September 2008

FCC Announces Tentative Agenda for Sept 25 Open Meeting

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has circulated a number of items for consideration by his fellow FCC Commissioners as part of the tentative agenda for the next open meeting scheduled for Thursday, September 25, 2008. Items include: 1) Public Safety Airwaves (D-Block/700 MHz Auction) - A Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing the D Block and a nationwide interoperable broadband public safety network in the 700 MHz Band. 2) Video Relay Service (DVRS) - Addresses a request for limited waiver of interim emergency call handling rules that would enable DVRS providers to give emergency response authorities the caller's 10-digit callback number, before the new emergency call handling rules take effect on December 31, 2008.

Senators To Martin: Avoid A La Carte Mandates

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), Sen Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) wrote Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin on Monday trying to persuade him to focus on the digital television transition instead of his battles with the cable television industry. The said the FCC's overriding mission, through actions undertaken by its Media Bureau, was a smooth DTV transition scheduled for Feb 17, 2009. "Pursuing contentious policy initiatives, such as the unbundling of wholesale subscription television channels, would divert attention of the bureau at this critical time," Chairman Inouye said. In their letter, the senators said the FCC's focus on the TV transition was vital because not all stations were ready to shut off their analog transmitters and because "too many consumers" were totally unaware of the DTV transition or were uncertain about how many digital-to-analog converter boxes they would need. "We find these facts troubling," the senators concluded. "In order to ensure both broadcaster and consumer readiness, we suggest that in the months ahead you focus the FCC Media Bureau's resources on managing the switch from analog to digital signals."

The Palin Phenomenon

For the first time in the three months since the general election campaign began, Sen John McCain last week generated more coverage than Sen Barack Obama. But he was still outshone by another newsmaker during the GOP convention -- his own running mate. Gov Sarah Palin, the first woman on a Republican ticket, was the focus of feverish attention as the media tried to find out more about her, convey her record and biography, and calculate her impact on the race. For the week of Sept. 1-7, Gov Palin was a significant or dominant factor in 60% of the campaign stories, according to the Campaign Coverage Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Sen McCain was fairly close behind, a significant or dominant factor in 52% of the stories. Put another way, Gov Palin enjoyed more coverage as a VP candidate during the GOP convention than Sen Obama did a week earlier when he became the first person of color to accept the nomination for president of a major party. With the other ticket making most of the news, Sen Obama was a focus in 22% of the stories last week, by far his lowest week of coverage in the general election season. His running mate Sen Joe Biden registered at 2%.

Hiding Sarah Palin behind 'deference'

[Commentary] John McCain's campaign essentially confirmed over the weekend what some had suspected: Media access to Sarah Palin, would-be vice president of the United States, will be tightly controlled. Troublemakers need not apply. And how will we know those troublemakers? They will be the ones unwilling to treat the governor of Alaska with what campaign manager Rick Davis called "some level of respect and deference." Deference? The dictionary definitions I find begin with "respectful submission" and "yielding." It would be wrong -- maybe even sexist -- to suggest that Sarah Barracuda is too meek for a little back-and-forth with the denizens of the Fourth Estate. The McCain-Palin camp can only play hide-the-candidate for so long before they'll look like they don't think their vice presidential pick is ready to lead on Day One.

McCain Powered Up Online Ad Spending in August

With cash that needed to be burned, Sen John McCain (R-AZ) amped up his Web video advertising in August while Sen Barack Obama (D-IL) decreased his online ad spend, according to data released today from Nielsen Online. Sen McCain increased his "image-based" impression by 254% over the prior month while his sponsored search links rose by 43%. Meanwhile, Sen Obama decreased the number of image-based impressions by 48% and sponsored links by 18%. Nielsen did not cite a reason for the change. Meanwhile, as Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is generating the headlines, online buzz remains focused on the candidates, Nielsen said. Sen Obama has a slight lead when it comes to online consumer discussion, followed by Sen McCain, then Gov Palin, then Sen Hillary Clinton.

Convention Speeches May Define Parties' TV Ad Strategies

The Republican and Democratic national political conventions may foreshadow the two parties' approach to television advertising in the eight weeks running up to the election. For the GOP, it's likely to be about the candidates. The Democrats are more likely to advertise their policy positions. Political consultants last week suggested it won't take long to see those messages translate into competing ads from each party. They expected those spots to break over the weekend following the Republican gathering. Those messages are expected to carry over into ads for Senate and Congress races, which are expected to roll out starting this week.

Think Obama and McCain really care about tech? Yeah, right

[Commentary] You might think the Democrats and Republicans are eager to raise the banner on behalf of their friends in Silicon Valley. The assumption is that the two major parties will cater accordingly. After all, the industry has so much money to spend and all those political action committees, and they naturally want to get their rightful share. Right? Not so fast. Sure, the Democrats and Republicans are eager to court deep-pocketed donors. But the power broker image exists more in the minds of the people living between San Jose and San Francisco than it does with the movers and shakers guiding the Obama and McCain campaigns. With the candidates hitting the road after the wrap-up of the political conventions, this much is certain: The resolution of policy issues like Net neutrality may be near and dear to folks from the likes of Cisco and Google. But neither Barack Obama nor John McCain plans to give impassioned speeches urging passage or rejection of this, or other pieces of, tech-related legislation over the next couple of months.

Media Bias? Not if This Web Site Can Help It

In a development that could titillate political partisans of all stripes, a new Web application promising to spot bias in news stories will launch on Monday, Sept. 8, just as this ferociously contested election season shifts into high gear. A beta version of SpinSpotter, initially accessible only through the Firefox browser, goes live at spinspotter.com on Sept. 8, as does a downloadable toolbar application the company call Spinoculars. When turned on in a user's Web browser's toolbar, Spinoculars scans Web pages and spots certain potential indicators of bias. The toolbar also will allow its users to flag phrases in news stories and opine on those called out by other Spinspotter users. The application's algorithms work off six key tenets of spin and bias, which the company derived from both the guidelines of the Society of Professional Journalists' Code Of Ethics and input from an advisory board composed of journalism luminaries. The tenets are: reporter's voice (adjectives used by a journalist that go beyond the supporting evidence in the article); passive voice (example: a story says "bombs land" without stating which party is responsible for them); a biased source (a quoted source's partisanship is not clearly identified); disregarded context (a political rally's attendance is reported to be "massive," but would it have been so huge had the surviving members of the Beatles not played?); and lack of balance (a news story on a controversial topic gives much more credence to one side's claims).

Internet-fueled Panic Rocks United Stock

A nearly- 6-year-old article circulating on the Internet as breaking news caused a brief 75 percent drop in United's stock Monday, highlighting a potential peril about how information travels in the modern world. The steep sell-off in United's shares came after a news service in Florida distributed an old story posted on the South Florida Sun Sentinel Web site six years ago. The story was distributed by Income Securities Advisors to a market information site operated by Bloomberg. The story made it appear that United had filed for bankrupcy protection again. The original story was first published by the Chicago tribune on Dec 10, 2002. Tribune Co., the owner of the Sun-Sentinel, initially pointed a finger at Google, saying it appeared that the search engine highlighted the story out of the Sun-Sentinel's archives over the weekend, which generated traffic and caused the newspaper's computer to move the story to a page of most-viewed articles. But Google said the only reason its search engine "crawler" bothered with the story was that it was listed on the Sun-Sentinel page of most-viewed stories -- and with the weekend date on it, instead of the 2002 date. To the crawler, "it was a new item that said, 'Hey, look here,' " Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker said.

Google to Re-Publish 244 Years of Newspaper Articles?

Google Inc. is trying to expand the newspaper section of its online library to include billions of articles published during the past 244 years, hoping the added attraction will lure even more traffic to its leading Internet search engine. The project announced Monday extends Google's crusade to make digital copies of content created before the Internet's advent, so the information can become more accessible and, ultimately, Google can make more money from ads shown on its Web site. As part of the latest initiative, Google will foot the bill to copy the archives of any newspaper publisher willing to permit the stories to be shown for free on Google's Web site. The participating publishers will receive an unspecified portion of the revenue generated from the ads displayed next to the stories. Google is touting the program as a way to give people an easier way to find a rich vein of history. The initiative also is designed to provide a financial boost to newspaper publishers as they try to offset declining revenue from print editions that are losing readers and advertisers to online news sources.

Benton

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