Benton RSS Feed

[Commentary] The approval of the Verizon-SpectrumCo deal by the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission signals dark days ahead for consumers.

At Free Press, we believe vigorous competition is the best way to compel companies to lower prices, invest in higher quality offerings, and pay close attention to customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, the market for high-speed mobile and at-home broadband service looks nothing like that. Where there was once a glimmer of hope for competition between cable and phone companies, we now see Verizon and the cable companies dividing up the market. Where once Verizon's FiOS service was going head-to-head Comcast Xfinity, we now have former rivals signing up their own customers for their competitors. Consumers would be far better off if this union had never been proposed. Congress and the FCC need to confront the looming monopoly environment most consumers now face for broadband service. If they don't reverse course and start dealing with the reality they've created.

If you have read anything about digital music recently, you have probably encountered two names over and over: Spotify and Pandora. Both offer an abundance of free listening on easy-to-use interfaces, and music fans have embraced them. At least 33 million people have tried Spotify, more than 150 million have registered for Pandora. Those are extraordinary numbers for any online service. But even at their level of scale and hype — and despite having very different business models — Spotify and Pandora exemplify the business challenges for digital-music companies. Both are losing money, and for largely the same reason: the cost of music royalties.

In the post-primary period of election coverage, most of the newspaper stories were written by men, according to new survey data released today by The Women’s Media Center and compiled by The 4th Estate Project. National and state newspapers were surveyed, including those with the nation’s highest circulation rates, like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. The research covers both the primary and general election periods.

• From January 1 to April 15 (during the GOP primary period) 76 percent of articles written by men.
• From April 16 to August 25 (during the general election period) 72 percent of articles written by men.

[Commentary] For quite some time, ESPN has been the know-all, tell-all leader in sports media. But times change and companies rise and fall.

Because of missteps and competition, it looks like the king might have a rebellion on his hands. Disney created a beast in ESPN. It grew to incredible heights very quickly and in the process nearly monopolized sports news and entertainment. Look at its accomplishments: it defined the highlights show with “SportsCenter,” created the ESPYs and found a niche for extreme sports with the “X-Games.” Its reach and business decisions helped it determine the fates of many sports and college conferences. But ESPN isn't what it once was. It's become a bloated bastion of hyperbole. Instead of giving us the highlights and sound bites, the network is shoveling hours of mindless dreck into our TVs. Needless to say the journalistic standards have suffered. The decline in news quality can be directly attributed to conspicuous conflicts of interest. ESPN covers sports leagues journalistically but also pays them billions of dollars in rights fees to broadcast their games. As ESPN has won the rights to more sports, it has started covering athletes as if they were promotional ideas. By playing things both ways it has become a shell of its former self.