decade will be created digitally, yet North America’s current trade pact mentions the telegraph – but not the internet. We applaud the U.S. Senate for ratifying the USMCA and setting a new standard that will assure a thriving, innovative North American economy.”  

"This agreement includes important digital trade updates — a ban on data localization requirements, prohibition on duties on electronic commerce and intermediary liability protections— that are important for American small businesses," said Consumer Technology Association President Gary Shapiro.  

Social media platforms will continue to be held harmless for third-party content on their web sites according to the compromise on the U.S Mexico Canada Agreement trade deal announced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Tuesday (Dec. 10). 

The revised version of the Trump-backed USMCA was needed if the Democratically controlled House and Repubican-controlled Senate are going to sign off on it, but one thing that was retained was the liability-related language. 

Related: Big Tech's Sec. 230 Sweetheart Deal Must End 

Pelosi last week had tried to get that language cut as legislators from both sides of the aisle continue to ponder whether web giants still need that liability protection, but was not about to jeopardize the deal over the issue. 

She said it was her one disappointment that she came in too late with that 230 ask. "I lost," she said flatly in a press conference following the agreement's announcement. But she was in some ways the author of her own defeat. "They had 230 in the agreement, which she called the wrong way to go and a "gift to big tech." But she had told the U.S. Trade Representative that she was not going to add any more issues to the discussion.   

She had gotten a letter from the chairman and ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee both asking that the language be removed, but that it came after she had pledged not to raise any more issues, so her Sec. 230 ask had to go unanswered or else she would have been moving a line she had herself agreed to draw.  

USMCA said that maintaining the civil liability carve-out "enhances the economic viability of these engines of growth that depend on user interaction and user content." 

Pelosi has a curious political ally in her skepticism of Sec. 230.  

Attorney General Bob Barr, who has challenged the underpinnings of the impeachment effort Pelosi has pushed forward, agrees that there are Sec. 230 issues that need a hard look, a point he made in a speech in Washington this week.