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Submitted on September 21, 2012

“”
Charles Benton
30th Annual Everett C. Parker Ethics in Telecommunications Award
September 25, 2012
(prepared remarks)

Everett Parker is a role model for us all. That is why for my comments today I called several old friends to ask how he had inspired them. Let’s begin with Andy Schwartzman, who started as a young assistant to Earl K. (Dick) Moore, Everett’s lawyer on the WLBT case.

Andy’s three insights from Everett were:

  1. The work has to be driven by an ethic.
  2. You need patience; it takes a while to accomplish things.
  3. Don’t be afraid of difficult challenges.

Let me elaborate on these points, drawing from my WLBT gospel, Kay Mills’ book, “Changing Channels: The Civil Rights Case that Transformed Television.”

First, about Everett’s ethic. He said, “If you really believe in what the bible says, and I do, you have to, if you have any ground to stand on or any resources to use that you can help people who are voiceless, you have to do it if you want to act as a Christian. And I think that is what drives me.”

Second, about patience. After the United Church of Christ filed its appeal to the federal court, Everett met with Paul Porter, WLBT’s lawyer. Porter threatened to stretch the case out long enough to bankrupt UCC. To which Parker said he replied, “Well, Paul, if it runs 10 years or 15 years and if your dead and I’m dead, the United Church of Christ will still be in there.” Incidentally, the case actually did take 16 years before it was finally resolved.

Third, don’t fear the challenge. Following its hearings on the case, the Federal Communications Commission ruled to renew WLBT’s license in 1968 and the two dissenting commissioners, Kenneth Cox and Nick Johnson summed up the elements of the challenge as follows, quote “This case has everything. A racist television station in Mississippi. An offended citizenry that actually takes the expensive and frustrating course of involving itself in the license renewal process. A church as a party. Negros protesting the programming abuse received by that nearly 50 per cent of the people in the station’s viewing area who are black. A landmark, first impression decision by the U.S. court of appeals awarding ‘standing’ to such parties. The station’s misrepresentation to the Commission over the years. The Commission’s contortions to keep the public out entirely, then to place upon them an impossible burden of proof, then to reverse long-held precedents and ignore the clear suggestions of the court as to the standards to be applied.” Even more explicitly, let me quote from Commissioner Michael Copps’ September monthly blog for the Benton Foundation on Reform: The Everett Parker Way: “Justice Berger said that the broadcast industry does not seem to have grasped the simple fact that a broadcast license is a public trust subject to termination for breach of duty.”

I also spoke to my old friend Nick Johnson, who was appointed by President Johnson to the Federal Communications Commission and served 7 years. Let me tell you a story about Nick that was an important part of my finding my own voice, being the late blooming son of a famous and powerful father, William Benton. First, some background. In the late 60’s I joined the Board of the National Citizen’s Committee for Broadcasting, whose Chairman was then Tom Hoving, the Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I remember taking Tom to meet my father in his apartment at the top of the Waldorf Towers and Tom making the pitch about supporting NCCB with a major contribution…which my father agreed to during that meeting. For me it was a fascinating experience in watching my father, who was born in 1900, identifying with the crusading zeal of young Tom Hoving as a mirror of things dad did in his youth with radio when he was co-founder of Benton and Bowles.

The U.S. Court of Appeals decision in 1969 to reverse the FCC’s renewal of WLBT’s license opened up the floodgates to citizen intervention. As Kay Mills mentions in her book, between 1971 and 1973, more than 340 stations had petitions filed to deny their license renewals. A lot of this was done by Dick Moore, described by Henry Geller as “the backbone of the public interest movement in communications,” and Al Kramer, then head of the Citizens Communication Center, with the public support of the NCCB led by Tom Hoving. In late 1972, Tom moved on to other things and I was elected Chairman of NCCB. Early the following year it was announced that Nick Johnson was leaving the FCC and we approached him to see if he might be willing to join NCCB as its staff leader to help carry on the fight. He agreed to do so if we could raise $100,000 to kick it off. Then, on March 18 of 1973 my father died and the fundraiser to clinch the deal was scheduled for his birthday on April 1. I had to decide whether to postpone the event or go forward with it and ultimately, the question that drove me was, “What would my father have wanted me to do under the circumstances.” The answer was obvious and we moved forward successfully to hire Nick and the rest is history. For those who want more of that history, get Nick’s classic book, “How to Talk Back to your TV Set.”

One last story: I also called my old friend, Mark Lloyd, a former Benton Foundation board member and now serving as Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer at the FCC. In 1997 I was appointed by President Clinton as a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters. One of the early meetings of the committee took place in October 1997 and included a briefing from one of the top lawyers affiliated with the National Association of Broadcasting, Erwin Krasnow. He titled the briefing “The Evolution of the Public Interest Standard in Broadcasting.” He started with a lengthy description of the beginning of radio broadcasting in the 20’s and took us up through issues like the primetime access rule, and he probably mentioned in passing the Fairness Doctrine, etc. At the end of his comments, he asked for questions from the floor and I remember Mark Lloyd, who was literally sitting on the floor, raising his hand and asking about a case that somehow didn’t figure into Mr. Krasnow’s history of the public interest in broadcasting. It was, of course, the WLBT case, and Krasnow really had no answer to Mark’s question.

Let me conclude with how Everett Parker’s life’s work has inspired me and the work of the Benton Foundation. As Everett was trying to give voice to the voiceless, I was trying to find my own voice in carrying on his work and building on the public service traditions of my family, especially through the Benton Foundation.

Let’s return to Andy Schwartzman’s three insights into Parker’s work:

  1. Ethic. At the Benton Foundation, we have always been guided by the values of access, diversity and equity, and by demonstrating the value of media and telecommunications for improving the quality of life for all. We seek and support policy solutions that enhance our democracy by bringing ever-more communities and individuals into identifying the challenges we all face and crafting the solutions we all need.
  2. Patience. I am constantly reminded that we public interest advocates are engaged in a marathon, not a sprint. Many of you may know of the foundation’s Headlines service, a daily update on our field. The true value of a service like ours is not measured in a day or a week or even a month, but over the course of years in a relentless chronicling of what we all hope to be an arc toward justice.
  3. Difficult challenges. I truly carry with me, Rev Parker’s desire to give “help to people who are voiceless.” At the Benton Foundation, we continually focus on engaging in the policy debates of the day from the perspective of low-income consumers. All too often, the advances in communications bypass the people and communities that could benefit the most from connections to education, to health care, to public safety and to economic development. And although these may be the hardest populations to reach and connect, our democracy, and our country suffers until we do.

Congratulations to the UCC on its 30th Anniversary of these awards and to Everett Parker on his 100th Birthday. Thank you both for inspiring me, the public interest community, and all advocates for a better world.

Submitted on September 21, 2012

In March 2012 we at Headlines were intrigued by an interview Craigslist founder Craig Newmark gave GigaOm in which he said the next big problem the Internet needed to solve was trust. In an election season, in any political season, really, trust plays a huge role. For Newmark, the issue is management of our online relationships and reputations. For our purposes today, we start with the opening of a Marketplace story on how Americans feel about the news media: “Unless you follow political rallies around like the Grateful Dead, this election season a big chunk of your news is bound to be filtered through the news media.” So do people trust the media as they decide on who to elect in November?

On September 21, Gallup reported that Americans' distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. Distrust is up from the past few years, when Americans were already more negative about the media than they had been in years prior to 2004. (For sake of comparison, trust in the media was much higher, and more positive than negative, in the years prior to 2004 -- as high as 72% when Gallup asked this question three times in the 1970s.)

Gallup reports that this year's decline in media trust is driven by independents and Republicans. The 31% and 26%, respectively, who express a great deal or fair amount of trust are record lows and are down significantly from last year. Republicans' level of trust this year is similar to what they expressed in the fall of 2008, implying that they are especially critical of election coverage. Independents are sharply more negative compared with 2008, suggesting the group that is most closely divided between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney is quite dissatisfied with its ability to get fair and accurate news coverage of this election.

Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport suggested two theories about the troubling trends concerning trust and the media: 1) we are a more polarized nation politically and more distrustful of “the other side” and 2) because we have so many media outlets, when answering this poll, people may be thinking of “the other guy’s media” that can’t be trusted.


Of course, these aren’t the only reasons news consumers could point to. On September 16, New York Times columnist David Carr wrote a scathing piece about recent revelations that journalists covering politics and government are agreeing to quotation-approval as a condition of access. (1) Carr writes, “[I]t’s tough not to see the pageant of democracy as just that: a carefully constructed performance meant to showcase the participants in the best light.” Carr admits that even journalists covering business have had to agree to the same practice (so… so much for letting the market decide). Carr writes that the practice “would have been unthinkable 20 years ago.”

Carr understands that quotes can often be an approximation of what was actually said, but fears something else more modern and insidious is under way. “In an effort to get it first, reporters sometimes cut corners, sending questions by e-mail and taking responses the same way. What is lost is the back-and-forth, the follow-up question, the possibility that something unrehearsed will make it into the article. Keep in mind that when public figures get in trouble for something they said, it is usually not because they misspoke, but because they accidentally told the truth.”

Carr colleague Roger Cohen offered another take on modern journalism on September 17. He writes, “A colleague from a TV news network was telling me the other day that its informal slogan was now ‘Never wrong for long.’ News goes on air as it emerges in a furious competitive scramble, and then if it proves inaccurate it is supplanted rather than corrected.” He continues, That, I guess, is what is meant by the new ‘churnalism.’ So intense is the churn that nothing has much weight. Accuracy sometimes seems a quaint journalistic concept. As for truth, it belongs to a distinct moral universe.” He laments “mainstream media’s” role in helping new media content going viral.


And it is not hard to see what mainstream journalism’s role should be during an election cycle. This week, Tharon Giddens wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review about the influx of ads (2) in the Virginia US Senate race between Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican George Allen. Giddens admits it is a lot to keep up with but laments that many newsrooms in the state are lagging in their efforts to bring perspective and scrutiny to the ad blitz, and sometimes doing little more than amplifying the messages coming from the campaigns. Giddens writes:

The standard format for covering the Senate ads is one that has become common across the industry—a short article or blog post that features video of the ad, a description of its content, and a note about how it fits into the campaign’s strategy. For balance, a retort from the opposing campaign is often included.

What’s missing are attempts at vetting either side’s assertions. Giddens concludes:

[T]oo often, these ad write-ups read like the work of journalists on the hamster wheel—a short summary and a stray thought on the latest campaign message, posted quickly so reporters can keep fresh copy on the site and move on to writing up the next campaign message. It’s hard to hop off that wheel and take a moment to think and plan a more nuanced report when your editor wants you to spin it ever faster, but news consumers deserve more. They can read a press release or watch a commercial on their own. They’re counting on the reporters to help bring it into perspective, keep the campaigns honest, and make sense of it all.

This month Media Matters for America has also revealed a disturbing trend in media: outlets using campaign operatives as analysts of the campaigns they play a role in. Four Fox News contributors are serving as surrogates or advisers for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, Media Matters reports. In many instances, Fox News has failed to disclose its employees' ties to the Romney campaign while hosting them. In addition, the Wall Street Journal has published op-eds from nine writers without disclosing their roles as advisers to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. The op-eds attack President Obama and his administration or discuss Romney on a range of topics like the economy, health care, education and foreign policy.

Finally, there’s also the issue of the lack of diversity in journalism. This week, the National Association of Black Journalists released a report finding that people of color fill only 12% of the newsroom management positions at 295 stations owned by ABC, Allbritton, Belo, CBS, Cox, Fox, Gannett, Hearst, Journal, Lin Media, Media General, Meredith, NBC, Nexstar, Raycom, Sinclair, E.W. Scripps, Post-Newsweek and Tribune. The company with the highest diversity percentage is NBC at 27%, followed by ABC (20%), Belo Corporation (19%) and Raycom Media (17%). At the other end is Sinclair Broadcasting (3%). Media General and Journal Broadcasting are only slightly better at 5%. More than half (153) of the television stations in the report have no one of color in management, despite being located in cities with significant diversity such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Antonio, Atlanta and Little Rock. In fact none of the four television stations in Little Rock, where 30% of the population is non-White, has any diversity in management. Another 86 stations each have only one person of color in management. This includes stations located in other cities with large minority populations including Dallas, Houston and El Paso. Out of a total of 1,647 managers, 1,447 (87.9%) are White, 115 (6.98%) are Black, 56 (3.40%) are Hispanic, 27 (1.64%) are Asian and 3 (.12)% are Native American. One-thousand-twenty-nine (62%) are men, 618 (38%) are women.

Not all the news was bleak this week. There were also some signs of solutions or, at least, proposals:

  1. The National Association of Broadcasters asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to delay hearing an appeal of the Federal Communications Commission's political file online posting requirement, suggesting that experience gained from this election cycle will help it determine how, and if, to proceed. That means that for the rest of this year, at least, people will be able to determine who is buying political ad spots on local, broadcast TV stations.
  2. The New York Times adopted a new policy: “Reporters should say no if a source demands, as a condition of an interview, that quotes be submitted afterward to the source or a press aide to review, approve or edit.”
  3. In an New York Times op-ed, former Obama Administration official Cass Sunstein offered a remedy for easing polarization: “surprising validators.” People tend to dismiss information that would falsify their convictions. But they may reconsider if the information comes from a source they cannot dismiss. People are most likely to find a source credible if they closely identify with it or begin in essential agreement with it. In such cases, their reaction is not, “how predictable and uninformative that someone like that would think something so evil and foolish,” but instead, “if someone like that disagrees with me, maybe I had better rethink.”

These developments offer some light, but we end with a warning offered by David Carr:
Journalism in its purest form is a transaction. But inch by inch, story by story, deal by deal, we are giving away our right to ask a simple question and expect a simple answer, one that can’t be taken back. It may seem obvious, but it is still worth stating: The first draft of history should not be rewritten by the people who make it.


Notes
1. The New York Times broke this story in mid-July. See Latest Word on the Trail? I Take It Back
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2. Of course, this is just a small slice of the campaign ads airing around the country. Kantar Media estimates Americans will see about 43,000 ad spot occurrences per day for the rest of the election cycle.
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September 21, 2012 (Journalism; Elections; TV Diversity)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

A busy day in telecom http://benton.org/calendar/2012-09-21/


JOURNALISM
   In New Policy, The Times Forbids After-the-Fact ‘Quote Approval’
   Cal State ethics czar to scale back proposed disclosure rules on blogs
   Six ventures bring data to the public as winners of Knight News Challenge - press release [links to web]
   How Americans feel about the news media [links to web]
   As Senate ad war heats up in Virginia, time for press to step up [links to web]
   2012 Television Newsroom Diversity Census - research

ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
   Is Romney More Social Media Savvy Than Obama?
   Negative TV coverage of Mitt Romney going up
   Obama, Allies Outspent GOP Rivals in August
   Cellphones Skew Political Polls: Did Landlines Do the Same Thing in 1936?
   As Senate ad war heats up in Virginia, time for press to step up [links to web]

TELEVISION
   2012 Television Newsroom Diversity Census - research
   Fox, Turner to Re-Up With MLB
   News Corp. Mulls Sports Net, Possible Cable Revamp [links to web]
   House Members: Mobile DTV Could Be Data Cap Video Solution [links to web]
   Jon Stewart Unbleeped: ‘The Daily Show’ Leaves Some Choice Words Intact [links to web]

OWNERSHIP
   James Murdoch eyes expanded US role
   News Corp. Mulls Sports Net, Possible Cable Revamp [links to web]
   News Corp investors press to keep hacking lawsuit alive
   Universal’s £1.2bn bid for EMI approved by European Commission
   Universal-EMI merger hinges on FTC approval
   Unwired Planet Sues Apple, Google With Infringing 10 Patents Each [links to web]
   Samsung to add iPhone 5 to U.S. lawsuits vs Apple [links to web]

CONTENT
   Apple and publishers subpoena Amazon in e-book pricing case
   Judge Rejects Request by Actress That YouTube Remove Anti-Muslim Video [links to web]
   Sen Ayotte Criticizes White House over Google Video Request [links to web]
   Big Machine, Taylor Swift’s Record Label Continues Its Online-Offline Royalties Experiment [links to web]
   YouTube: 20 of Our Original Channels Now Earn a Million Views a Week [links to web]
   August: U.S. Consumers Watch Nearly 38 Billion Web Videos [links to web]
   National Media Study Reveals Need to Optimize Online News Content in Response to Consumers’ Motivational Tendencies - press release [links to web]
   Italy, Switzerland added to congressional anti-piracy watch list [links to web]
   Apple Maps app drives users astray [links to web]

CHILDREN AND MEDIA
   How changes to a kids' privacy law could chill innovation for everyone - op-ed
   Preschoolers have more exposure to electronics than ever [links to web]
   Big Three Kids Cable Networks Monopolizing Ad Dollars [links to web]

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   Why your in-flight Wi-Fi is slow and expensive: It’s all about the pipe [links to web]
   Will New Phone Networks Hold Up? [links to web]

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   Living on the dark side of the digital divide
   'We're Literally Watching the Internet Be Rebuilt' [links to web]
   Making Telecom Central Again: Our Economic Future Depends on High-Speed Internet For All - op-ed

CYBERSECURITY
   Private US networks vulnerable to cyberattack - Pentagon [links to web]
   Electric grid regulator (FERC) creates cybersecurity office [links to web]

HEALTH
   Sen Kerry advocates for safety-net clinics in MITECH bill [links to web]

AGENDA
   Democrats ask to extend House session
   No Commissioners Slated for FCC LightSquared Oversight Hearing [links to web]

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   US airs ad against film on Pakistan TV
   Sen Ayotte Criticizes White House over Google Video Request [links to web]
   Proposal to require police warrant for e-mail snooping advances in Senate [links to web]
   Study: Cloud Services Could Save Feds Billions [links to web]
   Rep Issa Proposes Legislation to Reboot Federal IT [links to web]
   Crafting 21st Century IT Reform - op-ed [links to web]

TELECOM
   Guaranteed Landline Phone Service Debated in Ohio [links to web]

COMPANY NEWS
   Comcast CFO Says Big Cable Deals Thing of the Past [links to web]
   Facebook to begin charging businesses to target users with offers [links to web]
   News Corp. Mulls Sports Net, Possible Cable Revamp [links to web]
   AT&T May Invest in Rural Lines Rather than Divest, CEO Says [links to web]
   AT&T CEO praises FCC's move on spectrum holdings [links to web]
   AT&T grabs more WCS spectrum for LTE buildout [links to web]
   Verizon's Shammo: We have enough spectrum for 4-5 years [links to web]
   Verizon: Connecting Rural America - press release [links to web]
   Sprint CTO: Spectrum is like crude oil – you could always use more [links to web]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   US airs ad against film on Pakistan TV
   Universal’s £1.2bn bid for EMI approved by European Commission
   Microsoft scores victory in German patent fight with Motorola [links to web]
   UK Journalists 'can't work without social media,' study shows - press release [links to web]

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JOURNALISM

NYTIMES AND QUOTE APPROVAL
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Margaret Sullivan]
The New York Times is drawing “a clear line” against the practice of news sources being allowed to approve quotations in stories after the fact. The practice, known as quote approval, “puts so much control over the content of journalism in the wrong place,” the executive editor Jill Abramson said. “We need a tighter policy.” A memorandum says that “demands for after-the-fact quote approval by sources and their press aides have gone too far.” “The practice risks giving readers a mistaken impression that we are ceding too much control over a story to our sources,” it says. “In its most extreme form, it invites meddling by press aides and others that goes far beyond the traditional negotiations between reporter and source over the terms of an interview.” It includes this firm directive: “So starting now, we want to draw a clear line on this. Citing Times policy, reporters should say no if a source demands, as a condition of an interview, that quotes be submitted afterward to the source or a press aide to review, approve or edit.” Abramson said that she never wants to put obstacles to news-gathering in front of reporters but that “anodyne or generic quotes that are scrubbed or changed don’t add anything” to stories.
benton.org/node/135045 | New York Times
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BLOGS AND ETHICS
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Patrick McGreevy]
A proposal to require campaigns in California to report when they pay bloggers for favorable mention will be scaled back to exclude instances when campaign workers informally blog or tweet their own views on the side, the head of the state ethics agency says. Ann Ravel, chairwoman of the state Fair Political Practices Commission, said she was responding to criticism at a public hearing as well as in the blogosphere that her original proposal was too broad. The proposal has united bloggers of different ideological bents who see the regulation as unenforceable and a violation of the right to free speech.
benton.org/node/135041 | Los Angeles Times
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA

ROMNEY AND SOCIAL MEDIA
[SOURCE: Fortune, AUTHOR: Kelly Clay]
If you search for Barack Obama on Google, you get the kind of search results you expect – links to Obama’s official website, his Wikipedia page, a link to The White House website, and more. If you search for Mitt Romney on Google, you also get the kind of search results you would expect – news about his latest PR gaffes, his official website, and so on. But a funny thing happens, though, if you search for Obama on Facebook. You don’t get search results for the sitting President. Instead, a sponsored search result for Romney shows up. A similar thing happens if you search for Vice President Biden – you get Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan. A search for Bill Clinton – who gave a monumental supporting speech for Obama at the DNC a few weeks ago – returns a sponsored search result Mitt Romney. It appears Romney’s camp is utilizing a new feature in Facebook that allows a Page on Facebook to pay money to show up as a “Sponsored” result in Facebook search if users search for specific terms (such as “Obama”). There’s not many rules to this form of advertising, and many brands take it for face value, hoping their own search terms earn them a place in that “Sponsored” slot when Facebook users search for their business or related topics. But is Romney’s sneaky campaign on Facebook indicating that his team might be a little more social media savvy than Obama’s?
benton.org/node/134978 | Fortune
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ROMNEY COVERAGE
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: James Rainey]
[Commentary] If you thought Mitt Romney was taking a flogging in the news since the revelation that he said he believes nearly half of Americans feel like they are "victims" who won't take personal responsibility, you would be right, according to a company that tracks television coverage. Silicon Valley-based Boxfish found that in Tuesday's news reports from the three major broadcast television networks and Fox News, President Barack Obama got 16% more positive than negative mentions, while Republican challenger Romney got 7% more negative mentions. The start-up captures dialogue from closed-captioning on television and analyzes the number of positive or negative terms used in proximity to the candidates' names, said Jonny Shaw, chief marketing officer for the company. The findings from reflect a longer negative trend for Romney, with Boxfish finding President Obama got 7% more positive comments over the last week, compared with Romney's 5% more negative remarks.
benton.org/node/134998 | Los Angeles Times
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CAMPAIGN AD SPEND
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Brody Mullins, Danny Yardon]
President Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee spent more than $122 million on his re-election campaign in August—about $10 million more than Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee —according to detailed fundraising reports. The President will enter the fall campaign with $45 million less in the bank than his Republican rival, the reports also show. Obama's campaign spent some $50 million on ads last month, with heavy investments in Virginia, Ohio and Florida, three battleground states where he continues to lead in the polls. Romney's campaign and the RNC spent $112 million during the month. The campaign alone spent less than $14 million on ads, according an analysis of federal filings. Overall, however, Romney and a group of pro-Republican super PACs have spent more on television than have President Obama and his backers.
benton.org/node/135079 | Wall Street Journal
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POLITICAL POLLING
[SOURCE: The Atlantic, AUTHOR: Rebecca Rosen]
If all goes smoothly, late on the night of November 7th we'll know whether President Obama has won reelection. But six weeks is a long time to wait, so we look to the polls -- eat, breathe, and sleep the polls -- until we can have the real thing. For those following closely, no analyst is more dearly beloved than Nate Silver at The New York Times, and Silver pointed to a little discrepancy in the polling numbers that is, for the moment at least, complicating matters: President Obama is polling more strongly in the polls that call cell-phone numbers in addition to landlines. "Why is this happening?" Will Oremus writes at Slate. "The most obvious answer is that Obama enjoys more support among minorities and the young, who are less likely to have landlines. A possible separate factor is that Obama seems to do better in live-interview polls, while Romney benefits from automated polls." This question is basically one of how the uneven distribution of a technology -- cellphones, in this case -- correlate with votes come Election Day. This very same question underlies one of the most famous case studies of polling failure in history: the 1936 Literary Digest presidential poll, which took place at a time when roughly 40 percent of households had telephones, and which wrongly predicted Kansas Governor Alf Landon would carry the day. Was the distribution of telephones what skewed the results? That's long been the story, but new research says otherwise.
benton.org/node/135014 | Atlantic, The
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TELEVISION

NEWSROOM DIVERSITY
[SOURCE: National Association of Black Journalists, AUTHOR: Bob Butler]
The 2012 Television Newsroom Management Diversity Census is comprised of two reports. The first report studies the diversity of news managers at 295 stations owned by different 19 companies. There are more than 700 such stations nationwide and it is our intent to eventually document every television newsroom in the country. The second report examines the diversity of newsroom managers and executives at broadcast and cable news networks. Unlike the local station, which broadcast to their respective markets, the networks provide news to the entire country. Newsrooms are encouraged to reflect the diversity of the communities they serve to ensure fair coverage. According to the 2010 United States Census, non-Whites comprise nearly 35% of the U.S. population but the study finds that people of color fill only 12% of the newsroom management positions at 295 stations owned by ABC, Allbritton, Belo, CBS, Cox, Fox, Gannett, Hearst, Journal, Lin Media, Media General, Meredith, NBC, Nexstar, Raycom, Sinclair, E.W. Scripps, Post-Newsweek and Tribune. The company with the highest diversity percentage is NBC at 27%, followed by ABC (20%), Belo Corporation (19%) and Raycom Media (17%). At the other end is Sinclair Broadcasting (3%). Media General and Journal Broadcasting are only slightly better at 5%. More than half (153) of the television stations in the report have no one of color in management, despite being located in cities with significant diversity such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Antonio, Atlanta and Little Rock. In fact none of the four television stations in Little Rock, where 30% of the population is non-White, has any diversity in management. Another 86 stations each have only one person of color in management. This includes stations located in other cities with large minority populations including Dallas, Houston and El Paso. Out of a total of 1,647 managers, 1,447 (87.9%) are White, 115 (6.98%) are Black, 56 (3.40%) are Hispanic, 27 (1.64%) are Asian and 3 (.12)% are Native American. One-thousand-twenty-nine (62%) are men, 618 (38%) are women.
benton.org/node/134968 | National Association of Black Journalists | NPR
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BASEBALL DEAL
[SOURCE: AdWeek, AUTHOR: Anthony Crupi]
Fox and Turner Sports have secured rights to air Major League Baseball games for another eight years. Under terms of the new deals, Fox will pay roughly $500 million per year through 2021, for a grand total of $4 billion. Turner, meanwhile, will shell out close to $350 million per year, or $2.8 billion in all. When rolled up with ESPN’s package, MLB’s total annual media payout adds up to a little more than $1.5 billion, up from $750 million. MLB’s TV and digital rights will remain with the league’s legacy partners. The new packages are said to be structured largely along the lines of the current deals, which means that Fox will continue to broadcast the World Series and MLB All-Star Game, while splitting the League Championship Series with Turner’s TBS. Perhaps the most striking difference is that TBS will cede two of the four League Divisional Series to Fox.
benton.org/node/135033 | AdWeek
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OWNERSHIP

JAMES MURDOCH IN US
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Matthew Garrahan, Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, Robert Budden]
James Murdoch is being lined up to take direct responsibility for News Corp’s US television businesses, even as his record in the UK was attacked by media regulator Ofcom. The Financial Times has learned that News Corp is preparing to expand Murdoch’s role to include responsibility of the Fox Networks Group. Under the role being discussed between News Corp and Murdoch, Peter Rice, the Los Angeles-based head of News Corp’s Fox Networks Group, will report directly to Murdoch, currently the deputy chief operating officer at the company. Fox Networks includes the national Fox network, as well as cable channels such as FX and National Geographic. It does not include News Corp’s Fox News Channel.
benton.org/node/135040 | Financial Times
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NEWS CORP LAWSUIT
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Tom Hals]
Lawyers for News Corp investors asked a U.S. judge to force the media company's board to face a lawsuit over a phone hacking scandal, while a defense lawyer said board members should be protected from second-guessing by shareholders. News Corp shareholders argue that Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch and the board of directors, including two of his sons, should be held responsible for damage from the scandal. In their lawsuit, the investors say the board refused to investigate the hacking allegations because the directors sought to protect Murdoch's interests. The investor lawsuit was filed in Delaware's Court of Chancery, the forum for many U.S. shareholder legal disputes. The board of News Corp, which owns the Wall Street Journal as well as the Fox TV and studio business, wants an early dismissal of the case before the defendants are required to provide evidence to shareholders.
benton.org/node/135039 | Reuters
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EC OKs UNIVERSAL-EMI
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Alex Barker, Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson]
Europe’s top competition watchdog has cleared Universal Music’s £1.2 billion bid for EMI’s recorded music after forcing the Vivendi-owned market leader to sell off at least a third of the UK company behind The Beatles. The green light from the European Commission is expected to be shortly followed by conditional approval from US competition authorities, giving final clearance for the break-up of the British music icon. Universal is expected to have about six months to auction EMI assets that generate annual revenues of £350 million-£400 million, with interest expected from smaller rivals such as Warner Music and BMG Rights Management. Joaquín Almunia, the EU’s competition commissioner, said the “very significant commitments” by Universal would “ensure that competition in the music industry is preserved.”
benton.org/node/135070 | Financial Times
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UNIVERSAL-EMI
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: David Saleh Rauf]
Universal Music Group’s bid to buy EMI Music is on track to win final approval from European regulators any day — leaving the Federal Trade Commission as the last regulatory hurdle for the mega-merger. “The big question is what’s the FTC going to do?” said Jodie Griffin, a staff attorney at Public Knowledge, which has been lobbying the commission to block the deal. “A lot of eyes are on focused on the FTC,” Griffin said. And with good reason: The $1.9 billion acquisition has the potential to shape the music industry and digital distribution for years to come. The deal involving UMG, the largest major record label in the world, has drawn comparisons to AT&T’s attempt to acquire T-Mobile in its sheer size and scope. Regulators in Japan, New Zealand and Canada have already greenlighted the deal.
benton.org/node/135018 | Politico
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CONTENT

AMAZON SUBPOENA
[SOURCE: paidContent.org, AUTHOR: Laura Hazard Owen]
Apple wants the Department of Justice to turn over the interviews it conducted with Amazon employees as part of the e-book pricing lawsuit. In an August filing, Apple wrote, ”Amazon was the driving force behind the Government’s investigation, and it told a story to the Government that has yet to be scrutinized. Amazon talked with the government repeatedly throughout the investigation, even hosting a two-day meeting at its Seattle headquarters. Apple’s fight to obtain the interviews came to light as result of court records that show Amazon attempting to quash the subpoena in Seattle federal court. We don’t know what kind of information Apple is seeking, but some of it would likely relate to Amazon’s e-book pricing practices. Apple attorneys are now trying to transfer Amazon’s motion to the Southern District of New York so that Judge Denise Cote, who is overseeing the case, can rule on it. Judge Cote has agreed to “promptly address the discovery dispute” if the motion is transferred.
benton.org/node/134989 | paidContent.org
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CHILDREN AND MEDIA

COPPA
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Emma Llansó]
[Commentary] Ever wondered why most Terms of Service include a seemingly arbitrary age cut-off, banning users who are under 13? It’s because of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which restricts the collection of personal information from kids on the Internet. Sites like Club Penguin or Radio Disney that are aimed at children under 13 are required to get verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information from children. Instead, most sites simply ban users under the age of 13—Facebook is a famous example—rather than deal with COPPA’s notice and parental consent requirements. It’s not a perfect system, but it has worked fairly well in limiting the amount of information collected from children—while leaving the rest of the Internet alone. But now the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is proposing changes to COPPA that could create barriers to innovation and access to information for everyone. The FTC plans to put COPPA obligations on plugin developers if they “know or have reason to know” that their plugin has been installed on a children’s site. “Plugins” include analytics providers, advertising networks, social media plugins, embedded videos, or anyone else who provides third-party code for websites. Under the FTC's proposed change, if plugin developers receive a user’s IP address through a plugin that’s been installed on a children’s site, they could face legal liability for collecting children’s personal information. COPPA is the only protect-the-children-from-the-Internet law passed in the late ‘90s that hasn’t been challenged in court. The Communications Decency Act (1996), the Child Pornography Prevention Act (1996), and the Child Online Protection Act (1998) each went to the Supreme Court and were all struck down due to First Amendment concerns about restricting access to information online. COPPA hasn’t faced the same kind of challenge only because it has, so far, been narrowly focused and hasn’t interfered with adults’ or older minors’ access to constitutionally protected information. The FTC is proposing to radically alter that balance.
benton.org/node/135029 | Ars Technica
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

THE DARK SIDE OF THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
[SOURCE: Seattle Times, AUTHOR: Erik Lacitis]
In recent years, when Forbes magazine has put out a list of "most wired" cities, Seattle has been 1, 2 or 3. We're used to streaming a Netflix movie anytime, downloading gargantuan files and having a smartphone as another appendage. But the future — even the present — hasn't quite arrived in parts of Washington. Remote, often rugged-terrain areas with small populations remain on the dark side of the digital divide — meaning everything from working from home to checking the latest Facebook posting to booking a flight online goes ... a little ... slow. Real ... slow. According to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, just under 2 percent of the state's population, about 136,000 people, can only get Internet access at basically dial-up speed. These gaps in broadband coverage are about more than the convenience of watching Netflix movies, says the state's Broadband Office. They're about small businesses being able to use the Internet to market their services, students being able to take an online course and individuals in isolated areas having a level playing field with competitors in the cities, says Wilford Saunders, who heads the state agency. No level field, and the populations in those small towns will keep evaporating, says Saunders.
benton.org/node/135013 | Seattle Times
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MAKING TELECOM CENTRAL AGAIN
[SOURCE: Roosevelt Institute, AUTHOR: Susan Crawford]
[Commentary] The basic facts are familiar: of a nation of 314 million Americans, 100 million of us lack high-speed access to the Internet. We're behind 15 other countries when it comes to that high-speed access; none of top city hubs for fast, affordable access are in the United States. Speeds are slow, prices are high, and a third of us are being left behind. Most people who make less than $20,000 a year don't have access; everyone who makes more than $75,000 a year does. Almost every part of life today, and every policy area you care about, depends on a reliable, affordable, high-speed connection. For everything from finding a job to accessing online classrooms, those without access are at a distinct disadvantage. And our country as a whole is at a disadvantage, as new developments that require working collaboratively with massive amounts of data will happen elsewhere. Why did this happen, and why do I care? It happened because of policy. We're being squeezed by a deregulated and enormously powerful industry that has no incentive to build a fast, affordable, level digital playing field for Americans.
benton.org/node/134983 | Roosevelt Institute
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AGENDA

KEEPING CONGRESS IN TOWN?
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Mike Lillis]
House Democratic leaders are calling on Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to keep the chamber in session to tie up loose ends ahead of November's elections. House GOP leaders have planned to recess Sept 21 for a seven-week break that extends for a week beyond the Nov. 6 elections. That follows a five-week August break from which Congress returned just 10 days ago. The Democratically controlled Senate has a nearly identical schedule. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other top Democrats said leaving town without addressing a long list of unfinished business would create an "economic uncertainty" the country can "ill-afford." The Democrats are calling on Speaker Boehner to scrap the recess plans until the House passes legislation preventing the looming sequester cuts, addressing the expiring Bush tax cuts and reauthorizing the farm bill. Leaving Washington without tackling those issues, the Democrats wrote, would represent "a dereliction" of Congress's "duty to lead." Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith returned fire, arguing that House Republicans have passed bills addressing almost all of those issues, only to see them blocked by Senate inaction or veto threats from President Obama.
benton.org/node/135073 | Hill, The
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

US AIRS AD IN PAKISTAN
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Geoff Dyer]
The US government has bought television advertising slots in Pakistan denouncing the recent controversial anti-Islam video amid huge new demonstrations near the US embassy in Islamabad. The advert includes statements by President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, criticizing the film trailer that has been blamed for an explosion of anti-American violence in Muslim countries over the last 10 days. The publicity offensive in Pakistan comes as the White House is facing fierce questioning over the circumstances around the attack on the consulate in Benghazi that led to the death of Christopher Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya. The White House on described the incident as a “terrorist attack.”
benton.org/node/135071 | Financial Times
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September 21, 2012
Source 
Wall Street Journal
Author 
Brody Mullins
Danny Yardon
Coverage Type 
Lauren Frayer

President Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee spent more than $122 million on his re-election campaign in August—about $10 million more than Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee —according to detailed fundraising reports.

The President will enter the fall campaign with $45 million less in the bank than his Republican rival, the reports also show. Obama's campaign spent some $50 million on ads last month, with heavy investments in Virginia, Ohio and Florida, three battleground states where he continues to lead in the polls. Romney's campaign and the RNC spent $112 million during the month. The campaign alone spent less than $14 million on ads, according an analysis of federal filings. Overall, however, Romney and a group of pro-Republican super PACs have spent more on television than have President Obama and his backers.

Obama, Allies Outspent GOP Rivals in August

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September 21, 2012
Source 
Wall Street Journal
Author 
Spencer Ante
Coverage Type 
Lauren Frayer

What if you didn't finish building it, and they came anyway? Some of the country's biggest cellphone carriers may be about to find out.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint Nextel have spent billions of dollars rolling out new networks that promise super-fast speeds for browsing the Web on mobile phones. And they have heavily marketed the technology, called LTE, even though for AT&T and Sprint those networks aren't anywhere near complete. That hasn't been a problem so far, because only a small percentage of their subscribers actually use the new networks. But the coming iPhone 5, which touts LTE capability, may tempt the masses to try those networks out, exposing gaps in coverage and testing the networks' ability to handle heavy traffic for the first time.

Will New Phone Networks Hold Up?

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September 21, 2012
Source 
Politico
Author 
Alex Byers
Coverage Type 
Lauren Frayer

iPhone and iPad customers are unhappy with the devices’ new Maps application installed in Apple’s iOS6, the company's latest operating system.

Tech blogs and social networks are up to their ears with complaints from iPhone users upset with the application, which replaces a Google-based maps service that came with previous operating systems. A Tumblr blog and pair of Twitter accounts — which were quickly suspended — were even set up to mock the new feature. Some of the worst map mistakes are coming out of Europe, where users say Apple’s Maps app has added another airport to Ireland, changed the name of an English town, and is referring to Berlin as Schoeneiche Bei Berlin. It's also reportedly missing some transit stations.

Apple Maps app drives users astray

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September 21, 2012
Source 
New York Times
Author 
Bill Carter
Coverage Type 
Lauren Frayer

“The Daily Show” is not changing its standards concerning which words it will bleep and which it won’t, though it might have seemed that way September 19. That was when Jon Stewart unleashed his latest satiric takedown of the Fox News network that included repeated use of what used to be called a “barnyard epithet.” It also used to be a word that did not make it onto the air on “The Daily Show” without the bleeping erasure from the network’s standards department. So what happened? Comedy Central executives did not want to comment on the record about the decision, because they did not want to signal that the show had done anything outside the usual standards of the network. But they said the tone of the piece, in which Mr. Stewart expressed some larger-than-usual incredulity at some reporting by the Fox channel, made it more important that the language stay intact in this one piece.

Jon Stewart Unbleeped: ‘The Daily Show’ Leaves Some Choice Words Intact

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September 21, 2012
Source 
Hill, The
Author 
Mike Lillis
Coverage Type 
Lauren Frayer

House Democratic leaders are calling on Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to keep the chamber in session to tie up loose ends ahead of November's elections.

House GOP leaders have planned to recess Sept 21 for a seven-week break that extends for a week beyond the Nov. 6 elections. That follows a five-week August break from which Congress returned just 10 days ago. The Democratically controlled Senate has a nearly identical schedule. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other top Democrats said leaving town without addressing a long list of unfinished business would create an "economic uncertainty" the country can "ill-afford." The Democrats are calling on Speaker Boehner to scrap the recess plans until the House passes legislation preventing the looming sequester cuts, addressing the expiring Bush tax cuts and reauthorizing the farm bill. Leaving Washington without tackling those issues, the Democrats wrote, would represent "a dereliction" of Congress's "duty to lead." Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith returned fire, arguing that House Republicans have passed bills addressing almost all of those issues, only to see them blocked by Senate inaction or veto threats from President Obama.

Democrats ask to extend House session

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September 21, 2012
Source 
Financial Times
Author 
Geoff Dyer
Coverage Type 
Lauren Frayer

The US government has bought television advertising slots in Pakistan denouncing the recent controversial anti-Islam video amid huge new demonstrations near the US embassy in Islamabad.

The advert includes statements by President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, criticizing the film trailer that has been blamed for an explosion of anti-American violence in Muslim countries over the last 10 days. The publicity offensive in Pakistan comes as the White House is facing fierce questioning over the circumstances around the attack on the consulate in Benghazi that led to the death of Christopher Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya. The White House on described the incident as a “terrorist attack.”

US airs ad against film on Pakistan TV

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September 21, 2012
Source 
Financial Times
Author 
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson
Alex Barker
Coverage Type 
Lauren Frayer

Europe’s top competition watchdog has cleared Universal Music’s £1.2 billion bid for EMI’s recorded music after forcing the Vivendi-owned market leader to sell off at least a third of the UK company behind The Beatles.

The green light from the European Commission is expected to be shortly followed by conditional approval from US competition authorities, giving final clearance for the break-up of the British music icon. Universal is expected to have about six months to auction EMI assets that generate annual revenues of £350 million-£400 million, with interest expected from smaller rivals such as Warner Music and BMG Rights Management. Joaquín Almunia, the EU’s competition commissioner, said the “very significant commitments” by Universal would “ensure that competition in the music industry is preserved.”

Universal’s £1.2bn bid for EMI approved by European Commission

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