Microsoft Near Deal to Acquire Cable TV Stake
Graduation Ends a Partnership Born in a Chicago Ghetto
Public TV And Ads: Rescue, At A Price
McLuhan preferred form to content. So does the Internet -- to its sorrow
Internet Charging How Research Centers Work
Legal Situation Is Confused On Web Content Protections
Niche Magazines on maladies Take Peppier and Glossier Route
Newspaper owners proselytize business sense to their reporters and editors
Zoe Baird To Take Over A Foundation In New York
Microsoft May Put $1 Billion Into Comcast
Cable and Wireless Signs Pact with China
Ply and Pry: How Business Pumps Kids on Web
Firms to Unveil Plans to Protect On-Line Privacy
A Blurry View of TV
A Controversial Twist
NBC hanging tough
Planned obsolescence
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Title: Microsoft Near Deal to Acquire Cable TV Stake
Source: New York Times (A1)
Author: Mark Landler
Issue: Mergers
Description: The Microsoft Corporation is close to a deal to invest $1
billion in the nation's 6th largest cable operator, Comcast. Microsoft would
receive a 15% stake in Comcast and seems most interested in the company's
distribution pipeline for the Microsoft Network.
Title: Graduation Ends a Partnership Born in a Chicago Ghetto
Source: New York Times (A12)
Author: Don Terry
Issue: Radio
Description: An award-winning journalism team in Chicago is breaking up. For
the past five years LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman have covered their Chicago
neighborhood in radio interviews. Mr. Jones has graduated from high school
and Mr. newman still has a year left. They have compiled their work into a
book called "Our America" dedicated "to all people living ghetto lives."
Title: Public TV And Ads: Rescue, At A Price
Source: New York Times (B6)
Author: Walter Goodman
Issue: Public Television
Description: A look at the debate over allowing ads on public TV as proposed
by Lawrence Grossman, former head of PBS. How would ads be different from
the "announcements" before and after shows now? What are other possibilities
for funding public TV?
Title: McLuhan preferred form to content. So does the Internet -- to its sorrow
Source: New York Times (D5)
Author: Edward Rothstein
Issue: Old vs New Media
Description: Marshall McLuhan is hot again thanks to Wired and the MIT
Press. The man who coined phrases like "global village" and "information
age" gave birth to media studies and predicted a crisis in print culture:
"the future of the book is the blurb." The Medium is the Massage and War and
Peace in the Global Village are again available in print as is On McLuhan:
Forward Through the Rearview Mirror. Also see
.
Title: Internet Charging How Research Centers Work
Source: New York Times (D5)
Author: Geanne Rosenberg
Issue: Computer-based Communications
Description: More and more think tanks are conducting discussions over
computer networks. The systems break down physical and social barriers and
allow for more participants.
Title: Legal Situation Is Confused On Web Content Protections
Source: New York Times (D5)
Author: Matt Richtel
Issue: Copyright/WWW
Description: More and more businesses are looking for ways to control who
links to their World Wide Web sites, how they link and how they display
content. The first litigation on the issue has been settled out of court and
the Total News site has agreed to stop displaying CNN's and the washington
Post's content w/ Total News advertising. The next big case is Microsoft's
Sidewalk vs Ticketmaster over links to the TM site.
Title: Niche Magazines on maladies Take Peppier and Glossier Route
Source: New York Times (D23)
Author: Constance Hays
Issue: Magazines
Description: Magazines that help people and their loved ones cope with
illness are moving from low-budget, nuts and bolts infomercial material to
glossy, spunky, for-profit magazines.
Title: Newspaper owners proselytize business sense to their reporters and
editors
Source: New York Times (D23)
Author: Iver Peterson
Issue: Newspapers
Description: Competition for time and money means less people are reading
daily newspapers and publishers are conducting internal campaigns to get
their reporters and editor to accept the new economic realities of their
business. Workers are being taught "Business Literacy."
Title: Zoe Baird To Take Over A Foundation In New York
Source: New York Times (6/27/97)
Author: Judith Miller
Issue: Philanthropy
Description: "Borked" Attorney General nominee Zoe Baird will head the John
and Mary R. Markle Foundation. The foundation specializes in pioneering
projects in mass communication, information technology and public policy.
The foundation has $150 million in assets and awards ~$7 million in grants
each year.
Title: Microsoft May Put $1 Billion Into Comcast
Source: Wall Street Journal (A3)
Author: Mark Robichaux and Don Clark
Issue: Media Mergers
Description: Microsoft is considering investing in Comcast, the country's fourth
largest cable operator. A pairing with Comcast would allow Microsoft to
hurry the cable industry in the roll out of Internet access to homes and to
influence the development of digital television. Microsoft could try to
get Microsoft software in the set-top boxes cable operators are purchasing
to display new channels.
Title: Cable and Wireless Signs Pact with China
Source: Wall Street Journal (A15)
Author: Gautam Naik
Issue: International
Description: The British company Cable and Wireless made an agreement that
"will make it the first foreign carrier to gain access to the coveted
Chinese market." Cable and Wireless is selling a chunk of its holdings in
Hong Kong Telecommunications to China Telecom to gain access to China's
market. Approximately 6% of the Chinese population has a phone, and the
Chinese telecom market recorded 50% compound growth over the last four years.
Title: Ply and Pry: How Business Pumps Kids on Web
Source: Wall Street Journal (B1)
Author: Jared Sandberg
Issue: Children
Description: At a Web site for jelly beans, small sugar-focused users
(actually any users, but the site is aimed at the age range that still has
the tooth fairy on speed dial) can receive a free sample of jelly beans if
they enter a bunch of personal data. These types of marketing gimmicks
worry privacy advocates, and the FTC opens hearings tomorrow on Internet
privacy issues. At a site run by Mars Inc., kids are asked to supply the
email addresses of friends so that they too can help track down the imposter
M&M's. Parents are not pleased that information their kids enter on a web
site can be sold several times over. [for more info see ]
Title: Firms to Unveil Plans to Protect On-Line Privacy
Source: Wall Street Journal (B9)
Author: Don Clark and John R. Wilke
Issue: Privacy
Description: In efforts to stop the government from regulating electronic
commerce, several information-service companies are releasing a series of
consumer information privacy programs this week. Database companies have
developed a code of conduct and corporations like IBM and Netscape are
initiating other proposals. The Federal Trade Commission is starting
hearings on Internet privacy this week, covering such issues as "'look-up'
database services, consumer online privacy, unsolicited e-mail, and
protecting children's privacy." Database look-up services gather
information from Web sites and other databases and compile profiles of users
based on what sites they visit, data from mortgage, legal and driver's
license records, real estate, relatives, and phone numbers. Some
companies may post a "No Exchange" badge on their site indicating that the
site operator doesn't gather any information on the user. Other companies
want to let users determine how much information can go to which Web sites.
Title: A Blurry View of TV
Source: Washington Post (A18)
Author: WP Editorial Staff
Issue: V Chip
Description: This editorial in the Washington Post supports the broadcasting
industry's decision to start using more content-based ratings for television
programs. Pressure from Congress, however, should not develop into
legislation on what's objectionable and what shows should be shown.
"Enactment of censorship legislation should be resisted in any case."
Title: A Controversial Twist
Source: Washington Post (D1)
Author: Howard Kurtz
Issue: Journalism
Description: When law enforcement agents in under-cover operations pose
as journalists, it could put other journalists at risk and start to get
journalism more involved in the creation of news than the gathering of it.
"It's one thing for a reporter to drop his pad and save someone from a
burning building, quite another to rent out his identity to the police."
Civic Journalism: A New Jersey newspaper provided in-depth information to
voters about a Senate race last year. "In 54 full pages over nine weeks,
the paper published issue-oriented stories, interviews with voters, detailed
candidate information and reader feedback. No insider tactics or horse-race
stuff on these pages, which cost $100,000 to print and were prepared by
nearly a dozen staffers." The Pew Center followed up the special coverage
with polling and focus groups and found that the effort did not make much
impact at all on readers. People did not read these stories any more than
other stories, nor did this effort change their views about political
coverage. News shows: Fox News Network has a new show hosted by Eric
Breindel, "the conservative former editor of the New York Post's editorial
page." Fox does not think that this host choice affects their efforts to
be fair and balanced in reporting.
Title: NBC hanging tough
Source: Broadcasting&Cable (p.6)
Author: Paige Albiniak
Issue: V-Chip
Description: Many TV networks, the National Association of Broadcasters and
the National Cable Television Association appear ready to agree to including
content warnings (S,L,V) to the current ratings system. NBC, however,
opposes the addition: "We are not prepared to go along with S,V, and
L...They are misleading [designators] and lead to indiscriminate blocking
and censorship," said an NBC exec. There is mounting pressure from Capitol
Hill for the broadcasters to change. Senator John Coates (R-Ind) is
proposing legislation that would force broadcasters to return their spectrum
if they do not add content warnings. In a related story, a new poll reports
that only 35% of parents are using the new system to guide their children's
viewing.
Title: Planned obsolescence
Source: Broadcasting&Cable (p.7)
Author: Paige Albiniak
Issue: Digital TV
Description: House Democrats are proposing legislation that would require
warning labels on TVs and VCRs to inform consumers that these devises will
become obsolete after 2006.
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Sorry for the late delivery, we had a late night at the library last night.