January 2009

A Comprehensive, Pragmatic Rural Broadband Stimulus Package

[Commentary] broadband stimulus package must do is simple: Spur deployment of networks, Create jobs, Provide long-term value, and Work as quickly as possible. We need to identify if there is a backlog of shovel-ready projects that policy can help get moving. We need to put resources into the hands of communities so they can start determining their own fate now rather than waiting for higher levels of government and industry to make decisions for them. We need to make a big pot of money available to anyone willing to bring broadband to the unserved as quickly as possible. We need to provide a mechanism whereby competition can still be encouraged so wherever possible we don't invite the establishment of monopoly providers. Finally, we need to start writing checks to get all education, healthcare, and government facilities wired together as we can't afford to have any of these vital institutions not online.

Fading Love Affair: How the Media Will Maul Obama

[Commentary] There are generally just two stages of media euphoria: on and off. It's been conventional wisdom for at least a year now that the media is "in the tank for Obama." But all political infatuations must come to an end -- and already you can begin to see the media straining mightily to assert its "objectivity" regarding our new POTUS. For starters: 1) Just say Trouble -- with a capital T -- Even minor wrinkles can be construed as "trouble." And everybody knows that anybody experiencing "trouble" is "troubled." 2) The rule of twos Two bits of trouble in a row -- preferably within the same news cycle? 3) Some clever blogger will deconstruct a YouTube video of an uncharacteristically stuttery or at-a-loss-for-words Obama (perhaps at a news conference) and point out that he's not really that eloquent. 4) Credit Maureen Dowd for advancing the notion that Obama's post-partisan approach and tendency to see nuance where George Bush saw black and white will spell ... trouble.

In the Tank

Did the press help elect Barack Obama? In the 2008 presidential race there was no doubt among conservatives that journalists abandoned any semblance of skeptical detachment. The Left doesn't see it, however. So McCollam offers a few ideas:

1)Check Your Sources If the MSM didn't say it, don't reflexively blame them for spraying it.

2) Look Who's Talking -- An interesting note buried inside a 2008 election study was that researchers excluded talk radio in their assessment of the tone of coverage.

3) The New News Game -- Many of the bias complaints were actually thinly disguised laments about the lack of "standards" in modern journalism.

4) Absence of Evidence Can Be Evidence of Absence -- Another frequent conservative complaint was that the press was not letting the public in on the "real" Obama. Sometimes where there is smoke, there is fire, and sometimes there's just a smoke machine.

5) Open Your Ears, Your Mind Will Follow This is equal-opportunity advice for liberals and conservatives. One of the less-savory aspects of media proliferation is that, if we choose, we can get our news exclusively from outlets that reflect our own views back at us. This should be resisted.

Un-American

[Commentary] Have you listened to the right-wing media lately? In the weeks following the election, the debate over the issue of media bias, and of whether the press was overly kind to Barack Obama, has continued to swirl. Much less attention has been paid to another, more troubling aspect of the coverage, and that's the relentless and malevolent campaign that the right-wing media waged against the Democratic candidate. Few people who did not regularly tune in to the vast, churning combine of bellowing radio hosts, yapping bloggers, obnoxious Web sites, malicious columnists, and the slashingly partisan Fox News have any idea of just how vile and venomous were the attacks leveled at Obama. Day after day, week after week, these outlets worked determinedly to discredit and degrade Obama, accusing him of being a Muslim, a Marxist, a radical, a revolutionary, a socialist, a communist, a thug, a mobster, a racist, an agent of voter fraud, a black-power advocate, a madrasah graduate, an anti-Semite, an enemy of Israel, an associate of terrorists—even the Antichrist. Supplemented by a flood of viral e-mails, slanderous robocalls, and Internet-based smear campaigns, these media outlets worked to stoke firestorms of manufactured rage against Obama and the Democrats in what was perhaps the most concerted campaign of vilification ever directed at an American politician. In light of Obama's victory, one might be tempted to let it all pass. That would be a mistake. For the effects of that campaign remain with us. What's more, the campaign itself is still going on.

When No News Is Bad News

[Commentary] In journalism's new Internet-dominated landscape, in which attitude and attack are often valued more than precision and truth, handiwork is seen as taking too long and costing too much. Newspapers have been and remain by far the largest source of news coverage and analysis in any city or town. Without the local paper, the TV and radio stations would be in difficult shape, despite the good work they often do. The most popular websites—Yahoo, the Drudge Report, MSNBC.com, CNN.com, the Huffington Post, you name it—also rely heavily on the work of newspapers, more often than not appropriating and linking to their stories without providing a penny in payment. Newspaper penetration—the number of households looking at a paper—now amounts to less than 18 percent of the population, compared with 33 percent back in 1946. As the seeming death spiral accelerates, a sense of desperation has led some to flashy redesigns aimed at attracting younger consumers. But little is working, and the diehard readers are left with a sense of getting less.

What Does Carlos Slim Want With the NY Times?

He's the second-richest man in the world, after Warren Buffett -- worth $60 billion by Forbes' measure -- a man who parlayed Mexico's one-time state-owned telephone monopoly into a business empire so dominant that it accounts for a third of the value of the leading Mexican stock market. So, what does Carlos Slim want with The New York Times? He's in a position to take control of the paper should the Sulzberger family decide to sell, an outcome that would become increasingly likely if the Times cuts its dividend again, choking off the family's main source of income.

Reinvent schools for digital age

Educators can't truly deliver 21st-century instruction in schools that reflect Industrial-Age designs, with rigid schedules, inflexible facilities, and fixed boundaries between grades, disciplines, and classrooms, according to a new white paper from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21). The describes the kinds of school structures that have been shown to facilitate successful 21st-century teaching and learning: from flexible learning spaces that can be rearranged to fit different class sizes and subjects, to more malleable units of time than the typical 50-minute class period. Although much attention has been paid to improving standards, assessments, professional development, curriculum, and instruction, this white paper argues that learning environments themselves are an essential component to supporting successful 21st-century outcomes for students.

Gaming is the future of classroom instruction

Gaming is moving out of the entertainment domain and into other areas, said Jim Brazell, president of ventureRAMP. "We now have serious games. There are applications of video games to domains other than entertainment," he said. "Video games do not belong pigeon holed in entertainment." Games have crossed into serious domains such as health care and military training and have begun to give birth to new models of playing, learning, and socializing, he said. "You can get more data in a video game than in any other education area," Brazell said, adding that gaming allows for the convergence of physical, virtual, and imaginary realities.

Tech Group Presses Obama On IP Picks

A trade group that represents Google, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and other high-tech firms in Washington urged President Barack Obama on Monday to appoint leaders at the Commerce Department and Patent and Trademark Office to who can bring reform and encourage innovation. Computer and Communications Industry Association asked the new administration to designate an undersecretary for intellectual property who can address the broad challenges in innovation policy facing the nation. "

US claims victory in WTO complaint on China piracy

The United States claimed victory on Monday in a groundbreaking World Trade Organization case against China for failing to protect and enforce copyrights and trademarks on a wide range of goods. "Today, a WTO panel found that a number of deficiencies in China's IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) regime are incompatible with its WTO obligations," acting U.S. Trade Representative Peter Allgeier said. "We will engage vigorously with China on appropriate corrective actions to ensure that US rights holders obtain the benefits of this decision." Washington launched the dispute in 2007 out of frustration at rip-offs of films, branded goods and other trademarked property openly available in Chinese cities. The International Intellectual Property Alliance, a coalition of U.S. music, movie, book and software industry groups, conservatively estimates that piracy in China costs them more than $3.7 billion in lost sales. The WTO ruling means China and other nations "can't simply go through the motions" of protecting intellectual property, but must provide effective results, Neil Turkewitiz, an executive vice president at the Recording Industry Association of America, said.

Benton

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