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June 2010

Flotilla Tops Online News Again

For the second week in a row, the deadly May 31 clash between Israeli soldiers and a ship headed for the Gaza Strip was the leading subject for bloggers.

But the conversation changed markedly. Two weeks ago, critics of Israel dominated the blogosphere. Last week, supporters of its military actions weighed in with their response. From June 7-11, 15% of the news links on blogs were about the Middle East clash, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. While still the No. 1 story, attention dropped significantly from the previous week (32%) as a number of subjects vied for bloggers' attention.

New Zealand Commerce Commission Recommends Regulation of Mobile Termination Rates

New Zealand's Commerce Commission says that it is now recommending that the Minister for Communications and Information Technology regulate mobile termination access services (MTAS), and not accept undertakings from Telecom and Vodafone.

"The Commission considers that cost-based mobile termination rates, when compared to the offers in the undertakings, will better promote competition in the mobile market and will be in the best long-term interests of end-users," said Dr Ross Patterson, Telecommunications Commissioner.

Apple selling unlocked iPhone in Canada, Europe

While iPhone users in the US may still be tied to AT&T for their cellular service, Apple will sell the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 unlocked and SIM-free in several countries, including Canada and the UK.

According to an FAQ published on Apple's Canadian and British Websites, customers in those countries--as well as in France and Germany--will be able to buy an iPhone 4 handset for full price but without any commitment or carrier lock. This means that they will be free to choose any GSM carrier that uses frequencies compatible with the company's phones without having to be subject to a long-term contract--and with the ability to swap carriers at any time without having to replace their devices.

Canadian Senators call for digital policy minister

In Canada, Senators are calling on the federal government to create a minister of digital policy to spend billions of dollars expanding broadband access and create digital identification for every Canadian. The Senate's report, Plan For A Digital Canada, began as an investigation into the wireless industry but ended up with a call to roll out a digital development plan for the whole country.

24-Hour Read-In Protests Cuts to NYC Libraries

A 24-hour stream of sentences and stories, spanning the canon from George Eliot to "Gossip Girl," flowed from dozens of book-loving New Yorkers this weekend who were concerned about austere budget cuts to libraries proposed by City Hall.

Not typically ones to raise their voices, librarians staged an overnight read-in on the steps of the Brooklyn Public Library on Grand Army Plaza to criticize the city's plan to close 40 branches by month's end, and to reduce hours and employees at those that remain. The event's slogan: "We Will Not Be Shushed." "In the Great Depression, the New York public libraries were kept open seven days a week," said Aliqae Geraci, a librarian in Queens and a coordinator of the event. "It is a huge support system for the unemployed and the transient."

Shrinking audience and budget woes force tough decisions for Chicago public broadcaster

WTTW-TV/Channel 11 CEO Daniel Schmidt blames a state funding cut for the station's decision to ax 12% of its staff this month. The Chicago PBS outlet faces a more fundamental problem, however: attracting viewers in a digital era that's bombarding them with options.

WTTW's monthly viewership has declined almost every year since 2005, dropping 12% over the period. The decline came as the station added three separate channels following a 2004 digital overhaul. Dwindling revenue from viewers, sponsors and government sources, thanks partly to the recession, is forcing Mr. Schmidt and his peers at other PBS stations to cut spending, programming and employees at a time when they're also competing against everyone from the History Channel and HBO to Netflix and YouTube for the relatively affluent viewers who traditionally support public broadcasting. Even with $3 million in savings from the cuts, which lowered expenses to $53 million, Mr. Schmidt is struggling to craft an annual budget for the coming fiscal year that doesn't lead to a second consecutive shortfall. His plan to attract more viewers and funds includes streaming more programming to WTTW's Web site and boosting the station's presence on the Comcast cable system.

Green Bay area businesses bank on social media

A dozen years ago, it was a big deal for businesses to have Web sites. Now, Web sites are a given and it's social media — Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, texting — that business owners are trying to use effectively. The applications are new, but the challenge is the same as it was with the initial Internet presence.

Festival Foods took eight months to develop its social media strategy before launching its first efforts in September. Now the multi-store grocer has a presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and it texts and blogs. It is not alone. An online survey by Leonard & Finco Public Relations found that 67 percent of business responders said they use social media, compared with 56 percent last year.

June 21, 2010 (Closed-door telecom overhaul)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for JUNE 21, 2010

Sure, it is just Monday, but we're already talking journalism and broadband http://benton.org/calendar/2010-06-21


INTERNET/BROADBAND
   Closed-door telecom overhaul
   Rep Barton says 'sorry' to AT&T, too, activists charge
   The National Broadband Plan Needs the Third Way
   The re-assertion of America in ICT
   Telstra in A$11bn broadband deal
   On Web Video, Captions Are Coming Slowly
   Wanted: Young cyberexperts to defend Internet

PRIVACY
   Congress should balance privacy, innovation
   Facebook's quitters passionate about privacy, Web's potential

OWNERSHIP
   In NBC-Comcast Deal, Quiet Concerns

JOURNALISM
   Health Bill Was a Focus for Liberal Talk Show Hosts
   Increasingly, nonprofits fill a need for investigative reporting
   Ink Gushes in Japan's Media Landscape

KIDS AND MEDIA
   Cartoons can tilt kids' food choices

SMART METERS
   Holding off on new meters would be smart

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INTERNET/BROADBAND

CLOSED-DOOR TELECOM OVERHAUL
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Sara Jerome]
On June 18, Members of Congress were to debate broadband regulation. Apparently, top lobbyists from the major Internet service providers, such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast were invited to participate. Less clear was whether Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski was invited to the table. Subsequent meetings will be scheduled to examine broadband deployment and spectrum policy and will include a different set of stakeholders. The chairmen of the authorizing committees announced last month that they want to begin rewriting the Communications Act of 1934, which was last overhauled as the Telecommunications Act of 1996 after a lobbying battle that dragged on for years. But the chairmen enter the negotiations already clashing with Republicans over whether legislation is needed. House Commerce ranking member Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) and House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) wrote the Democrats last week saying "we do not see any urgency to legislate." The move to update communications law follows an April appeals court decision that thrust into uncertainty the bounds of the FCC's legal authority to regulate broadband issues, including whether it has the muscle to enforce network neutrality rules.
benton.org/node/37048 | Hill, The | See Bicameral Statement
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JOE BARTON IS SORRY
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Sara Jerome]
After an apology to BP stoked anger on both sides of the aisle and put his ranking member status on the House Energy & Commerce Committee at risk, a liberal advocacy group charged Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) with apologizing to a few other corporate giants: Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T. Prompting the commentary was a letter Rep Barton sent on June 17 with the ranking member of the House Communications Subcommittee Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL). The pair wrote to their majority committee counterparts, Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA), and Communications Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA) to raise concerns about a Federal Communications Commission plan to boost its authority over broadband service providers. "The committee must not abdicate its oversight responsibilities on a matter of this magnitude, particularly in light of the huge repercussions such a decision could have on jobs, investment, broadband deployment and the U.S. economy," they wrote, calling for a hearing on the issue.
benton.org/node/37047 | Hill, The
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THE NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN NEEDS THE THIRD WAY
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Amina Fazlullah, Alexandra Wood]
[Commentary] On June 17, the Federal Communications Commission took the first major step towards reclassifying broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service. Among other issues, the Notice of Inquiry (NOI) seeks comment on a new legal framework for broadband called the "Third Way," a proposal that reaches a compromise between Title I ancillary authority and full Title II authority under the Communications Act. The Commission developed the "Third Way" to overcome a legal setback in Comcast v. FCC and establish a solid legal foundation for the effective protection of broadband consumers and the timely implementation of the National Broadband Plan. The is an important step forward in the FCC's effort to refine its approach to the Internet. The "Third Way" calls for a reclassification of broadband Internet access service that would differentiate between the basic telecommunications service and the information services it delivers. By requiring the FCC to forbear or refrain from enforcing all but six sections of Title II, the proposal is narrowly tailored to ensure protection for broadband consumers and encourage broadband investment. The move towards a two-pronged approach to broadband reflects a shift in the way consumers use and understand broadband Internet access. In the past, consumers often subscribed to an Internet provider to take advantage of its email, newsgroup, and web hosting services considered integral to Internet connectivity. Today, consumers are more likely to subscribe to a broadband provider for basic Internet access and to rely on independent web services for free email accounts and web and blog hosting. It no longer makes sense to assume that consumers view broadband connectivity and the additional services delivered by the provider as functionally integrated and inseparable. "Third Way"reclassification of broadband Internet access service is necessary to implement the policies of the National Broadband Plan efficiently and with legal certainty. Without reclassification, Congress' plan to expand broadband connectivity to underserved communities, to increase broadband speeds across the country, and to protect consumers from unjust and unreasonable practices may be delayed or halted.
http://www.benton.org/node/37032


THE RE-ASSERTION OF AMERICA IN ICT
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Eli Noam]
[Commentary] It's become conventional wisdom in academia, politics, and the press that America has fallen behind in electronic communications. Where once America ruled supreme, bestowing the Internet on the world, it is now an also-ran. Whether in broadband Internet or in mobile communications, America is barely edging out Slovenia. This may have been true for a brief period, but is it still true? And why is this story line taken up with such relish? First, it makes for more interesting stories. Second, a story of decline can be leveraged by an opposition party in domestic politics. Third, a narrative of challenged glory can be effectively used by stakeholders to spur government into action. Fourth, it is a way to score ideological points. But perhaps most interesting is why so much is being made of so little disparity. Sigmund Freud called this "the narcissism of small differences". Whether Japan or Sweden reach a certain penetration level two years earlier than America or vice versa, is after all, from a historic perspective, quite trivial. It's the broad trends of development that are important, not which horse's nose crosses the line first. Magnifying small differences tends to tell more about the observer than about the subject of observation. The main question for analysis is whether performance differences are endemic and enduring, or whether self-correcting mechanisms are in place. And in light of the evidence in the ICT sector, such adjustment mechanisms, whether private sector or governmental, are alive and well in America.
benton.org/node/37045 | Financial Times
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TELSTRA DEAL ON NATIONAL BROADBAND NETWORK
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Peter Smith]
Telstra and Canberra broke their impasse on the government's A$43bn (US$37 billion) high-speed broadband network on June 20 when the Australian telecommunications group agreed an A$11bn deal that will see it fold its equipment into the network. The preliminary agreement follows talks that began last year after Canberra threatened to forcibly split Telstra's retail and wholesale businesses and deny the group access to future bandwidth in the absence of a deal to overhaul Australia's telecoms sector. Striking a deal with Telstra is a breakthrough for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
benton.org/node/37043 | Financial Times
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CAPTIONING THE WEB
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter]
The actress Marlee Matlin shimmied her way onto "Dancing With the Stars" two years ago, memorably using sign language to tell viewers to "read my hips." But when Ms. Matlin, who is deaf, went to ABC.com to watch a replay of the show, she was impeded because the network's videos were missing captions. Closed-captioning is mandatory on television, but not for TV programs on the Internet. And that has turned Web sites like ABC.com into battlegrounds for advocates like Ms. Matlin, who have spoken up on the lack of captions on sites like CNN.com and services like Netflix. Media companies say they are working hard to make online video more accessible. YouTube, the world's biggest video Web site by far, now supplies mostly accurate captions using voice-recognition software. But big gaps remain much to the dismay of deaf Web users. As online video becomes ever more popular, deaf viewers face the prospect of a partly inaccessible Internet. "We do not want to be left behind as television moves to the Internet," said Rosaline Crawford, the director of the law and advocacy center for the National Association of the Deaf. The Hearing Loss Association of America says that 36 million Americans have some degree of hearing loss. Other groups, like English-language learners, also benefit from captions.
benton.org/node/37042 | New York Times
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PRIVACY

ONLINE PRIVACY
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] It's a fact of life for Internet surfers and social network users that companies such as Google and Facebook may know more details about their personal interests than their families do. That's fine as long as users don't mind. But those who want to protect their privacy should be able to do so — easily. Congress is beginning debate on a bill to update Internet privacy rules. And on Friday, a group of privacy advocates, computer scientists, lawyers and others proposed a bill of rights for social network users. The ultimate goal should be a compromise that protects consumers while also protecting Internet companies' ability to innovate. Billions of dollars and thousands of jobs are at stake. Unfortunately, in the past few months Google and Facebook haven't helped the cause of preserving innovation.
Some basic principles to meet individual privacy expectations need to be established:
Users must have a simple way to opt out of any data sharing. Too often controls are hard to interpret, if you can find them at all.
Companies that collect data should tell users what information is being shared and regularly remind them of their options, including opting out.
Firms should only gather information essential to the services they're providing.
Companies should prominently display a description of the other companies they share customer data with, and why.
When a company changes its rules, it should fully disclose the changes in clear language.
Beyond this, Congress should avoid making privacy controls too intrusive. The Facebook incident proves that users can force data collectors to change their ways, as long as they know what's happening. Requiring clear disclosure is the key.
benton.org/node/37041 | San Jose Mercury News
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A LOOK AT THOSE WHO HAVE LEFT FACEBOOK
[SOURCE: Chicago Tribune, AUTHOR: Wailin Wong]
Facebook still has plenty of friends. Even amid last month's firestorm, which forced executives to hastily revamp the site's privacy settings, the social-networking juggernaut has held steady in membership and traffic. "Quit Facebook Day," an online campaign on May 31, resulted in about 30,000 departures — a negligible percentage of the platform's nearly 500 million active registered users. Yet people do quit Facebook, often without fanfare. Their personal stories are varied, but there is a shared sense that what started as a personal, close-knit community turned into an alienating experience as the site began adding millions of members and more ways to share content. This cycle is a common one in the technology world, where early adopters discover a cutting-edge platform only to grow disillusioned with it once the masses arrive. For some defectors, the decision to leave is part of a broader debate about the role of social media in shaping the values of a Web-tethered generation.
benton.org/node/37040 | Chicago Tribune
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OWNERSHIP

NBC AFFILIATES CONCERNED ABOUT COMCAST
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter]
Comcast, the nation's biggest cable provider, has long played hardball with competitors and content providers. Now that it is seeking control of NBC Universal in a $30 billion transaction, those competitors are piping up, expressing fears that Comcast will use its consolidated power to favor its own content and squeeze out rivals. But one group has been noticeably silent: local television broadcasters. The owners of local stations are worried that if Comcast owned NBC, its market power would hurt competing stations and drive down the prices that those cable companies pay to retransmit local programs, potentially reshaping the local TV landscape. But the broadcasters have largely kept quiet about the concerns before the Monday deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission for public comments about the proposed sale. That is partly because they have been locked in negotiations with Comcast for months, trying to reach agreement on protections for competitors that both sides can live with. In an FCC filing on Monday, the affiliates will indicate support for the merger if a few conditions are attached. Among them: that Comcast will not move sports events like National Football League games and the major Olympic events from (free) NBC onto (pay) cable; and that, in the event that negotiations with a local station break down, Comcast will not bypass the station and deliver a same-day feed of NBC via cable.
benton.org/node/37044 | New York Times | Wall Street Journal
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JOURNALISM

HEALTH CARE BILL COVERAGE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter]
A new study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism finds that health care was a "much bigger topic" for liberal hosts like Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz than for conservative hosts like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. In a report to be released on Monday, the organization said it found that the liberal hosts spent 44 percent of their airtime talking about health care from June 2009 to March 2010, while conservative hosts spent 26 percent of their airtime on the subject. Similarly, the organization found that MSNBC, which leans left in prime time, devoted 32 percent of its news time to health care, while Fox News, which leans right in prime time, devoted 20 percent.
benton.org/node/37039 | New York Times | Project for Excellence in Journalism
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NONPROFITS AND INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz]
Investigative reporting is increasingly being outsourced. After years of feeling unloved and unwanted, some fortunate journalists are again finding their services in demand. While most print newsrooms remain shrunken and some major newspapers are mired in bankruptcy, new media incarnations are giving the restless and the jobless a second lease on life.
benton.org/node/37038 | Washington Post
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ONLINE JOURNALISM IN JAPAN
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Martin Fackler]
For years, the online newspaper JanJan News mounted a scrappy challenge to Japan's blandly conformist press, offering articles written by readers who took on taboo subjects like whaling and the media's collusion with the government. But the site never attracted enough readers or advertising and was finally forced to shut down most of its operations three months ago. JanJan was the last of four online newspapers offering reader-generated articles that were started with great fanfare here, but they have all closed or had to scale back their operations in the past two years. And it is not just the so-called citizen journalism sites that have failed here. No online journalism of any kind has yet posed a significant challenge to Japan's monolithic but sclerotic news media. "Japan just wasn't ready yet," said JanJan's president and founder, Ken Takeuchi, a former reformist mayor and newspaper journalist who started the site in 2003. "This is a hard place to create an alternative source of news."
benton.org/node/37037 | New York Times
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KIDS AND MEDIA

MARKETING FOOD TO KIDS
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Nanci Hellmich]
Kids think snacks taste better when popular cartoon characters such as Shrek and Dora the Explorer are plastered on the packages, a study shows. Nutrition experts have long argued that such images shouldn't be used to market junk food to kids, especially given the childhood obesity epidemic. About one-third of children and teens in the USA are either overweight or obese. For the latest study, researchers at Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity gave 40 children, ages 4 to 6, three identical pairs of snacks: graham crackers, gummy fruit and carrots. One package of each food had a cartoon character — Scooby-Doo, Dora the Explorer or Shrek — on the front; the other didn't. Children were asked if the foods tasted the same or if one tasted better. The findings, reported online today in the journal Pediatrics: More than two-thirds said they would choose the snack with the character on the package. About half of the kids said the foods tasted better from packages with the cartoon characters.
benton.org/node/37035 | USAToday | USAToday - ad spending targeted at kids
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SMART METERS
   Holding off on new meters would be smart

SMART METERS IN CALIFORNIA
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Pacific Gas & Electric's new smart meters have been disastrous. There's evidence that PG&E didn't fully test the meters before rolling out the installation for millions of customers. Ratepayers have been shocked by dramatic billing spikes after they received the new meters. Still, PG&E soldiers on, installing more and more of them. So San Francisco's city attorney, Dennis Herrera, is petitioning the California Public Utilities Commission in the hopes of a reprieve. He has filed the first formal petition, but we urge other city attorneys to follow suit. Until we know for sure that the meters can do the job accurately, the only smart thing to do is wait.
benton.org/node/37034 | San Francisco Chronicle
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Closed-door telecom overhaul

On June 18, Members of Congress were to debate broadband regulation. Apparently, top lobbyists from the major Internet service providers, such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast were invited to participate. Less clear was whether Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski was invited to the table.

Subsequent meetings will be scheduled to examine broadband deployment and spectrum policy and will include a different set of stakeholders. The chairmen of the authorizing committees announced last month that they want to begin rewriting the Communications Act of 1934, which was last overhauled as the Telecommunications Act of 1996 after a lobbying battle that dragged on for years. But the chairmen enter the negotiations already clashing with Republicans over whether legislation is needed. House Commerce ranking member Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) and House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) wrote the Democrats last week saying "we do not see any urgency to legislate." The move to update communications law follows an April appeals court decision that thrust into uncertainty the bounds of the FCC's legal authority to regulate broadband issues, including whether it has the muscle to enforce network neutrality rules.

Rep Barton says 'sorry' to AT&T, too, activists charge

After an apology to BP stoked anger on both sides of the aisle and put his ranking member status on the House Energy & Commerce Committee at risk, a liberal advocacy group charged Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) with apologizing to a few other corporate giants: Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.

Prompting the commentary was a letter Rep Barton sent on June 17 with the ranking member of the House Communications Subcommittee Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL). The pair wrote to their majority committee counterparts, Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA), and Communications Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA) to raise concerns about a Federal Communications Commission plan to boost its authority over broadband service providers. "The committee must not abdicate its oversight responsibilities on a matter of this magnitude, particularly in light of the huge repercussions such a decision could have on jobs, investment, broadband deployment and the U.S. economy," they wrote, calling for a hearing on the issue.

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