March 2009

[Commentary] On April 8, the Federal Communications Commission will launch an inquiry into media ownership by women and minorities -- a priority topic for the current and future FCC chairmen and President Obama. But Jessell doesn't think that there is much the FCC can do about ownership diversity. Over the past 30 years, the agency has implemented a number of policies aimed at increasing minority and female ownership. All have failed. It turns out that African-American and Hispanic businessmen and businesswomen are just like their white counterparts — something that apparently has never occurred to Copps or his predecessors. They are in business to make a buck. Sooner or later, most FCC-enabled minority owners will want to cash out. And when that time comes, they are going to be far more interested in how much money is being waved in front of them than the color or sex of the person doing the waving. Thus, the minority-owned station can quickly revert to a non-minority owned station. Minority ownership policies have other problems. They tend to be horribly abused. If the Obama administration wants to increase minority ownership, FCC policies won't do it. It's going to have to come up with a big pile of money earmarked for disadvantaged or small businesses hankering to get into broadcasting. The best of the applicants for the federal grants may be able to come up with the supplemental financing and buy some TV or radio stations on the cheap. And if some are minorities or women, that's a good thing. But keep in mind that the increase in minority and female ownership will likely be transitory.

If the $19 billion for health IT in a recently passed US economic stimulus package goes only to driving up adoption of electronic health records, the US health care system will not improve, some medical experts say. Not only do doctors and hospitals need to adopt electronic health records (EHRs), but those digital records need to be easy to share with patients and health care providers, said Dr. Doug Henley, executive vice president with the American Academy of Family Physicians. And the current crop of EHRs still needs work, as doctors have to wade through multiple pages of data and enter the same information on multiple pages.

The Federal Communications Commission approved new rules to provide additional spectrum for wireless medical devices. Current rules accommodate wireless implanted medical devices for a variety of diagnostic and therapeutic functions, such as implantable cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators that can be adjusted wirelessly. Significant advances in both implanted and body-worn wireless medical technologies are increasing the demand for spectrum and for greater flexibility in how such devices operate and coexist. These new medical technologies will improve the diagnosis and treatment of a wide variety of medical conditions and, most importantly, improve quality of life for people coping with such conditions. Implanted and body-worn medical devices that rely upon wireless technologies have been introduced recently under waivers of the rules for applications such as blood glucose monitors, which support more timely and effective treatment for patients with diabetes. With the addition of new spectrum and adoption of rules for alternative operating parameters, newer generations of devices could be deployed that perform a greater variety of functions, such as implanted vagus nerve stimulators that send electric pulses to the brain to treat severe chronic depression and deep brain stimulators used to treat tremors related to Parkinson's disease. Such advances have the potential to significantly improve the quality of life and sophistication of therapy for countless Americans living with a variety of medical conditions and, in turn, could result in lower medical costs and extend the time between hospital visits and surgical procedures.

The online conversation last week was strikingly different than the mainstream news agenda. While the traditional press focused on economic villains-such as AIG and Bernard Madoff-bloggers largely eschewed partisan squabbling and parsing of details for a more abstract and far-reaching discussion. As the economy struggled, a major newspaper shut down and a survey highlighted the diminishing appeal of organized religion, bloggers and social media pondered the dramatic social changes that might be taking place and what the implications could be. The top subject was the decline in people claiming an affiliation with organized religion, as documented in a new study. This storyline made up 30% of the most linked to stories by blogs and social media sites for the week of March 9-13 according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The second largest story, at 24% of the links, involved the continuing problems in the U.S. economy. While some of the attention was focused on government actions, many bloggers focused on a prediction by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman that the current crisis would change the growth model that has been the basis of the U.S. economy for the past 50 years. Third (at 11%) was more grim news for the newspaper industry as bloggers contemplated whether papers would be missed and what role online journalism would play.