Cablevision Systems is launching a series of cord-cutter packages, basically a mixture of high-speed Internet and a digital antenna to grab over-the air networks.
Introductory prices for the service will range from $34.90 per month to $44.90 per month and in some cases including Cablevision’s Freewheel WiFi-only phone service and are specifically targeted at young customers who are increasingly balking at paying high prices for cable TV. Data speeds will range from a basic 5 Megabit per second offering to 50 Mbps and beyond. Customers also have the option of adding Home Box Office standalone service HBO Now at an additional charge. The offerings are different from so-called “skinny TV” packages in that the Cablevision offering includes no cable or broadcast networks at all.
The number of news reporters in the Washington (DC) area nearly doubled over the last decade, from 1,450 to 2,760. In Los Angeles (CA) it grew by 20 percent. In New York City (NY), it basically stayed flat. Outside of those cities, in that same timeframe, one out of every four reporting jobs vanished -- 12,000 jobs in total, according to the Labor Department. Meanwhile, in the parts of the country that aren’t Washington or New York or LA, nearly 20,000 new jobs sprung up in public relations, a 13 percent increase.
These are signs of the collapse of the business model for regional news outlets and of the forces pulling on journalists outside a few insulated cities. They are the reasons why, when it came to light this week that two new winners of the Pulitzer Prize had left their medium-sized newspapers for careers in PR, no one should have been surprised. One of them, Rob Kuznia of the (Torrance, CA) Daily Breeze, made his move because he was struggling to make ends meet on a reporter’s salary while paying Southern California rent. The other, Natalie Caula Hauff from The Post and Courier in Charleston (SC), wanted a job more conducive to starting a family. (She still freelances for the paper, even though she works in county government now.) Anyone who has worked even a little while in a newsroom knows many, many others who have made similar decisions. If you want a reporting job today, your best bet is to move to DC, LA or New York. They were home to almost one in every five reporting jobs in 2014, up from one in eight in 2004. Anywhere else, your journalistic job options are dwindling. If you hold on to one, your wages probably aren’t keeping pace with inflation. But public relations is growing, and the pay there is, too. Of the four reporters who won the public service Pulitzer for the Oregonian in 2001, two have left journalism -- one for a government communications job, one to teach journalism to college students.
On this day 10 years ago, the first-ever video was uploaded to YouTube. It involved a zoo. And elephants. But it wasn't until more than a year later that YouTube got real for politicians.
On Aug. 15, 2006, the "macaca" video was uploaded to YouTube. George Allen's (still) nonsensical description of an Indian American kid who was tracking the Virginia Republican senator's campaign became a seminal moment not only in that campaign (Allen lost, dashing his hopes of running for president in 2008) but also in politics more broadly. Here's why. Trackers -- people who follow around the opposing party's candidate(s) -- are nothing new, and weren't even all that new back in 2006. What "macaca" revealed was the power of YouTube's capacity to easily upload and disseminate video. No longer would a tracker have to peddle a videocassette of allegedly damaging footage to a local TV station in hopes of getting them to a) look at it and b) run it in some form. YouTube made every tracker his or her own TV station with a potentially limitless audience. And seeing a politician doing or saying something stupid was infinitely more powerful than reading about the stupid thing they said or did. We are a visual culture; we like to SEE things to truly understand them (or to be truly offended or impressed by them.) YouTube made that possible for every American with an Internet connection. Suddenly, every public moment of a politician's life became fair game. Allen became a cautionary tale for candidates. Avoiding a "YouTube moment" became part of the political vernacular. And politicians became a lot more guarded. Those trends have only been accelerated by the advent of smartphones that shoot video, and other applications -- Vine, Periscope etc. -- that allow that video to be spliced into bite-sized portions or live-streamed. That YouTube and its many progeny have fundamentally altered politics is beyond debate. Whether those changes are a net positive or negative for the average person's ability to understand how their government thinks and works is more up in the air. Some argue politicians talking directly to people without the media filter is the best-case scenario for democracy. I'd argue that differently, of course. To me, having representatives of the people (us in the media) asking questions of our politicians and following up on those questions is genuinely valuable -- and provides more insight into how our elected officials think than a video written, produced and filmed by the politician's staff.
German media organizations, such as Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, are reporting on a spying scandal that threatens to create new controversy over the National Security Agency.
What’s the story? Previous fallout from the Edward Snowden revelations led to the German Bundestag (federal Parliament) setting up a Committee of Inquiry into the affair, and in particular into the relationship between the German intelligence service (the BND) and the NSA. This committee had a rocky start, with failed efforts to summon Snowden, a former NSA contractor, as a witness and complaints that it did not have access to much of the information that it needed. Now, however, it looks as though it has uncovered paydirt regarding the relationship between the BND and the NSA. The NSA, in order to target its surveillance, needs ‘selectors’ -- identifying information such as phone numbers, e-mail addresses, IP addresses or the like that are linked to a specific individual or business. Under the cooperation agreement between the NSA and BND, the NSA can ask for selectors -- but only so long as the predictors are directly linked, for instance, to anti-terrorism intelligence. It appears that the NSA made large numbers of requests that ignored the limits set out in the agreement, and it appears probable that at least on some occasions, the BND gave the NSA the information it was looking for. This sounds pretty technical -- why are people getting upset? Because it suggests that the German intelligence service cooperated with US efforts to spy on European -- and German -- companies and citizens. This scandal will be moderately embarrassing for the United States, which is currently trying to build international norms against economic espionage. It isn’t at all clear that the United States was committing economic espionage by its own definition (it argues that it can legitimately conduct espionage against economic targets such as businesses as long as it is for strategic purposes, and the information is not passed along to US firms). However, it certainly greatly complicates the story that the United States is trying to tell. Where it will really hurt, though, is US-German relations.
Press reports indicate that Comcast will abandon its $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable. The following statement may be attributed to Benton Foundation Director of Policy Amina Fazlullah:
The Federal Communications Commission announced that Julie Veach, Wireline Competition Bureau Chief, will be departing the FCC on May 22. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler intends to name Deputy Bureau Chief Matt DelNero as her replacement. In addition, Chairman Wheeler intends to name Alison Kutler as Acting Chief of the consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, and Kris Monteith, Acting Chief of CGB, as Deputy Chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau. "Julie's leadership and intelligence have made lasting positive impacts on the Commission's work," said Chairman Wheeler of Veach, who has worked at the FCC since 2001 in WCB and the office of General Counsel. "We will greatly miss her wise counsel and creative problem solving."
DelNero joined the FCC as Deputy Chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau in February 2014. Previously, he was a partner in the Communications & Media and Privacy & Data Security practice of groups of Covington & Burling LLP. He also taught communications and media law as an adjunct professor at George Mason University School of Law. DelNero received his law degree, magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and his undergraduate degree, summa cum laude from Tufts University. "Matt has been a key player in a series of major policy initiatives since joining the FCC last year," said Chairman Wheeler. "His substantive experience and strong leadership skills will enable him to excel in leading WCB as it takes on the next set of policy challenges."
Nomi Technologies, a company whose technology allows retailers to track consumers’ movements through their stores, has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it misled consumers with promises that it would provide an in-store mechanism for consumers to opt out of tracking and that consumers would be informed when locations were using Nomi’s tracking services. The Federal Trade Commission’s complaint against Nomi states that beginning in late 2012, the company’s privacy policy promised that Nomi would provide an opt-out mechanism at stores using its services. This promise implied that consumers would be informed when stores were using Nomi’s tracking technology. The complaint alleges that these promises were not true because no in-store opt-out mechanism was available, and consumers were not informed when the tracking was taking place. The complaint alleges that Nomi collected information on about nine million mobile devices within the first nine months of 2013.
The complaint is the FTC’s first against a retail tracking company. “It’s vital that companies keep their privacy promises to consumers when working with emerging technologies, just as it is in any other context,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “If you tell a consumer that they will have choices about their privacy, you should make sure all of those choices are actually available to them.” Under the terms of the settlement with the FTC, Nomi will be prohibited from misrepresenting consumers’ options for controlling whether information is collected, used, disclosed or shared about them or their computers or other devices, as well as the extent to which consumers will be notified about information practices.
Recent reports indicate that staff at the Federal Communications Commission may be leaning against the merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable. Public Knowledge is hopeful that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and other FCC Commissioners will review any recommendations free of the intense politicization of this merger, which Public Knowledge views as not in the public interest. Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman said, "The proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable raises many complex issues, and Chairman Wheeler deserves credit for allowing FCC staff to review this transaction free from outside interference. This is a highly charged topic, and by all accounts, the review process has focused on the merits of the arguments and the evidence and not political considerations. We're confident that the case Public Knowledge and others have put forth against the merger is strong, and expect the final decision-makers at the FCC to similarly focus on the economic, legal, and public interest reasons why this deal is harmful to competition, and not be swayed by Comcast's formidable lobbying machine. As we enter the final stages of the review of this transaction, Public Knowledge will continue to explain to policymakers how this merger would be a bad deal for the public."
Internet service providers are launching a multitude of counterattacks to try to reverse the Federal Communications Commission’s open Internet protections, and it’s up to all of us to keep on defending the rules in several forums. Now that the rules are officially on the books, the ISPs and the trade associations that represent them have filed several challenges against the FCC. The petitioners include AT&T, CenturyLink, the American Cable Association, NCTA, US Telecom, CTIA--The Wireless Association, and Alamo Broadband, and they claim the FCC does not have legal authority to implement real net neutrality rules. Meanwhile, some members of Congress are also taking aim at the FCC’s rules, introducing a slew of bills, each purporting to address some part of the agency process that only seem to be in response to the FCC’s rules. Fundamentally, these attacks all amount to the same thing -- conservative backlash at the behest of the ISP industry to weaken the Commission’s ability to protect consumers and the public interest.
MORE FLIES WITH HONEY: First, Sens John Thune (R-SD) and Fred Upton (R-MI) introduced bills before the FCC even voted, sensing the strong regulations coming and hoping to head the Commission off at the pass. They claim the bill legislatively protects net neutrality by preventing non-throttling and non-blocking, but these are in fact only two subcategories of the myriad of ways ISPs can and have demonstrated anti-consumer, anti-competitive practices online. More importantly, the bill revokes the Commission’s authority over any other aspect of the broadband ecosystem, forever. In short, though the bill paid lip service to an open Internet to the casual observer, it would have rendered the FCC completely impotent. Although several Democratic supporters have indicated some openness to a bipartisan legislative proposal, the policies embodied by the FCC’s rulemaking must be the floor for any negotiations.
SALTING THE EARTH: An alternative -- but unsurprising -- attack came from a different faction of Congressional Republicans, headed by Rep Doug Collins (R-GA). Once the rules hit the Federal Register, the clock starts ticking on the Congressional Review Act - which allows Congress to review a “major” rule issued by any federal agency before the rules take effect (so, 60 days). The resolution (“CR”) only needs a simple majority to pass in the House and the Senate -- although the President Barack Obama can veto it, and likely would in this case. A CRA resolution has only passed once in history, during the Clinton administration - and a previous “CRA” attempt against the FCC’s 2010 rules failed. However, if successful, a CRA resolution would not only repeal the net neutrality rules, but prohibit the FCC from acting on net neutrality in any capacity again without direction from Congress.
AND THE “REFORM” KITCHEN SINK: Most recently, three members dropped three different draft “FCC process reform” bills, each of which aims to restructure how the agency functions. Each of these bills problematically bogs down the already complex and lengthy rulemaking process -- yet another obvious attempt to undermine the FCC’s ability to do its job. Regardless of whether or not any of these initiatives passes, the message to the agency is siloed disapproval of net neutrality, rather than a comprehensive exploration of how the agency can operate most productively.
Montana-based rural telecommunications company Nemont has joined the gigabit club, announcing that it is launching service in Scobey (MT). The company said the ultra-high-speed service is available to businesses and residences that already have fiber to the premises, suggesting that this is an upgrade as opposed to a brand new fiber deployment. That’s a relatively easy upgrade to make -- and because many small rural telecommunications companies already have deployed fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP), we’ve been seeing a considerable number of rural gigabit deployments.
“On January 18, 2013, former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski issued the Gigabit City Challenge to bring at least one ultra-fast gigabit Internet community to every state in the US by 2015,” said Nemont CEO Mike Kilgore. “Thanks to the tireless efforts of our talented employees, Nemont is proud to report that Montana now has a gigabit community.”
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