October 2010

A little more than three years after a state law intended to promote cable competition took effect in Illinois, AT&T remains the only telecommunications company to take advantage of the reforms statewide.

In a mid-summer progress report to regulators, the company also said it will meet mandates in the law for expanded service, including in Springfield. Under terms of the 2007 law, AT&T has to provide cable or video access to at least 35 percent of households in its Illinois territory by the end of this month and to at least 50 percent by the end of October 2012. The law also required that at least 30 percent of low-income households have access. The company was already at a little more than 31 percent by the end of 2009, according to the report to the Illinois Commerce Commission. The statewide video franchise was created so that companies, including AT&T, would not have to obtain franchises community by community.

Only one other company, Colorado-based WideOpenWest, has been awarded a statewide franchise, said Brian Sterling, spokesman for the ICC. That company's early marketing has been confined primarily to the Chicago market.

Candidates, political parties and special interest groups have spent nearly $200 million in advertising on House and Senate races during the past five weeks, a 75 percent increase from the same period in 2008, according to a study by the Wesleyan Media Project.

More than $114 million was spent on Senate ads between Sept. 1 and Oct. 7, an 84 percent surge from the same period in 2008. And nearly $84 million paid for House ads, a 65 percent rise. Total spending since Jan. 1 was $367 million, up $148 million or 68 percent from 2008. Comparisons are not exact, however, because there were fewer Senate seats up for grabs two years ago - and the states were not the same. Spending by candidates is largely driving the increase in activity. But higher spending among special interests and political parties in House races suggests both Democrats and Republicans "believe the House is the true battleground," Michael Franz, associate professor of government at Bowdoin College and co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project said.

If it seems like American teens are texting all the time, it's probably because on average they're sending or receiving 3,339 texts a month. That's more than six per every hour they're awake - an 8 percent jump from last year.

Using recent data from monthly cell phone bills of more than 60,000 mobile subscribers as well as survey data from over 3,000 teens, The Nielsen Company analyzed mobile usage data among teens in the United States for the second quarter of 2010 (April 2010 - June 2010). No one texts more than teens (age 13-17), especially teen females, who send and receive an average of 4,050 texts per month. Teen males also outpace other male age groups, sending and receiving an average of 2,539 texts. Young adults (age 18-24) come in a distant second, exchanging 1,630 texts per month (a comparatively meager three texts per hour). Texting is currently the centerpiece of mobile teen behavior. 43 percent claim it is their primary reason for getting a cellphone, which explains why QWERTY input is the first thing they look for choosing their devices. Safety, which was the main reason for getting a phone in 2008, is now less important - it is secondary among girls and less so among boys. Keeping in touch with friends is still one of the top three factors, too. All of this texting activity has come at the expense of voice. Last year, teens texted instead of calling because it was fun. Now, 78 percent of teens recognize the functionality and convenience of SMS, considering it easier (22 percent) and faster (20 percent) than voice calls (though still fun).

Voice activity has decreased 14 percent among teens, who average 646 minutes talking on the phone per month. While voice consumption rises and peaks at age 24, only adults over 55 talk less than teens. Teen females, who are more social with their phones, average about 753 minutes per month, while males use around 525 minutes.

Among journalists, almost no one disputes the need for a federal shield law. Among politicians, the cause is not as noble. Journalists have been lobbying Congress for a shield law for six years, but Congress hasn't passed one yet.

Success never seemed closer at hand than it did last December, when the 2009 Free Flow of Information Act was passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee 14-5. A different version of the bill had cleared the House the previous March by unanimous voice vote. Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Dick Durbin of Illinois had voted the bill out of committee on the understanding that before the Senate took it up they'd get to amend it.

"Feinstein has issues with bloggers and she always has had," says Kevin Smith, who stepped down last week as president of the Society of Professional Journalists. "She doesn't want bloggers to have any of the similar protections that legacy journalists do." "Feinstein has always been the one taking the lead," says Laurie Babinski, an SPJ attorney. "Her reservations have had to do with the definition as it relates to bloggers and electronic journalism—where to draw the lines. SPJ has always been of the mind you define a journalist by what they're doing—a journalist is someone who commits an act of journalism. The problem is, it's not the bright line some would like to see." Next to the categorical right to keep their mouths shut that the courts give lawyers, clergy, and spouses, what the Free Flow of Information Act offers journalists with sources to protect looks like Swiss cheese. Even so, it requires prosecutors seeking names to jump through some hoops—namely, to first persuade a federal judge of the vital importance of the information they're after and the impossibility of getting it any other way. Only with the judge's permission could a prosecutor subpoena a reporter and drag his or her butt into court.

But who deserves even this modest consideration? Any legislator who writes a shield law protecting journalists has to define journalists and justify the special treatment. We are talking, after all, about a freedom to inform, which can't easily be broken out of the bedrock freedom of speech that's guaranteed to one and all. If journalists, like lawyers, were credentialed, the law would be easy to write; but American journalists aren't a guild and God willing they never will be. A journalist, as Laurie Babinski puts it, is anyone doing journalism.