July 2014

Tribune Publishing CEO: We're buying newspapers

Tribune Publishing CEO Jack Griffin isn't selling off newspapers. He wants to acquire more of them. Despite all the speculation about a sale of Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and/or the other Tribune dailies, Griffin is setting his sights -- at least at the start of his tenure at soon-to-be-independent Tribune Publishing -- on buying smaller newspapers in or near his existing markets.

“We think there are more of these opportunities around the country that are geographically adjacent to where we run big papers and big brands, and that over time we can achieve similar kinds of consolidation and acquisition opportunities that are going to add meaningfully to our footprint and our revenue and our profit,” Griffin said.

Lauren Zalaznick: A forest fire is about to hit the media industry

A Q&A with former NBCUniversal executive Lauren Zalaznick.

Asked about what she sees in the future of the media industry, Zalaznick said: “The challenge is that the great media companies today are going to remain the great media companies of the future, but they are going to be joined by the emerging great media companies of today. The great middle is what is going to suffer the most.”

She left a job with Big Media to start her own newsletter, LZSunday Paper. Although she is not a journalist, Zalaznick added that maintaining a diversity of voices in the media will remain important in the future.

Hold the Phone: A Big-Data Conundrum

[Commentary] Yes, phones feel slower over time as they hold more software and as our expectations of speed increase. But the spikes show that the feeling doesn’t grow gradually; it comes on suddenly in the days after a new phone is released. Yet that’s all it shows: People suddenly feel that their phone is slowing down. The data doesn’t show our iPhones actually became slower.

The important distinction is of intent. In the benign explanation, a slowdown of old phones is not a specific goal, but merely a side effect of optimizing the operating system for newer hardware. Data on search frequency would not allow us to infer intent. No matter how suggestive, this data alone doesn’t allow you to determine conclusively whether my phone is actually slower and, if so, why.

[Mullainathan is a professor of economics at Harvard]

The Lessons Thus Far From the Transition to Digital Patient Records

Forecasts and studies of the impact of the Obama Administration’s incentive program for digitalization of healthcare have been varied. Some predicted big dollar savings and improved care, while others came to the opposite conclusion, seeing higher costs and medical errors induced by complex technology.

While the principle of the technology-payoff time lag is true in many industries, in health care, there is a case for special vigilance as well as for patience. The more digital patient records and decision-support software become part of diagnosis and treatment, the higher the stakes: In health information technology, there are no clinical trials or tests with randomized controls, as there are for drugs, for example.

True, digital data does not go into the body, but it can increasingly guide what does. That is why the Food and Drug Administration, in cooperation with the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the Federal Communications Commission, is developing what the government calls a “risk-based regulatory framework” for digital health technology.

Proliferation of new online communications services poses hurdles for law enforcement

Federal law enforcement and intelligence authorities say they are increasingly struggling to conduct court-ordered wiretaps on suspects because of a surge in chat services, instant messaging and other online communications that lack the technical means to be intercepted.

A “large percentage” of wiretap orders to pick up the communications of suspected spies and foreign agents are not being fulfilled, FBI officials said. Law enforcement agents are citing the same challenge in criminal cases; agents, they say, often decline to even seek orders when they know firms lack the means to tap into a suspect’s communications in real time.

Facebook’s Privacy Pivot

At Facebook, privacy is back -- not just as a social norm, but as a business model. CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently singled out privacy features and private services like messaging and anonymous logins as keys to the company’s future growth.

Why? “Because,” he said, “at some level, there are only so many photos you’re going to want to share with all your friends.” He’s right.

Paid Peering, Paid Prioritization, and the Nuance of the Net Neutrality Debate

Facebook Extends Deadline for Closing Acquisition of WhatsApp by One Year

Facebook is extending its deadline to close its acquisition of messaging service WhatsApp by one year, to Aug 19, 2015. The original deadline was Aug 19, 2014.

If the transaction is not finalized by Aug 19, 2015, Facebook must pay a $1 billion termination fee to WhatsApp and issue the company the equivalent of $1 billion worth of class-A shares of Facebook common stock. Things are not moving as smoothly overseas at it did with the Federal Trade Commission’s conditioned approval in April.

Facebook requested in May that the European Commission review the deal, hoping to avoid antitrust investigations by several individual countries in the European Union. The EC investigation is still ongoing.

US: Surveillance Harming Journalism, Law, Democracy

Large-scale US surveillance is seriously hampering US-based journalists and lawyers in their work, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union said.

The report documents how national security journalists and lawyers are adopting elaborate steps or otherwise modifying their practices to keep communications, sources, and other confidential information secure in light of revelations of unprecedented US government surveillance of electronic communications and transactions.

The report documents how government surveillance and secrecy are undermining press freedom, the public’s right to information, and the right to counsel, all human rights essential to a healthy democracy.

What a new law about cellphone unlocking has to do with coffee, cars and consumer freedom

In the coming months, expect to hear a lot about something called "circumvention." According to a House Judiciary Committee aide, lawmakers are going to take a specific look this fall at the Copyright Act's provisions that presume cellphone unlocking and similar activities to be illegal by default.

In the context of cell phones, circumvention involves bypassing the controls that a wireless carrier has placed on a phone so that the device can't be used with a different network. The results of the these Congressional hearings, advocates say, will likely shape the future of all technologies involving intellectual property -- ranging from self-driving cars to media and entertainment to the Internet-connected home.

Benton

Search