March 2013

Britain’s Press Crackdown

[Commentary] In an attempt to rein in its reckless tabloid newspapers, Britain’s three main political parties this week agreed to impose unwieldy regulations on the news media that would chill free speech and threaten the survival of small publishers and Internet sites.

The parties agreed to replace the newspaper industry’s self-regulating body with an independent agency that could levy fines of up to £1 million, or $1.5 million, order editors to issue prominent corrections and provide arbitration for people who believed they had been wronged by the press. Publishers who do not agree to subject themselves to the jurisdiction of this body — and many have already said they will not — could still take their chances in court but could be hit with higher, punitive fines if they were found liable. Prime Minister David Cameron has argued that the plan will keep the press free because it will be enacted through a royal charter, which is technically not a law because it is formally issued by the queen, not Parliament. But that is a distinction largely without substance.

In reality the proposal would effectively create a system of government regulation of Britain’s vibrant free press, something that has not happened since 1695, when licensing of newspapers was abolished. The kind of press regulations proposed by British politicians would do more harm than good because an unfettered press is essential to democracy.

Verizon, Cablevision emerge as unlikely allies of cable-TV customers fed up with bundling

Cable viewers have long complained about paying ever-higher bills for hundreds of channels they don’t want to watch. Now, in a twist, some cable companies are beginning to agree.

Verizon and Cablevision are publicly pressing media companies that own the programming to stop pushing them to distribute unwanted channels and instead offer cable bundles based on what viewers actually watch. If successful, the efforts could lead to cheaper options for consumers and a sea-change in how the television industry has done business — and protected its profits — for more than two decades. Such change has become necessary, Cablevision and other cable companies argue, as more Americans cut their cable cord in favor of cheaper Web-based video provided by Netflix, Apple and Amazon.com. Today, 5 million households get their television solely from the Internet, up from 2 million in 2007, according to Nielsen. But Hollywood and media companies have said that breaking up the bundles would lead to the demise of smaller niche programming that does not have mass market appeal. Analysts say it is too early to tell whether the spat between cable firms and their media partners will lead to lower bills or the long-sought goal of consumer advocates: a la carte TV. Even the federal government has failed in its efforts to persuade the television industry to charge viewers only for what they watch.

Broadcasters Find Strong Ally in FCC’s Pai

A Q&A with the FCC’s Ajit Pai.

If Federal Communications Commission member Ajit Pai didn’t exist, broadcasters would be trying to invent him. That’s because ever since Commissioner Pai stepped in to fill a seat at the agency last May, broadcasters have had a sympathetic set of ears at the agency. Commissioner Pai, who grew up in small-town Kansas, has been scoring major points with broadcasters with his spirited defense of joint sales and shared services agreements that have allowed TV stations to operate two stations in small markets — agreements that the FCC’s Democratic majority has been threatening to unwind. He’s also launched a campaign to try to revive AM radio—an initiative he will be championing at the NAB’s annual convention in Las Vegas next month. “From Day 1 at the FCC, it was clear that Commissioner Pai is sincere, engaging and razor-sharp smart,” says Dennis Wharton, an NAB spokesman. “He’s also unafraid to challenge false claims about broadcasting, as his support for JSAs and SSAs demonstrates.”

Genachowski Chief Counsel Exiting

Sherrese Smith, the last of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski's original team of legal advisors is leaving, the chairman will announce March 20 in advance of its monthly meeting.

Smith has been chief counsel and senior legal adviser to the chairman. Smith had been senior counsel when she was named chief counsel in January 2012, succeeding Zach Katz, who moved to chief of staff with the exit of Eddie Lazarus. Smith was named senior counsel in 2011 at the same time Katz was promoted to chief counsel, replacing Rick Kaplan, who headed the Wireless Bureau before exiting to join the National Association of Broadcasters. Before being named to the inaugural class of Genachowski advisers in June 2009, Smith had been VP and general counsel at Washington Post Digital and before that was a member of Arnold and Porter's Intellectual Property Group.

CISPA panic may be premature

Washington technology and consumer advocates are aggressively carping that a revived House cybersecurity bill remains a toxic, nauseating, no-good threat to the future of the Internet. The only catch: It’s probably not that much of a threat at all.

Even if there are serious, widespread privacy concerns with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), the proposal is virtually guaranteed to undergo a significant overhaul before it can become law. The controversial measure by Reps. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) could clear the House as written, but if that’s the case it’s bound to face the same stiff Senate resistance that killed it in 2012. And without earnest revision, CISPA could just as easily trigger yet another veto threat from the Obama administration in 2013. However, the leaders for the American Civil Liberties Union, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and scores of other opponents are still mounting an almost hyperbolic messaging offensive this week — a strategy they insist is necessary to set the parameters of the coming cybersecurity debate.

Google Fiber is coming to Olathe, Kansas

Another city in the Kansas City area is getting the chance to join the growing Silicon Prairie — Olathe, Kansas.

The Olathe City Council approved an agreement to bring Google Fiber to their city. Olathe has become one of the fastest-growing cities in Kansas and has attracted an influx of new businesses and residents. They’ve all noticed what a great community Olathe is, and so have we. We think that Fiber and widespread Internet access will help to create jobs, grow local businesses, and make Olathe even stronger as it grows. We still have a lot of planning and engineering work to do before we’re ready to bring Fiber to Olathe. Once we get those processes underway, we’ll be able to announce more about pre-registration and construction timing. We’ll be sure to publish an update as soon as we have it. This announcement doesn’t change our published construction schedule for eligible homes in Kansas City, Kan. and Central Kansas City, Mo.

Give online courses the old college try

[Commentary] Online courses could open worthwhile classes at California's public colleges to thousands more students, or they could undermine the reputation of our widely admired public higher-education system.

As the state embarks on its first foray into offering such courses for credit on a large scale, it's intriguing to think about virtual classrooms and the opportunities they present. Online courses could make a fine education possible even for students who cannot travel to a campus easily or attend class at a specific time. They could allow a professor to reach many more students with each lecture. A bill in the California Legislature would allow state universities to provide up to 50 such courses would get things off on the right footing by ensuring quality in several ways. The bill also would require follow-up studies to determine whether the courses delivered the intended educational results.

The bill's author, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), says the purpose of these courses isn't to save money but to increase access. In fact, it is about saving money while increasing access. That isn't a bad thing; all colleges, not just public ones, have to think about ways to ways to rein in costs. The fear is that although this bill would set good standards for online courses, it also would open the door to cheaper, lower-quality offerings, to reductions in teaching staff and to college degrees that don't mean as much as they used to. As this new effort unfolds, educators need to be vigilant about all of those risks. But the state can't let fears keep it from trying; the trick is to do so while rigorously protecting educational quality.

Even Millennials Worry About Their Online Past

With social networking on the rise, people have quickly come to realize that keeping their private lives private is increasingly out of their hands. A survey by JWT found that fully 67 percent of American and British adults agree that in the age of social networks, "I feel as though privacy is dead." But it's not just older adults who are chafing at being overexposed. Even share-happy teens and millennials are finding it harder to maintain their privacy. Nearly two-thirds of 13- 17-year-olds agree that their friends are making it hard to maintain their privacy online because their friends share everything.

Look What Happens When You Give a Teenager a Tablet

A new survey from Deloitte reports that 36 percent of Americans (or, at least, 36 percent of Americans who take online surveys) say they own a tablet. That’s up from 13 percent a year ago. And once teens have a tablet, they use it. Especially to watch movies. Though it turns out that if they have a tablet they’re more likely to watch movies everywhere, on every device, than a non-tablet owner.

The Glory Days of American Journalism

[Commentary] American news media has never been in better shape. That’s just common sense.

Almost anything you’d want to know about any subject is available at your fingertips. You don’t need to take my analysis of the Cyprus bank bailout crisis as the last word on the matter: You can quickly and easily find coverage from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and the Economist. Or if you don’t want to see your Cyprus news filtered through an America/British lens, you can check out the take of distinguished Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis on his blog. Reuters created an interactive feature that lets you try out different formulae for making the Cypriot haircut work. A pseudonymous London-based fund manager using the name Pawel Morski has offered vital, deeply informed coverage on Twitter and his WordPress site. You can watch a Bloomberg TV interview on the situation with native Cypriot and former Federal Reserve adviser Athanasios Orphanides at your leisure. Best of all, today’s media ecology lets you add depth and context to the news. Several sources on Twitter recommended to me a 2008 Perry Anderson article in the New York Review of Books about the broader sweep of post-independence Cypriot history. Paul Krugman reminds us of the larger issue of small island nations serving as offshore banking hubs and the dilemmas this poses for global financial regulation. He also offers a link to a lengthy IMF report on Cyprus’ economy.

Yet essentially none of this bounty is reflected in the deeply pessimistic latest edition of the Pew Research Center’s annual State of the Media Report.

Benton

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