March 2, 2010 (New Peww Study)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2010

JOURNALISM
   Understanding the Participatory News Consumer
   Network News at a Crossroads
   We Can't Wish Away Climate Change

BROADBAND
   $84 Million BTOP Grant for Washington
   US Crafts Plan To Quicken Broadband Speeds
   Internet authority of FCC in question; opponents of regulation speak up
   For Google, provoking ISPs is the only way to build the Internet
   Who Will Profit From Broadband Innovation?
   How AT&T Plans to Keep SXSW From Swamping Its Network

FCC REFORM
   Sens Snowe and Kaufman want more expertise at FCC
   Information Collection and Management at the Federal Communications Commission

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   DOD Releases Policy for Responsible and Effective Use of Internet-Based Capabilities
   Scholars look to increase research on open government

OWNERSHIP
   Google, Microsoft Spar on Antitrust

HEALTH
HHS panel considers EHR risks as reports detail injuries, deaths | This is gonna HURT | Privacy Group Calls for New Online Drug Ad Regs

STORIES FROM ABROAD
These headline presented in partnership with:

Are people ready to pay for online news? | New EU rules limit Internet charges for cell phone | British Library creates archive of defunct Web | T-Mobile and Orange merger gets European OK

MORE ONLINE
McCain: Obama did 'excellent job' of leveraging technology on campaign trail | Finding Untainted Jurors in the Age of the Internet | Genachowski Names New USAC Directors | FTC Halts Massive Cramming Operation | Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book | Judge In Facebook Privacy Lawsuit Reserves Decision On $9.5M Settlement

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JOURNALISM

UNDERSTANDING THE PARTICIPATORY NEWS CONSUMER
[SOURCE: Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, AUTHOR: Kristen Purcell, Lee Rainie, Amy Mitchell, Tom Rosenstiel, Kenny Olmstead]
The overwhelming majority of Americans (92%) use multiple platforms to get their daily news. And the Internet is now the third most-popular news platform. It falls behind local and national television news and ahead of national print newspapers, local print newspapers and radio. Still, the overall reality is that the Internet fits into a broad pattern of news consumption by Americans. Six in ten (59%) get news from a combination of online and offline sources on a typical day.
Just 7% of American adults get their daily news from a single media platform, and those who do typically rely on either the Internet or local television news.
The Internet and mobile technologies are at the center of the story of how people's relationship to news is changing. In today's new multi-platform media environment, people's relationship to news is becoming portable, personalized, and participatory:
Portable: 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.
Personalized: 28% of Internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.
Participatory: 37% of Internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.
The rise of social media like social networking sites and blogs has helped the news become a social experience for consumers; people use their social networks and social networking technology to filter, assess, and react to news. They also use traditional email and other tools to swap stories and comment on them.
benton.org/node/32673 | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project | read the study | Wall Street Journal | SF Chronicle | ars technica
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NETWORK NEWS AT A CROSSROADS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter, Bill Carter]
With news available more places than ever, on cable channels and Internet sites, and with revenue challenged by heavy dependence on shrinking advertising dollars, the future for the news divisions at ABC and CBS remains deeply insecure. "Long term, it's going to get harder for these guys to exist as they are currently constructed, with the exception of NBC because it can offload the costs on MSNBC," Michael Nathanson, an industry analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said. The economic problems facing ABC News and CBS News in many ways mirror those faced by newspapers, which have been similarly afflicted by a drop in advertising revenue. The reaction — severe cuts in personnel and other costs — also looks to be the same. But can you shrink your way to prosperity? Andrew Heyward, the former president of CBS News who is now a news media consultant (NBC News is one client), said of the ABC cuts: "The real issue after this is what is going to drive growth? How do you generate more profit? And this doesn't address that." The easy answer would seem to lie in NBC's structure, because in contrast to its competitors, that news organization is flush, making an estimated $400 million in profit a year.
benton.org/node/32690 | New York Times
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WE CAN'T WISH AWAY CLIMATE CHANGE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Al Gore]
[Commentary] Over the years, as the science has become clearer and clearer, some industries and companies whose business plans are dependent on unrestrained pollution of the atmospheric commons have become ever more entrenched. They are ferociously fighting against the mildest regulation — just as tobacco companies blocked constraints on the marketing of cigarettes for four decades after science confirmed the link of cigarettes to diseases of the lung and the heart. Simultaneously, changes in America's political system — including the replacement of newspapers and magazines by television as the dominant medium of communication — conferred powerful advantages on wealthy advocates of unrestrained markets and weakened advocates of legal and regulatory reforms. Some news media organizations now present showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment. And as in times past, that has proved to be a potent drug in the veins of the body politic. Their most consistent theme is to label as "socialist" any proposal to reform exploitive behavior in the marketplace. From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption. After all has been said and so little done, the truth about the climate crisis — inconvenient as ever — must still be faced. [Al Gore, the vice president from 1993 to 2001, is the founder of the Alliance for Climate Protection and the author of "Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis." As a businessman, he is an investor in alternative energy companies.]
benton.org/node/32689 | New York Times
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BROADBAND

WASHINGTON BTOP GRANT
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration]
Commerce Secretary Locke -- joined by Sen Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep Jay Inslee (D-WA) -- announced a $84 million Recovery Act investment to help bridge the technological divide, boost economic growth, create jobs, and improve education and healthcare in Washington state. The grant will bring high-speed Internet access to more than 100 community anchor institutions -- including community colleges, libraries, healthcare facilities, and government agencies -- and lay the groundwork for bringing affordable broadband service to thousands of homes and businesses in the region. The investment will allow the Northwest Open Access Network (NoaNet) to deliver new and enhanced broadband capabilities to some of the more remote regions of the state by adding 830 miles of fiber and eight new microwave sites to their existing high-speed network. Among other benefits, the project plans to directly connect the Jamestown S'Klallam tribal center, library, and clinic, and the Shoalwater tribal center and clinic, as well as provide connection opportunities for the Makah tribal center and clinic. [more at the URK below]
benton.org/node/32685 | National Telecommunications and Information Administration | Project Factsheet | B&C
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NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN
[SOURCE: National Public Radio, AUTHOR: Mario Armstrong]
Imagine surfing an Internet that's blazingly fast: Music and movies stream in with no interruptions; software programs download in seconds. This may not happen anytime soon — but the government does have a plan for better broadband access. As technology expert Mario Armstrong tells NPR's Steve Inskeep, public schools could see a big boost from the plan. "To be able to connect kids from their home back to the schools — that simple thing doesn't happen today," Armstrong said, "and it could happen if we had a national broadband policy." The national broadband plan will be delivered to Congress on March 17. It will certainly call for bringing high-speed Internet connections to more Americans. The program would mean better connectivity for public buildings, from schools to hospitals. The government initiative is particularly meant to help students and job seekers, as well as medical staff and first-responders on emergency teams.
benton.org/node/32677 | National Public Radio
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FCC'S INTERNET AUTHORITY QUESTIONED
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
As the Federal Communications Commission putters way at a full plate of issues related to broadband Internet services, the question being asked by analysts, lobbyists and public interest groups is whether the agency will make a move to more clearly stake a claim on those services. Pressure is growing, but with little new insight into the thinking of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the industry is becoming more vocal in its opposition. The cable industry's top lobbyist, Kyle McSlarrow, wrote a letter to Genachowski on Monday, reiterating that a move to reclassify broadband as a Title II common carriage service is a bad idea. Besides, he said, the FCC can achieve at least one of its goals without doing so: retooling a phone subsidy program for educational purposes to also include broadband. "We believe it is unnecessary for the Commission to risk the adverse consequences of imposing Title II regulation on broadband Internet access service in order to promote the use of broadband for education," wrote McSlarrow, president of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. He then launched into a analysis of telecom law that he thinks gives the agency authority to reform that program without a reclassification.
benton.org/node/32687 | Washington Post | NCTA
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GOOGLE PROVOKING ISPs
[SOURCE: Fortune, AUTHOR: Paul Smalera]
[Commentary] Google's recent push to provide ultra-high-speed Internet is more about injecting competition in the dysfunctional Internet business than about creating a new revenue stream. It's the 21st century equivalent of the Oklahoma land rush: Just days after Google announced it was seeking some trial areas in which to deploy its new ultra-high-speed fiber network, cities and towns began throwing themselves at the Internet giant. And why shouldn't they? The digital divide is wider than ever. A recent FCC report, concluded that 93 million Americans lack access to high-speed Internet service, with affordability being the primary barrier. Harvard's Berkman Center just rated America's broadband network 16th best among developed nations in the world — just beating out Luxembourg. For CEO Eric Schmidt, the middling rank isn't just a reason to hide his face when visiting Sweden (1st) or the U.K. (11th) — it's a serious obstacle to Google's continued growth. The same goes for Facebook, eBay, Twitter, Amazon.com, Apple's iTunes Music Store and every other U.S.-based website or online service you can think of. But it's Google that has the pocketbook and the self-regard to attempt to do something about it: by forcing ISPs to evolve or face extinction.
benton.org/node/32672 | Fortune
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WHO WILL PROFIT FROM BROADBAND INNOVATION?
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
Demand for broadband and the value of a broadband connection are both on the rise, even as the cost a service provider can charge for such connections drops. Figuring out a business model that benefits service providers and consumers -- and that continues to drive innovation -- was a key theme at "The New Broadband Buildout," a GigaOM Bunker Session held last week in our San Francisco office. The event, which featured heated debate about the fate of broadband innovation, also tackled the thorny issue of finding a broadband business model for future. While many in the audience said that carriers need to get out of the way and accept their dumb pipe status, David Morken, CEO of Bandwidth.com, and Sergio Catanaziti, an R&D executive from Orange Labs, the research arm of France Telecom, refuted that idea. Morken's company owns its own network, and although he accepts that bandwidth is a commodity, he offers enterprise customers voice service and other products on top of that network in order to turn a profit. The strategy is paying off; the company is approaching $100 million a year in revenue without ever having taken external funding.
benton.org/node/32683 | GigaOm
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AT&T AT SXSW
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
Last year, the hordes of South by Southwest-attending geeks toting iPhones blew out the AT&T network around the convention center in Austin, resulting in dropped calls and crappy connections for many attendees. The subsequent news coverage showed off Ma Bell's network failures for the entire world (or at least the world that cares about such things.) This year, having activated more than 8.7 million more iPhones since last March's debacle, AT&T is pulling out all the stops to make sure the digerati have the coverage they want during SXSW 2010. The strategy includes: A Distributed Antenna System (DAS) at the Austin Convention Center; Beefing up the Cell Sites; Three Temporary Cell Sites; and Better Backhaul.
benton.org/node/32682 | GigaOm
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FCC REFORM

BILL TO BOOST FCC TECH RESOURCES
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Kim Hart]
Sens Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Ted Kaufman (D-Delaware) Monday introduced a bill aiming to boost the technical resources and expertise at the Federal Communications Commission. The legislation would require the National Academy of Sciences to do a study to examine the technical policy decision-making process and the availability of technical personnel at the agency. "It is critical that we include engineers in our nation's technical policy and decision-making, at the FCC and across the government," said Kaufman. "Professionals in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics have always been our nation's problem-solvers. I am pleased that this study will explore the implications and offer recommendations for addressing the decline of engineers in this important agency." The study would address the FCC's technical policy decision-making process, current staffing levels and recruiting processes for technical staff and engineers. The bill authorizes $1 million over two years to conduct the research.
benton.org/node/32671 | Hill, The | TechDailyDose
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GAO REPORT ON THE FCC
[SOURCE: , AUTHOR: David Wise]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates industries that affect the lives of virtually all Americans. FCC-regulated industries provide Americans with daily access to communications services, including wireline and wireless telephone, radio, and television. To ensure FCC is carrying out its mission, the commission requires a significant amount of information, such as ownership and operating information from radio and television stations. In prior reports, GAO has found weaknesses with FCC's information collection, management, and reporting processes. While FCC has taken action, the commission has not implemented all the recommendations associated with information collection, management, and reporting.
As requested, this report provides information on 1) the information FCC collects; 2) how FCC collects and manages information; 3) the strengths and weaknesses, if any, in FCC's information collection and management practices; and 4) the status of FCC's internal review of its information collection and management practices. To complete this work, GAO gathered information on FCC's information collection efforts, reviewed information collection and management practices for 30 collection instruments, interviewed agency officials and industry stakeholders, and reviewed relevant laws and guidance. FCC provided comments which discuss its efforts to improve data management. (GAO-10-249)
benton.org/node/32674 | | Highlights
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

DOD RELEASES NET POLICY
[SOURCE: Department of Defense, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Department of Defense released a policy memorandum regarding the safe and effective use of Internet-based capabilities, including social networking services (SNS) and other interactive Web 2.0 applications. The memorandum makes it policy that the DoD non-classified network be configured to provide access to Internet-based capabilities across all DoD components. Commanders at all levels and heads of DoD components will continue to defend against malicious activity on military information networks, deny access to prohibited content sites (e.g., gambling, pornography, hate-crime related activities), and take immediate and commensurate actions, as required, to safeguard missions (e.g., temporarily limiting access to the Internet to preserve operations security or to address bandwidth constraints). The directive is consistent with the increased security measures that the Department has taken to secure its networks and reinforces existing regulations related to ethics, operations security, and privacy. Use of Internet-based capabilities, including SNS, have become integral tools for operating and collaborating across the DoD and with the general public. Establishing a DoD-wide policy ensures consistency and allows for full integration of these tools and capabilities.
benton.org/node/32679 | Department of Defense | Read the policy
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SCHOLARS LOOK TO INCREASE OPEN GOV RESEARCH
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Aliya Sternstein]
The practice of disclosing government data in a way that is meaningful to the public and holds the government accountable could become a growing area of scholarly interest, partly because the Obama administration's interest in the subject has made research funding easier to obtain, some academics said. "It makes a huge difference when powerful people say they want to pursue something," said J.H. Snider, president of iSolon, a nonprofit institute focused on using information technology to bring about democratic reform. In an executive memo issued on his first day in office, President Obama committed himself to creating a government that uses technology to improve public disclosure, partnerships with the private sector and citizen participation. "Once you have a critical mass of people interested in something, then it attracts money," Snider said. "You get all sorts of money flowing from foundations." The body of work on the subject of using data to drive transparency is limited, however, making it difficult to write books, teach courses or conduct comparative research. Snider said a decade ago he applied for grant money to study e-Congress and was rejected. But the International Journal of Public Participation published an essay in January that Snider wrote titled "Deterring Fake Public Participation." The paper cites Obama's open government directive -- steps the White House outlined in December 2009 for agencies to carry out the president's commitment -- as a policy to be scrutinized for loopholes that could encourage disingenuous public engagement.
benton.org/node/32678 | nextgov
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