March 2009

States Want NTIA and RUS to 'Outsource' Broadband Stimulus Grant-Vetting

The complexities of relationships between federal, state, and local governments, the private sector and sovereign Indian tribes emerged during a Monday afternoon round table on the role of states in the NTIA-RUS grant process. While state utility commissions and governments cite expertise and knowledge of local players as a reason for the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service to delegate authority, representatives of small business interests and Native American tribal governments saw the same factors as possible roadblocks to allowing stimulus funds to achieving program goals. States have a natural "gatekeeper" role to play during the grant process when "time is of the essence," said National Governors Association Legislative Counsel David Parkhurst. Not only can states best identify stakeholders and partners as well as identify and aggregate demand, but Parkhurst suggested that the first "wave" of grants should be reserved for states with existing broadband plans in place. Such state groups would provide needed "evaluation benchmarks," he said. State governments could certify to NTIA and RUS that grantees proposals' are "consistent" with a state plan, Parkhurst said. This kind of federal-state collaboration will be "necessary" to prevent wasted and duplicate efforts going forward, he said.

Spectrum Inventory: "Same Bed, Different Dreams."

[Commentary] Feld and the wireless industry support the Radio Spectrum Inventory Act, a bill to require the National telecommunications and Information Administration and the Federal Communications Commission to account for every MHz of spectrum between 300 MHz and 3.5 GHz within 180 days of the bill's passage. You would think we would already have this information, right? After all, the NTIA exists to coordinate government use of spectrum, and the FCC requires a detailed license for every use of wireless not covered by the "unlicensed" rules of Part 15. Sadly, given the vital importance of managing spectrum, we don't have this information in anything like a useable form. The FCC has been (to be polite about it) extremely variable and inconsistent about how it maintains license information, how it puts this information online, and what information it requires from each licensee in any given service.

Eight Michigan newspapers going online-only or cutting print editions

The Ann Arbor News will cease publication in July after 174 years and will be replaced by a Web-focused community news operation built from the ground up. The end of the News was one of several major changes announced at the eight daily Michigan newspapers owned by the Newhouse family's Advance Publications. The Flint Journal, The Bay City Times and The Saginaw News said they will cut their print editions from seven to three days a week — Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays — starting June 1. Although the changes primarily affect Advance's Michigan operations, the company will freeze pension plans at most of its 26 newspapers across the country. Advance will instead increase matching contributions to 401(k) retirement plans, an alternative that costs the company less. Employees at some of the newspapers also must take off 10 days a year without pay. Those at Michigan's Advance publications are not part of the furlough provision, said Dan Gaydou, publisher of The Grand Rapids Press.

NPR's Record Ratings

At a time when newspapers, magazines and TV news continue to lose readers and viewers, at least one part of the traditional media has continued to grow robustly: National Public Radio. The audience for NPR's daily news programs, including "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered," reached a record last year, driven by widespread interest in the presidential election, and the general decline of radio news elsewhere. Washington-based NPR will release new figures to its stations today showing that the cumulative audience for its daily news programs hit 20.9 million a week, a 9 percent increase over the previous year. The weekly audience for all the programming fed by Washington-based NPR -- including talk shows and music -- also reached a record last year, with 23.6 million people tuning in each week, an 8.7 percent increase over 2007. While almost every news organization saw its audience spike during the political campaign last year, NPR's surge continues a trend that goes back to at least the fall of 2000, when the organization began aggregating audience data from hundreds of affiliated public stations across the country.

By 'optimizing' ads, can the Rubicon Project save newspapers?

[Commentary] The Rubicon Project promises to help newspapers "find money." With the Rubicon Project's technology, says Frank Addante, the 32-year-old co-founder and chief executive, newspapers and other "premium news" outlets can increase their online revenue by an average of 60% a year. Starting in 1997 in his dorm room at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Addante and a group of tech-savvy friends were pioneers in the ad network business (an ad network is a kind of brokerage, placing clients' advertising on publishers' websites). In 2007, Addante formed the Rubicon Project with the same cadre of Web veterans and $22 million in venture capital. The company opened the doors of its techno-hip West L.A. headquarters in April 2008 and since then has blown up to become the third-largest online advertising company in the world -- behind only Google and Yahoo -- as measured by reach, according to the online monitoring firm Quantcast. Rubicon processes more than 35 billion ads a month from 375 ad networks, placing them on more than 14,000 websites, including those of the Washington Post, Newsweek and USA Today.

Corporate Money and Campaigns

[Commentary] The Supreme Court hears arguments on Tuesday in a case that gives it a chance to stop political groups and corporations from gouging a major hole in federal campaign finance law. The case revolves around "Hillary: The Movie," an anti-Hillary Rodham Clinton film made before the 2008 election. A lower federal court ruled that the film falls under federal law restricting the airing of attack ads. The Supreme Court should affirm that ruling.

Viewing Journalism as a Work of Art

Copyright lawyers have been arguing over Shepard Fairey's appropriation of a news photograph of Barack Obama for his "Hope" campaign poster and whether it constitutes "fair use." But no one has disputed that it is a work of art. But what about the photograph on which the poster is based? Taken by Mannie Garcia while on assignment for The Associated Press in 2006, the picture is now on sale in a limited edition of 200. The prints are going for $1,200 apiece, and at least one has been purchased by a fine-arts museum.

Printing Office Offers Open Government Help

Robert Tapella, the head of the Government Printing Office, recently sent to President Barack Obama five goals and accompanying actions the GPO can take to help implement the White House's transparency and open government agenda: 1) Position GPO's Federal Digital System as the official repository for Federal Government publications. 2) Enable and support Web 2.0 functionality through FDsys to support public comments on pending legislation. 3) Establish a demonstration project to apply Web 2.0 features to rulemaking documents. 4) Participate in and lead efforts to standardize electronic publishing formats. 5) Link the White House Web site to FDsys for public searches of Government documents.

China's internet is "open enough"

China is not afraid of the Internet, its Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, even as access to the popular video sharing site YouTube appeared to be blocked. YouTube has unavailable for users in China, which filters the Internet for content critical of Communist Party rule, since late on Monday. "Many people have a false impression that the Chinese government fears the Internet. In fact it is just the opposite," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters. Qin said China's 300 million Internet users and 100 million blogs showed that "China's internet is open enough, but also needs to be regulated by law in order to prevent the spread of harmful information and for national security."

EU in draft deal on capping phone roaming prices

The European Union has reached a draft deal on capping the wholesale cost of using a laptop to surf the Internet while travelling outside a home state, an EU diplomat said on Tuesday. The law also caps the price to consumers of roamed text messages and extends by three years to 2012 current EU price limits on roamed voice calls.

Benton

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