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The closely watched San Joaquin Valley (CA) congressional race between Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA) and challenger Jose Hernandez has veered again into court, with the incumbent suing Democratic operatives for defamation.
Angry over what he calls a misleading political ad, Rep Denham filed suit against Sacramento television stations and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The unusual campaign-season libel suit came after Democrats and the TV stations declined to pull the 30-second spot. "Not only is the ad a flat-out lie, but it's malicious, and they should be held accountable," Rep Denham said. The ad, at the very least, is selective in its use of facts. It accuses Rep Denham, an Air Force veteran, of refusing to guarantee salaries for the military in the event of a government shutdown last year while opposing a Democratic measure to stop congressional pay during a shutdown. Democrats are standing by the ad.
Rep Denham files defamation suit over opponent's ad
Emma Carrasco, currently Executive Vice President of Republica, a Miami based strategic and creative agency specializing in multiplatform marketing, will become NPR's head marketer. Loren Mayor becomes NPR's SVP of Strategy on December 10. In addition to spearheading strategic planning she will help lead corporate business development. She is the Vice President of Strategy and Ventures at PBS, where she has served since 2008.
Carrasco is a marketing, branding and communications executive with 30 years of experience that span advertising, branding, digital, promotions, communications and media for major brands. In this newly created role, she will develop and lead the implementation of a robust, cross-cutting marketing strategy to expand the visibility of NPR and public radio, and to grow audience and revenue. Carrasco's career is bracketed by agency experience, beginning at Fleishman Hillard in Los Angeles and New York, where she created corporate responsibility and media relations campaigns, and most recently as Executive Vice President at Republica, a strategic and creative agency based in Miami, where she worked with an array of major national and international brands to grow their market share and revenue. She has also served in executive roles for major brands including Univision, where she helped usher in a new era of Spanish-language television programming; and at McDonald's Corporation, where she led communications campaigns to grow the Hispanic and African-American consumer base; and Nortel Networks where she led the company's global branding and advertising. Carrasco sits on the Board of Directors of WPBT-Channel 2, the PBS station of South Florida.
Incoming Senior Vice President of Strategy Loren Mayor joins NPR from PBS where she has served since 2008, most recently as Vice President of Strategy and Ventures. There she led long-term and annual strategic planning, media strategy, and corporate partnerships. She also managed major revenue initiatives, served as liaison to Board committees, and oversaw licensing and sponsorship programs. Prior to joining PBS, Mayor was employed by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for five years, rising to the position of Vice President of Media Strategies and Technologies. She consulted for three years for McKinsey & Company, working primarily with clients in the non-profit and media sectors. She has a PhD from Northwestern University, where she also served as a visiting assistant professor.
NPR Names Emma Carrasco Chief Marketing Officer and Loren Mayor SVP of Strategy NPR Shakes Up Executive Posts (AP)
There is a proxy war going on in Syria, one measured in megabytes rather than in arms. On one side, Iran is providing Bashar al-Assad's regime with the tools of digital dictatorship to locate and bait the Syrian opposition. On the other side, the United States is trying to help the opposition protect itself from such attacks and set up alternate channels of communication. The outcome of this proxy war will affect the lives of many Syrians and the credibility of the State Department's efforts to promote digital freedom internationally.
Syria's Digital Proxy War
"Hyperlocal" news sites that focus their coverage on small towns and city neighborhoods are reporting big traffic surges from Sandy, with local residents keen to find out about their towns' storm preparedness Oct 29 and about property damage and when power would be restored on Oct 30, with much of it driven by search.
Spikes were reported by corporate news brands and individually owned sites alike. AOL-owned Patch, which operates roughly 860 sites across the country but has high penetrations in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, reported its highest-ever traffic day Monday -- page views were up 88% from the previous highest day. The Daily Voice, a competing network with 53 sites in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts, said traffic Monday was two times higher than normal. Sheepshead Bites, a four-year-old independent site covering the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn, also reported its highest-ever traffic day Monday on its Facebook page. And eight-year-old independent Baristanet, which covers Montclair, Bloomfield and Glen Ridge, N.J., reported traffic Tuesday was on course to be three times higher than the average 8,000 to 9,000 daily visits, notwithstanding the fact that much of Montclair is without power.
Hurricane Sandy Boosts Local Online News Brands
In the days and hours leading up to the arrival of Superstorm Sandy in the New York area, the storm looked like it might end up being the most-photographed, most-tweeted and most-blogged-about natural disaster in history. In fact, so many remarkable photos of Sandy were being shared on Twitter and Instagram that even the major news organizations with a boots-on-the-ground presence in the region were actively encouraging people to send in their photos.
At one point, according to Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, 10 photos of Hurricane Sandy were being shared every second. That narrative about technology and the power of social media, however, is starting to shift in the aftermath of the storm as millions of people in New York City suddenly confront a life without power and without public transportation. All of those would-be citizen journalists sending out Instagram photos of a darkened New York skyline or tweeting out updates from their neighborhood — they all require power for their digital devices — and that’s something that many people in the New York area no longer have. In lower Manhattan and in neighborhoods stretching up to 34th Street — precisely the area where many of New York’s fledgling start-ups are located — the power has been shut off completely and may not be restored for days.
In Sandy’s aftermath, what of the NYC tech sector?
The presidential campaign sites BarackObama.com and MittRomney.com have recently ratcheted up their use of third-party Web trackers. These are companies, like ad networks and data brokers working on behalf of the campaigns, that collect information about users’ online activities to show political ads to people tailored to their own interests and beliefs. Spokesmen for each campaign have separately said that their own campaign had put safeguards in place to protect that user data. But now a new study by Jonathan Mayer, a graduate student in computer science and law at Stanford University, reports that both sites are leaking information about site visitors to a number of third-party trackers operating on their pages.
Several pages on the Obama site included a user’s personal information in the page title at the top of the page or in the URL address, Mayer said, thereby giving third parties operating on the site the opportunity to collect identifying data. The information flowing to third parties, he said, variously included the username; the proper name under which a person registered; and their street address and ZIP code. On the Romney site, Mayer said, he found that a number of pages included the user’s name in the page title. Many pages also included a unique numerical ID number in the URL, which flowed to third parties, he said.
Romney and Obama Campaigns Leaking Web Site Visitor Data
According to SNL Kagan’s most recent projections, this year’s television station political advertising revenue is expected to increase to $2.6 billion, a 68% increase over the 2008 total of $1.6 billion.
The swing states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, predictably have emerged as the political battleground for 2012 presidential election spending. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign has outspent President Barack Obama in TV and radio advertising in these states, with well over half a billion dollars already spent with local broadcasters. As the election approaches, political revenue projections will be put to the test as the presidential candidates compete in local markets to close the gap on much-needed electoral votes. SNL Kagan estimates that 80% of political revenues were generated in the second half of each of the last three election years, with roughly 60% of the total coming in during the fourth quarter alone. If this holds true this year, the top 10 publicly held TV broadcast affiliate groups will see a 57.5% average increase in political revenue over 2008. Total political revenue for these groups would be $625.3 million, a 41.9% increase from $440.5 million in 2008.
TV Political Ad Revenue on $2.6 Billion Pace
Waiting in line at the DMV or getting a root canal are just a couple of things that sound more pleasant than finding a new smartphone plan. If you’ve ever tried to make sense of all the different carrier plans, you know it can be confusing. Between the individual and shared plans and the different levels of data packages, the experience is maddening enough that you might feel resigned to stick to your current plan. But suffering through horrible service is a far worse alternative. In this week’s column, I outline the smartphone data plans offered by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, along with some of their pros and cons. With so many factors affecting pricing — the number of individuals on a plan, devices and geographic location — it’s hard to pick a “winner,” but this guide should make the decision easier.
Making Sense of Smartphone Plans
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a gay-rights group, has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate an onslaught of anti-Obama text messages.
The group said the unsolicited messages were a "blatant" violation of anti-spamming rules, and urged the commission to impose the maximum fine on those responsible. The texts covered a variety of topics, including gay rights, abortion and Medicare, and reached people who had never asked to receive them, including HRC supporters. "Obama supports homosexuality and its radical social agenda. Say No to Obama on Nov 6!" one read, according to HRC. "Stop Obama from forcing gay marriage on the states. Your vote is your voice," read another.
Human Rights Campaign calls for investigation of anti-Obama text messages
For a media-saturated, always-connected city, the aftermath of Sandy has in some ways been stranger than the storm. There were no newspapers on newsstands -- if newsstands were open -- across large portions of the city. Like everything else with Sandy, the media disruption was uneven. Bridge and tunnel closures blocked delivery of The New York Times in Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, a spokeswoman said. But trucks were able to get through to parts of Queens, Long Island and Brooklyn from the paper's printing plant in College Point, Queens.
Waking Up in a City Without Newspapers