Communications-related Headlines for October 14, 1997

Arts and Humanities
WP: Arts Termed Elitist

Campaign Finance Reform
NYT: California To Put Campaign Donations On-Line
WP: TV Stations Curtail Discount Ads for Virginia Campaign

Online Services
NYT: Online Music Retailer Begins Campaign
WSJ: CompuServe to Unveil On-Line Service for Business
and Professional Users

Technology
NYT: Wearable Computers, The User Interface Is You
WP: Memory Bank for the World's Climates

**Arts and Humanities**

Title: Arts Termed Elitist
Source: Washington Post (E4)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1997-10/14/065|-101497-idx.html
Author: Jacqueline Trescott
Issue: Arts & Humanities
Description: A new study from the NEA titled "American Canvas" has warned
that the arts world is elitist, classist, financially unstable, and neither
as democratic or as popular as it should be. This report was issued by
outgoing NEA Chairman Jane Alexander, which also said that the audience for
the nonprofit arts remain "highly skewed" because the arts community has
failed to expand its audience beyond the older, wealthier, educated, and
white patrons who predominated at the beginning of the century. Even though
the report chastises the arts community, its also contains examples of
successful partnerships and programs that NEA hopes will be adopted by more
groups to prove the central importance of the arts in local communities. But
the report still emphasized that "the arts community itself bears a measure
of responsibility for the marginalization of the nonprofit culture...the
arts community neglected those aspects of participation, democratization and
popularization that might have helped sustain the arts when the political
climate turned sour."

**Campaign Finance Reform**

Title: California To Put Campaign Donations On-Line
Source: New York Times, CyberTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/101297disclosure.html
Author: Rebecca Fairly Raney
Issue: Campaign Finance Reform
Description: By the year 2000, voters in California will be able to find out
who is giving money to which candidate via the Internet. In the Online
Disclosure Act of 1997, a law that Gov. Pete Wilson signed on Saturday, the
public will be able to access state contribution data online. "Voters now
have more information about legislation, political currents and changes in
government than ever before because of the Internet," Wilson said in a
statement released by his office on Saturday. "This is fundamentally
democratic and I am pleased to sign this bill." Secretary of State Bill
Jones said: "The voters have been saying 'show me the money.' Beginning
with this next election cycle they will finally be able to see the money for
themselves."

Title: TV Stations Curtail Discount Ads for Virginia Campaign
Source: Washington Post (A1)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1997-10/14/128|-101497-idx.html
Author: Spencer S. Hsu
Issue: Campaign Finance Reform
Description: WJLA-TV (ch. 7), WRC-TV (ch. 4), WUSA-TV (ch. 9), and WTTG-TV
(ch. 5) have informed Virginia's candidates for governor, James Gilmore III
(R) and Donald Beyer Jr. (D), that they'll limit air-time purchases by the
campaigns by roughly 40% between now and the Nov. 4 election. WLJA-TV cited
open-market competition and limited audience interest in the Va. campaigns
among MD. and D.C. viewers. "It's a very, very healthy market economically,
so it's tough for anybody to get TV time," said Terry Connelly, WJLA's
president and GM, who also said that Washington's
stations are raking in profits well above last year. William D. Dolan III,
Virginia's Democratic nominee for attorney general, said, "These people are
looking at political debate with the same commercial eye that they look at
selling sausage. It's a terrible thing."

**Online Services**

Title: Online Music Retailer Begins Campaign
Source: New York Times (D10)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/101497cdnow.html
Author: Stuart Elliott
Issue: Online Services
Description: CD Now, an online music retailer, has begun a $10 million
campaign to make consumers more comfortable with the idea of shopping online
and thus stimulate sales. This is just one of several campaigns, sponsored
by companies like Amazon.com and I.B.M., that are attempting to demystify
"e-commerce". Many of these campaigns are using both traditional and
interactive media to get their message across.

Title: CompuServe to Unveil On-Line Service for Business and Professional Users
Source: Wall Street Journal (B6)
http://wsj.com/
Author: Jared Sandberg
Issue: Online Services
Description: CompuServe is expected to unveil a new Web-based online service
aimed at business and professional users. Revenue will be derived from a mix
of advertising, subscription, and pay-per-use fees. CompuServe is feeling
the heat, losing customers to the Internet and will face tough competition
from services already on the Net like Yahoo!, Mining Co, and Encyclopedia
Britannica (which is expected to announce today a new Internet guide to
finding targeted information online). CompuServe's future is uncertain
because it was purchased by America Online in a deal earlier this year. [See
CompuServe's website at http://world.compuserve.com/]

**Technology**

Title: Wearable Computers, The User Interface Is You
Source: New York Times, CyberTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/101497wearable.html
Author: Lisa Napoli
Issue: Technology
Description: Yesterday, 400 explorers from around the world gathered in
Massachusetts for the first-ever International Symposium on Wearable
Computers. Defenders of the wearable computer insist that these devices are
being created to liberate us, not confine us. These computers, that are
being designed in all types of shapes and forms, are being created to make
our lives easier in the workplace, at home and in everyday life.

Title: Memory Bank for the World's Climates
Source: Washington Post (A15)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1997-10/14/038|-101497-idx.html
Author: Randolph E. Schmid
Issue: Technology
Description: The Nat'l Climatic Data Center hold's the nation's memory of
weather. "The climate is a resource of the country and the government needs
to be able to describe climate and its effect on commerce and the economy,"
said Ken Davidson, the acting director of the center. Located high in the
mountains of North Carolina, the center is constantly contacted by
researchers, lawyers, businesses, and students. Answering 917,000 queries
last year, lawyers are the biggest customers (28%) for requests concerning
climate conditions that may or may not have contributed to an accident. The
center was created in 1951 and combines civilian and military records.
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