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US FINANCE SECTOR PUTS WEB PRICING IN CROSSHAIRS
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Kristin Roberts]
The U.S. financial sector, a powerful force in Washington, may be gearing up to jump into a Capitol Hill fight over the future of the Internet and stop an effort it says could add billions in costs just to maintain current offerings. For the financial services sector, which is expected to spend $117 billion on information technology this year, tiered pricing could add billions more in expenses to maintain online banking services and other Web offerings, according to a memo circulating among financial services lobbyists. Those costs could hit the bottom line or be passed on to customers. But it's a fight the financial sector almost missed. "Net neutrality is an issue that (financial services) firms ignore at their peril," Philip Corwin, a partner at Washington law firm Butera & Andrews, wrote in the memo. "If the industry does not engage quickly, it may find that the matter has been decided without its input and that the fallout will affect the industry's cost structure and customer relations for years to come," he added. The Corwin memo urged the financial industry to get the Senate Banking Committee and House Financial Services Committee involved, which could slow the progress of legislation. It also said the industry should prepare bills and push their introduction to assure the continuation of flat high-speed Internet pricing for online financial services. While the financial industry has plenty of muscle, it may be too late for that strategy, some lobbyists said. Instead, they may wait for legislation to get to conference, where House and Senate negotiators work out their differences. In that environment of closed-door bargaining, banks and credit unions might be able to secure the net neutrality language they seek, lobbyists said.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&story...
SENATE BILL 'SILENT' ON MUST-CARRY
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Some broadcasters were smarting Tuesday at the one-two punch of 1) the absence of multicast must-carry and 2) the presence of cable downconversion provisions in the Senate version of a telecommunications reform bill. A broadcast lobby source suggested that while he would not have been surprised had neither issue been raised in the bill, downconversion without even a mention of multicasting was like a "nose thumb"--his two- word phrase was more colorful--to the broadcasting industry. The Senate bill would allow larger cable systems to convert a TV station's must-carry DTV signal to analog for their analog cable customers for at least the next five years, and convert an HDTV signal to standard DTV for the same amount of time, though they would still have to deliver a DTV signal to their digital cable customers. Smaller cable systems would not have to deliver a DTV signal at all for five years. The presence of a provision allowing unlicensed wireless devices to operate in the broadcast band could not have sat well with broadcasters, either. Both the NAB and the Association For Maximum Service Television have argued that the devices represent an interference "genie" that cannot be put back in the bottle.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6330778?display=Breaking+News
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* NETWORKS SALUTE FLAG
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Big Four networks Tuesday praised the Senate Commerce Committee for including language in its telecom bill draft that would establish the broadcast flag digital content protection. "We applaud the Committee for including a TV Broadcast Flag provision to assure that high value content remains available to over-the-air viewers," said ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC in a joint statement. The FCC already approved the flag technology once, but a court threw it out, saying the technology was post-transmission and beyond the FCC's authority. The Senate bill would expressly give it that authority. But the bill also included carve-outs for news, and public affairs, and distance-learning and other educational "fair uses" of digital content.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6330978?display=Breaking+News
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6330778?display=Breaking%20News
FRIST TEES UP BROADCAST-INDECENCY BILL
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Ted Hearn]
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) Tuesday signaled that he's ready to bring to the Senate floor a fine-laden House-passed bill on broadcast indecency, a Senate source said. The legislation, passed by the House last January on a 389-38 vote, would raise broadcast-indecency fines to $500,000 per offense, up from $32,500 currently. Senate Commerce Committee Republican staff learned Tuesday that Frist is seeking to clear the House bill for a Senate vote. Because at least one senator can postpone Senate action indefinitely, it is probable that a vote will not occur in the near future. Nevertheless, a Senate Republican staff source said Sen Frist's decision "is the first movement [on indecency] that we have seen in the Senate in a long, long time."
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6330996.html?display=Breaking+News
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6330996.html?display=Breaking%20News
CPB BOARD ADOPTS GOVERNANCE REFORMS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
At its May 1-2 meeting, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board has voted to adopt a number of changes to its practices and procedures in response to criticisms leveled in an Inspector General's (IG) report last fall. The changes include: 1) a revised Code of Ethics policy and new conflicts of interest policy for the Board of Directors; 2) a clarification of the roles and responsibilities of the Board of Directors, the Chairman of the Board, and the President of CPB in directing the Corporation’s affairs; 3) policy and procedures to prevent the use of political tests in employment actions; and 4) a new whistleblower policy and investigation-related records policy that reflect specific Sarbanes-Oxley directives that apply to non-profit corporations. Yet to come is a revision to its process for handling outside contractors.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6330917?display=Breaking+News
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6330917?display=Breaking%20News
GRANITE FINDS BUYER FOR STATIONS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Allison Romano]
After an initial deal to sell its WB affiliates in Detroit and San Francisco collapsed, Granite Broadcasting announced Tuesday it found a four private-equity firms that will pay $150 million in cash for its two stations. But the sale price is $30 million less than AM Media, a unit of Washington-based private-equity firm Acon Investments, agreed to pay in September for WDWB Detroit and KBWB San Francisco. The deal was killed by the announcement in January that The WB and UPN would shut down and merge into The CW. The CW affiliation in both Detroit and San Francisco was immediately awarded to CBS-owned UPN stations. Granite opted to affiliate with Fox’s new MyNetworkTV in Detroit but lost out on that service in San Francisco, where Young Broadcasting’s independent KRON will be the MNT outlet. When AM Media balked at its deal in February, it sent ripples across Granite. The company warned that it was running out of cash to service its debt. It also had to walk away from a deal of its own to buy a station in Binghamton, N.Y., that was to be funded by proceeds from the two WB stations.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6330776?display=Breaking+News
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6330776?display=Breaking%20News
FIGHTING WORDS
[SOURCE: Slate, AUTHOR: Jack Shafer]
[Commentary] About a year ago, Salon's Eric Boehlert and The Nation's Eric Alterman argued in separate pieces that the Bush administration was waging "war" against the press. This week, Alterman revisits his thesis to include FBI efforts to inspect and sanitize columnist Jack Anderson's papers before George Washington University catalogs and makes them publicly available. Over the weekend, the New York Times' Adam Liptak gave credence to the idea of a war in his Page One Sunday piece about using leak investigations and other techniques to criminalize national-security reporting. Boehlert, Alterman, and other administration critics assert a lockdown on and manipulation of information the likes of which we've not seen since the Nixon administration. But rather than crying "war" over the Bush-press disputes, I subscribe to Jay Rosen's more modest idea that the Bushies ambition was to "decertify" the press from its modern role as purveyor of news and portray it as just another special interest.
http://www.slate.com/id/2140916/
Fighting Words
VNRs: TELEVISION STATIONS RESPOND... AND IT'S WORSE THAN YOU THINK
[SOURCE: Center for Media and Democracy, AUTHOR: Diane Farsetta]
[Comentary] Hours after the Center for Media and Democracy released our study on television stations' widespread and undisclosed use of corporate video news releases (VNRs), a major organization of broadcast news executives issued its response. "The Radio-Television News Directors Association strongly urges station management to review and strengthen their policies requiring complete disclosure of any outside material used in news programming," read the statement. RTNDA went on to caution that decisions involving "when and how to identify sources ... must remain far removed from government involvement or supervision." Unfortunately, RTNDA's statement conflates "sources" with broadcast material funded by and produced for outside parties. It also conveniently ignores that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, under its authority to regulate broadcasters' use of the public airwaves, already has disclosure requirements on the books. But RTNDA's stance does point to an important, underlying issue: how to ensure both news audiences' right to know "who seeks to influence them," and the editorial freedom of newsrooms. The Society of Professional Journalists also responded to our study, strongly condemning TV stations' "irresponsible" and "misleading" use of VNRs. Their statement, similar to RTNDA's, "urges broadcast companies to set their own house in order by using extreme caution and full disclosure when airing VNRs." However, such admonitions fail to take into consideration the continuing confusion over video feeds' origins, the history of TV stations' failure to disclose VNRs, the harsh realities of resource-strapped TV newsrooms, and the embarrassment factor that likely makes newsrooms reluctant to identify VNRs as such. Is it reasonable, within the context of the current system, to expect TV stations to meet the disclosure standards that we all agree on -- and that the FCC is charged to uphold? After hearing the explanations and delving into the records of many of the TV stations that we documented airing fake news, I would say no.
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4762
VNRs: Television Stations Respond... And It's Worse Than You Think
OSCAR-WINNER DREYFUSS CAMPAIGNS AGAINST "SHAPED NEWS"
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Astrid Zweynert]
Richard Dreyfuss says an obsession with delivering instantaneous news and images provides too little context for audiences to reflect and understand what is happening in the world. "There is no room to pause, no room to think," Dreyfuss said. "We don't build into our system of thoughts the need to explain, the media doesn't build that into its transmission of knowledge and information." That creates what Dreyfuss calls "shaped news" -- a version of events according to how the mainstream media want audiences to see what happened, and a violation of journalism's core value of objectivity. Citizen journalism is playing a vital part in broadening news coverage, as well as scrutinizing professional journalism, Dreyfuss said. "Information from more than one source is good. I'm totally in favor of it, even if people send propaganda. In the aggregate you can find more truth than in one opinion." But despite an explosion in blogs, people's views of the news is still shaped by what powerful media corporations print, broadcast and put on their Web sites, Dreyfuss said.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=peopleNews&storyID=2...
TRUST CATCHING UP WITH MEDIA TECHNOLOGY:POLL
[SOURCE: Reuters]
National television is the most trusted news source, ahead of newspapers and public radio, but the Internet is gaining ground, especially among the young, according to a major worldwide survey of trust in the media. The poll, conducted in 10 countries by GlobeScan on behalf of Reuters, the BBC and the Media Center, found that 82 percent of 10,230 adults questioned rated national television as their most trusted news source overall. That compared with 75 percent who trusted national or regional newspapers, 67 percent who said they trusted public radio and 56 percent who opted for international satellite television. Despite the popularity of the Internet in more developed countries and the emergence of "web-logging" or blogging, neither fared well in the survey, according to Globescan President Doug Miller. According to the research, television is still seen as the most "important" news source (56 percent), followed by newspapers (21 percent), Internet (9 percent) and radio (9 percent). Americans who were asked to name their most trusted specific news sources plumped for Fox News (mentioned by 11 percent) and CNN (also 11 percent), with others some way behind. ABC, for example, was chosen by 4 percent, as was NBC.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID...
* Poll Finds U.S. Residents Trust Gov't More Than Media
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_con...
IN THE AGE OF INTERNET, NEWSPAPERS ARE STILL BIG BUSINESS
[SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: John Hughes]
[Commentary] For many newspapers, readership is down and advertising is off. Some major newspapers have laid off staff. American reporters abroad have been killed or held hostage in Iraq, while at home, some have been threatened with jail for refusing to disclose their sources. A few journalists have demeaned the principles of their profession by plagiarizing the work of others or totally manufacturing interviews and events. When caught, they have been fired. On top of all this is the fear that a multiplicity of new electronic toys and gadgets is encouraging a new generation to forsake the printed newspaper and gather its information via a keyboard and computer screen, or even a hand-held device prodded with a metal pointer. But while technology may change methods of delivery, as for example online, there is no content to deliver without a news organization to gather and edit it. In its annual report on the news media, the Project for Excellence in Journalism says the "evidence does not support the notion that newspapers have begun a sudden death spiral."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0503/p09s01-cojh.html
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* Tribune CEO: Not Likely to Face a KR Situation, But 'Possible'
[SOURCE: Editor&Publisher, AUTHOR: Mark Fitzgerald]
Speaking at Tribune Co.'s brisk annual meeting Tuesday, Chairman, President and CEO Dennis J. FitzSimons told anxious shareholders that the newspaper and broadcast giant will "win" eventually -- but he could not guarantee the company will not suffer the same fate as Knight Ridder. He noted, however, that unlike Knight Ridder -- bought last month by The McClatchy Company in a $6 billion deal -- big blocks of Tribune stock is in friendly hands. The McCormick Tribune Foundation, for instance, owns a 14% stake, the Chandler Trusts own another 12%, and 9% is held by employees.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_con...
In the age of the Internet, newspapers are still big business