Ford Foundation Grant to Reform Media Landscape
Submitted by benton on Tue, 07/18/2006 - 07:28July 17, 2006 The Ford Foundation has awarded it a $100,000 grant in support of the Media and Democracy Coalition.
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July 18, 2006
The Ford Foundation has awarded it a $100,000 grant in support of the Media and Democracy Coalition. The Media and Democracy Coalition represents 23 diverse groups that have joined forces to create a collaborative framework to work for reform of the media landscape in America. Funding from the Ford Foundation will be critical to the implementation of this campaign, especially in developing capacity at the state and local levels in educating, engaging, and convening new stakeholders on media reform issues, as well as and involving and connecting them with media policy debates at the federal level. The goals of the Media and Democracy Coalition are to create a shared vision for an open and vibrant media that is accessible and responsive to the needs and interests of all Americans, and to develop and implement strategies for engaging the public in critical media debates and decisions that will shape the future of this essential aspect of our society for decades to come. Members of the Media and Democracy Coalition include: Alliance for Community Media, Benton Foundation, CCTV Center for Media and Democracy, Center for Creative Voices in Media, Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Federation of America, Common Cause, Consumers Union Free Press, Future of Music Coalition, Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown Law School, Media Access Project, Media Alliance, Media Tank, National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture, National Hispanic Media Coalition, New America Foundation, Newspaper Guild-CWA, Office of Communications of United Church of Christ, Inc., Prometheus Radio Project, Reclaim the Media, US Conference of Catholic Bishops, US Public Interest Research Group and the Youth Media Council.
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=810373
July 18, 2006
"Increasing federal regulation of the Internet will reduce choice, growth and innovation."
-- Former House majority leader Dick Armey arguing against net neutrality
"I am very concerned that we do not have adequate competition today to act as a restraint on abusive practices on some of the broadband carriers and until we have that kind of competition, we still need oversight and some kind of constraints."
-- Google's Vint Cerf arguing in favor of net neutrality
"Unless there is a clear policy preserving the neutrality of the Internet, and without tough sanctions against those who would discriminate online, in my view the Internet would be changed forever -- for the worst."
-- Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR)
http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=taxonomy/term/57
July 18, 2006
CRITICS BLAST BILL PROPOSING NSA SPYING CHANGES
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Anne Broache]
Criticism is growing of a proposed law touted by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) and the White House as a compromise solution to the ongoing controversy over the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance program. Sen Specter hailed the agreement, reached after weeks of negotiations with Vice President Dick Cheney and administration lawyers, as recognition that the President does not have a "blank check." But civil liberties advocates and major newspaper editorial boards with knowledge of the draft proposal have charged in recent days that the real picture is vastly different. Some say that Specter's intended bill is a "sham" that would not, in fact, bind the Administration to submitting existing or future surveillance programs for scrutiny -- and could erode checks on the chief executive's power and constitutional safeguards against unreasonable searches. "The reality is, Specter is filling in the exact amount--it's not a blank check; it's whatever you want," Lisa Graves, the American Civil Liberties Union's national security lobbyist, said in a telephone interview. She added that the proposal is "far worse than the Patriot Act." Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Kevin Bankston deemed Specter's draft measure "a rubber stamp for any future spying program dreamed up by the executive," saying it "threatens to make court oversight of electronic surveillance voluntary rather than mandatory." Scathing editorials in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times this weekend took a similar tack.
http://news.com.com/Critics+blast+bill+proposing+NSA+spy+changes/2100-10...
Critics blast bill proposing NSA spy changes
July 18, 2006
IMPACT OF SENATE TELECOM BILL ON STATES, CONSUMERS DEBATED
[SOURCE: Technology Daily 7/14, AUTHOR: Michael Davis]
Telecom experts debated this week whether consumer protections and other issues often tackled by states would be adequately preserved under a telecom overhaul bill being pushed by Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). K. Dane Snowden, a vice president of the wireless group CTIA, answered the question in the affirmative: The wireless industry largely supports the bill and recently launched a major ad campaign pushing for its passage. But Dan Phythyon, public policy director at the Alliance for Public Technology, said consumer protection and states' rights issues emerged from debate surrounding the bill "reasonably late," and expressed concern about whether consumers really would benefit. The measure authored by Sen Stevens -- which his committee approved in late June -- would require that the FCC examine consumer complaints and other wireless issues, cutting out state involvement in such matters. But Snowden said CTIA "agrees there is a need to make sure customers are taken care of." He pointed to a 1993 law balancing the nation's budget, which effectively spurred current growth in the wireless industry by empowering the FCC to auction space on the radio spectrum. "It has worked, there's no doubt about that," he declared. However, Brian Adkins, executive director of the National Association of Regulatory Commissioners, said state pre-emption "is an issue that will grow," while contending adding that there is no need to change regulations in a $118 billion industry. "An industry can't grow this fast, sell contracts and reply to complaints with dogma about industry competition," he declared.
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-JNHC1153165072833.html
Impact Of Senate Telecom Bill On States, Consumers Debated
July 18, 2006
WYDEN WARNS OF MARKET DOMINATION WITHOUT 'NET NEUTRALITY' PROVISIONS
[SOURCE: Technology Daily, AUTHOR: David Hatch]
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) painted a grim portrait of an Internet dominated by telecom and cable giants if legislation approved late last month by the Senate Commerce Committee legislation is enacted into law. "Unless there is a clear policy preserving the neutrality of the Internet, and without tough sanctions against those who would discriminate online, in my view the Internet would be changed forever -- for the worst," he warned during a Senate floor speech. Sen Wyden and other critics worry that the measure's so-called network neutrality provisions are too weak to prevent broadband operators from controlling the content transmitted over their high-speed wires. Those provisions are intended to prevent operators from potentially acting as Internet gatekeepers. Sen Wyden detailed scenarios under which rank-and-file citizens and small businesses would be saddled with hefty fees imposed by Internet providers if the Commerce Committee bill becomes law. Corporations opposed to net neutrality are spending millions of dollars on lobbying and advertising to secure the bill's passage so they can make "billions" from a two-tiered Internet, he contended. Sen Wyden -- who does not sit on the Commerce Committee, but who has been active on a series of Internet-related issues in recent years -- has introduced his own net neutrality measure. "Verizon and Google can take of themselves. They've got deep pockets. They've got lots of clout," said Sen Wyden who emphasized that he is concerned instead about the "future Googles."
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-JCUM1153164778611.html
Wyden Warns Of Market Domination Without 'Net Neutrality' Provisions
July 18, 2006
TECHNOLOGISTS SQUARE OFF ON NET NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Anne Broache]
Two Internet pioneers dueled on Monday over whether proposed Net neutrality regulations supported by companies like Google and Amazon.com are the best way to prevent "abusive" behavior by broadband providers. A debate hosted by the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan research institute that brags of challenging "conservative thinking," pitted Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, who co-developed the Internet's backbone protocols and has emerged as a leading proponent of congressional antidiscrimination mandates for network operators, against Dave Farber, a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist widely considered to be a "grandfather" of the Internet. The pair of technologists appeared to agree on at least one thing: Network operators, in general, shouldn't be allowed to interfere with Net users' activities. Where they disagreed was on the role that Congress and federal regulators should play in the ongoing debate over so-called Net neutrality, the idea that network operators must generally give equal treatment to all content that travels over their pipes. Without legislation that expressly bars network operators from engaging in such prioritization, start-up Web innovators will suffer and consumers may have to pay higher prices to reach the content they want, Cerf warned. "I am very concerned that we do not have adequate competition today to act as a restraint on abusive practices on some of the broadband carriers," Cerf said, "and until we have that kind of competition, we still need oversight and some kind of constraints."
http://news.com.com/Technologists+square+off+on+Net+neutrality/2100-1028...
* Technologists Tackle Net Neutrality
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6353867.html?display=Breaking...
Technologists square off on Net neutrality
July 18, 2006
NET IGNORANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN COALITION
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Former-House majority leader Dick Armey]
[Commentary] Beltway Fever has infected the national leaders of the Christian Coalition, and the latest bout of illness has them standing with the ACLU, MoveOn.org, U.S. PIRG, SEIU and the Progressive Democrats of America in support of Net neutrality regulation. The national Christian Coalition's logic on this issue is puzzling. While the organization strongly supports imposing federal indecency rules on speech on cable and satellite networks, they now claim a "free speech" rationale for supporting government control over the Internet. Assuming that free speech is in fact what they are interested in, they should oppose Net neutrality. Secure private-property rights and consumer choice will guarantee continued free speech on the Internet, not increasing the power of federal regulators and Washington lobbyists, as Net neutrality regulations would. Net neutrality mandates threaten the very diversity of Internet options and the innovation Christian Coalition members rely upon. Indeed, why is the Christian Coalition supporting a federal law that would force Internet service providers (ISPs) to treat pornography the same as family-friendly content? Increasing federal regulation of the Internet will reduce choice, growth and innovation.
http://news.com.com/2010-1028_3-6094235.html?part=rss&tag=6094235&subj=news
http://news.com.com/2010-1028_3-6094235.html?part=rss&tag=6094235&subj=news
July 18, 2006
ANTITRUST GROUP OFFERS EXPERTS TO COURT IN REVIEW OF MERGERS
[SOURCE: Technology Daily, AUTHOR: Sarah Lai Stirland]
A public advocacy group offered access to two experts with the potential to significantly alter a judge's actions as he considers the merits of two telecommunications mega-mergers. The American Antitrust Institute told Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. that a former Clinton administration antitrust expert and a legal scholar critical of the Justice Department's antitrust settlement with Microsoft would be available for questioning for a day as Sullivan determines whether the telecom mergers -- SBC-AT&T and Verizon-MCI -- are in the public interest. The experts are Darren Bush, an antitrust economist and a law professor at the University of Houston, and Joseph Farrell, now a University of California professor. Farrell was previously the FCC's chief economist and deputy assistant attorney general and chief economist in Justice's antitrust division. Bush co-authored a paper that criticized a federal appeals court's interpretation of the so-called Tunney Act in the court's 2004 approval of the Microsoft deal. Several Senate Judiciary Committee members cited that paper as they moved later that year to amend the Tunney Act -- in an effort to make clear that courts should not treat reviews of antitrust settlements as merely a procedural nicety.
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-LUWN1153165808441.html
Antitrust Group Offers Experts To Court In Review Of Mergers
July 18, 2006
WILL 2008 ELECTION SPUR MEDIA DEALS?
[SOURCE: Reuters 7/13, AUTHOR: Megan Davies]
Big media deals and strict regulation don't mix well. But will the fear of potential change in control of the White House in 2008 spur mergers and acquisitions before then? That's the question some Washington watchers and bankers are considering as they look beyond this fall's congressional elections to the next presidential contest. "The regulatory environment is probably as favorable for deals as it is ever going to get -- so companies that are considering deals have to be factoring that in right now," said Paul Gallant, media analyst at Stanford Washington Research Group. Gallant expects that any prospective major media deals will be proposed in the next six to eight months in case the White House is won back by the Democrats. The Democrats are seen by some as more unfriendly to consolidation. Republicans, who control Congress as well as the White House under George W. Bush, have historically been viewed as pro-business, creating favorable tax rules and allowing markets rather than regulators to hash out most competitive issues. Consolidation in the media sector provokes particularly contentious debate, as consumer groups worry that allowing companies to concentrate media properties squeezes out independent voices and reduces local control.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=comktNews&rpc=55&sto...