FCC Chairman Ajit Pai received an award on Wednesday from a conservative media organization for his “courage in public service.” It is the second time Pai has been awarded for “courage” in 2018.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai received an award on Wednesday from a conservative media organization for his “courage in public service.” It is the second time Pai has been awarded for “courage” in 2018.
The award was bestowed by the Daily Caller News Foundation—the non-profit branch of Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller news site—citing various threats that Pai and his family received this year amid the fierce public discourse over net neutrality. The invite-only ceremony was said to be hastily assembled at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington D. C., following the funeral of former president George H. W. Bush.
In May, federal authorities arrested a suspect accused of calling in a bomb threat during the December 2017 net neutrality vote. Another man was arrested in June and charged with email death threats to Pai, one of which accompanied a photo of the chairman’s family and made references to their location. Protesters were also accused of crossing a line when they posted signs outside his home that featured the names of his children.
Wednesday’s event had been planned prior to the death of the 41st president. Organizers quickly threw together a tribute to Bush to include at the start of the event, which they said could not be canceled last minute. “A lot of people there had been at a funeral all day, so things were quieter,” Daily Caller’s editor-in-chief, Christopher Bedford, said by phone.
“It’s kind of funny—it’s kind of sad that award would go to someone who was a telecom lawyer,” he said. “Usually it doesn’t take a lot of bravery to be a telecom lawyer, but I thought it was insane the level of vitriol, violent threats, threats against his family, and racist attacks that were directed at him.”
Bedford, who said he viewed the threats as “deadly serious,” characterized the dispute over net neutrality as “a fight between billion dollar corporations who are angry at other billion-dollar corporations,” not typically the stuff, he averred, of “a grassroots revolt, or riots and protests.” (To the author’s knowledge, there’s not been a “riot” over the issue of net neutrality.)
“We’re reporters. We aren’t there to talk about the policy; whether net neutrality is good or bad.
