Benton RSS Feed

The Federal Communications Commission has denied broadcasters' request for a stay of the FCC's viewability/dual carriage decision that, starting in December, cable operators with hybrid analog/digital systems don't have to deliver must-carry TV stations in both formats. The FCC voted unanimously in June to lift that requirement. Broadcasters had been pushing the FCC to extend that requirement another three years, while cable operators said it was time to lift it and give them more capacity to offer other services consumers might want. Both sides were doing hefty lobbying in the run-up to the vote, but cable's arguments held sway in the final order.

The rise of social media tools such as blogs and Twitter have changed the political landscape, in part by speeding up the news cycle and broadening the range of sources that are available. But are these developments good or bad for the practice of political journalism?

The U.S. military has been launching cyberattacks against its opponents in Afghanistan, a senior officer says, making an unusually explicit acknowledgment of the oft-hidden world of electronic warfare.

Marine Lt. Gen. Richard P. Mills’ comments came at a conference in Baltimore during which he explained how U.S. commanders considered cyber weapons an important part of their arsenal. “I can tell you that as a commander in Afghanistan in the year 2010, I was able to use my cyber operations against my adversary with great impact,” Gen Mills said. “I was able to get inside his nets, infect his command-and-control, and in fact defend myself against his almost constant incursions to get inside my wire, to affect my operations.” Gen Mills, now a deputy commandant with the Marine Corps, was in charge of international forces in southwestern Afghanistan between 2010 and 2011, according to his official biography. He didn’t go into any further detail as to the nature or scope of his forces’ attacks, but experts said that such a public admission that they were being carried out was itself striking.

A number of new businesses including big Chinese internet companies, like Baidu, China's top search engine, say they have been directly influenced by the open, collaborative work environments pioneered by the likes of Google and Yahoo. Yet while the two U.S. tech giants have had a major effect on IT companies in China, they have suffered their own well-publicized failures in the country because of what many have said was an inability to adjust to local cultural norms both in business and in office politics. "We did learn a lot from Silicon Valley companies," Mike Li, senior director of business development for Happy Elements, a Chinese social gaming company that has grown from six employees to more than 500 and operates internationally. "The management style changed and had to change. Now we need to respect every single employee because they are aware they are the top talent in the industry."