TV Ratings Accord Comes Under Fire From Both Flanks
House, 217 to 216, Votes to Replace Arts Agency With Grants to States
In a Protest, Poet Rejects Arts Medal
An Unfettered Internet? Keep Dreaming
MCI Widens Local-Market Loss Estimate
Who's That by the Space Alien? Why, It's a Reporter From CNN
NBC Official Weighed Ratings and "Principle"
Cyberspace Chat
Kids and Liquor Ads
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Frequently Asked Questions on Universal Service and the
Snowe-Rockefeller-Exon-Kerrey Amendment
Changes in FCC's Universal Service Report and Order
*********************************************
Title: TV Ratings Accord Comes Under Fire From Both Flanks
Source: New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/(A1)
Author: Lawrie Mifflin
Issue: V-Chip
Description: "Today, America's parents have won back their living rooms,"
Vice President Al Gore said yesterday in the official announcement of the
new accord on the TV ratings. But will parents use the new system and the
V-Chip technology when they become available? And if they do, will it change
the types of programming that airs and the advertising that supports it?
Hollywood writers, directors and actors are denouncing the new system as a
threat to their creativity and their First Amendment rights. In Washington,
several senators denounced colleagues who signed a letter saying they would
not legislate TV content for three years.
Title: House, 217 to 216, Votes to Replace Arts Agency With Grants to States
Source: New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/(A15)
Author: Jerry Gray
Issue: Arts
Description: The House of Representatives voted to replace the National
Endowment of the Arts with $80 million in block grants to the states. Nearly
$30 million would go to state art commissions; $48 million would go to local
school boards. A House-Senate Conference Committee will decide the NEA's
fate later this summer.
Title: In a Protest, Poet Rejects Arts Medal
Source: New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/(A15)
Author: Judith Dobrzynski
Issue: Arts
Description: Award-winning poet Adrienne Rich has turned down the 1997
National Medal of the Arts. "I am not against government in general, but I
am against a government where so much power is concentrated in so few
hands," Rich said. Rich's most recent work is "Dark Fields of the Republic:
Poems 1991-1995."
Title: An Unfettered Internet? Keep Dreaming
Source: New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/(A25)
Author: Eli Noam, professor at Columbia University
Issue: Electronic Commerce/Internet Regulation
Description: "These have been heady days in Washington for that marvelous
medium, the Internet," begins the op-ed by Professor Noam. The Supreme Court
struck down the Communications Decency Act and the Clinton Administration
has promised a "hands-off" policy for the medium. But don't expect this
attitude to last long, Noam warns. Most of the Administration's paper urged
foreign powers to keep their hands off when they all have their own reasons
for regulating the Net. And don't expect the "libertarian island" to last
much longer "in a world of jealous competitors and conflicting public
objectives."
Title: MCI Widens Local-Market Loss Estimate
Source: Wall Street Journal http://www.wsj.com/(A3)
Author: John Keller
Issue: Competition
Description: MCI says it will lose $800 million in the process of entering
the local phone service market. "The foot-dragging by the local phone
companies is costing MCI in sales and human and other resources, which makes
entry into the local market uneconomical in the near term if regulators
don't step up here and force the Bells to be more competitive," an industry
analyst said.
Title: Who's That by the Space Alien? Why, It's a Reporter From CNN
Source: Wall Street Journal http://www.wsj.com/(B1)
Author: John Lippman
Issue: Journalism
Description: A number of CNN employees play themselves in "Contact," a
Warner Brothers film which opens today. "It blurs the line between fact and
fiction and erodes the credibility of the journalists," says former CBS News
president Eric Ober.
Title: NBC Official Weighed Ratings and "Principle"
Source: Wall Street Journal http://www.wsj.com/(B2)
Author: Kyle Pope
Issue: V-Chip
Description: NBC executive Dr. Rosalyn Weinman, a sociologist, is the
driving force in the network's decision to boycott the new television
ratings system. NBC views the new system as a threat to First Amendment
rights. "We felt that this slide on the slippery slope was a matter of
principle we took very seriously. It finally came down to a point in the road."
Title: Cyberspace Chat
Source: Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/(A22)
Author: Editorial Staff
Issue: Internet Content
Description: Many communities that have been running successful chat rooms
are running into problems with keeping parents, students, and teachers from
straying from the discussion of issues and into "freewheeling chatter." The
editorial refers readers to the work
of the American Library Association, which suggests that a simple remedy to
the problem of overloaded circuits is teaching people to use the Internet
properly. ALA's president says, "Technology isn't the problem. The problem
is how you use it." The ALA has begun to weed through the Internet, finding
reliable, easy-to-use, non-privacy threatening, "not overly commercial"
sites for kids. See their work at http://www.ala.org/parentspage/greatsites.
Title: Kids and Liquor Ads
Source: Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/(A23)
Author: David Walsh, president of the National Institute on Media and the Family
Issue: Liquor Ads
Description: In this Op-Ed, Walsh comes out strongly in favor of an FCC
inquiry into regulating liquor advertising over television and radio
airwaves. Citing recent studies on the effects of alcohol advertising
on children as well as surveys of children's opinions of such adds,
Walsh contends that alcohol advertisers are undeniably targeting
America's youth. If the FCC is responsible for "safeguarding the
interests of the public in the use of the airwaves," then surely the
protection of no common good could be more important than the protection
of children from the harm which is inherent in underage use of alcohol.
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For updates on telecom discounts for schools and libraries
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Snowe-Rockefeller-Exon-Kerrey Amendment
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Public_Notices/1997/da971374.html
UNIVERSAL SERVICE
ORDER ON RECONSIDERATION, DOCKET NO. 96-45, FCC 97-246
The FCC, on its own motion, revised several
technical details of its actions in the Universal Service Report
and Order.
Changes include:
With respect to schools and libraries, the Commission concludes
that an "eligible school or library is not required to comply with
the competitive bidding requirement for any contract for
telecommunications services that it signs after November 8, 1996
and before the competitive bidding system is operational, but only
if that contract covers only services provided to the school or
library before December 31, 1998."
The Commission also concludes that an "eligible school or library
may not receive a federal universal service discount on services
provided to it before January 1, 1998." In addition, the
Commission determined it will "consult the members of the [Federal-State
Joint Board on
Universal Service] before adopting any changes
to the discount matrix for schools and libraries."
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