October 2008

Obama to media: pony up for election night access

On Tuesday, Sen Barack Obama's campaign said news organizations will have to pay if they want to cover Barack Obama's election-night celebration in Chicago. Credentials will cost $715 to $1,815, depending on whether electrical and phone lines are needed and whether an indoor or outdoor seat is requested for the event, which is expected to be held outside the evening of Nov. 4 in Grant Park. The only free admissions are for a "general media" area. But, the memo says, "Please note that the general media area is outdoors, unassigned and may have obstructed views . . . standing room only." The area also does not include access to top Obama campaign officials, whose statements likely are to be in hot demand on Election Night. They apparently will be available only in the "press file" tent, to which an additional admission fee of $935 per person is being imposed. One Obama spokesman privately likened the Chicago event to how coverage is arranged at national political conventions. But at both the Democratic and GOP conventions this summer, news organizations had to pay extra only if they wanted a dedicated phone line. Most credentials came with assigned seats, all were indoors with views of the stage and all were free. A spokesman later said that the fees will only pay the costs of, for instance, building risers with a view of the stage. He also said that since the file tent will be located in the middle of the general media area, reporters will be able to stop and question any senior aides who are traveling to the file tent. The tent will include no "spin room" for briefings, the spokesman added. Media traditionally are charged for out-of-pocket costs in traveling with campaigns. For instance, those accompanying Mr. Obama and GOP nominee John McCain around the country pay their own hotel bills and a fee for air fare. But a fee rarely if ever is charged for the coverage itself.

Celebrities can coax youth to vote, study shows

Initiatives by celebrities to persuade young people to vote have been successful, new research shows. The study, led by Erica Austin, researched the influence of "get out the vote" campaigns in 2004. It quoted a Pace University poll in 2004 which showed 44 percent of newly registered voters were ages 18 to 25. The study found that "the cause of this dramatic increase in voter participation of young people in 2004 can largely be attributed to celebrity get-out-the-vote promotions." The study contrasted with a number of other polls which indicated celebrity endorsements of presidential candidates were unlikely to sway votes. It said: "Celebrity endorsed campaigns successfully lowered complacency and helped young people believe in their own impact on the political system. Young people got involved at higher levels and became increasingly aware of societal issues."

Congress Sends Questions to NTIA

House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) and Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-MA) have written National Telecommunications and Information Administration head Meredith Atwell Baker about the supply of DTV-to-analog converter box coupons and how they would be handed out, including whether she was okay with public broadcast stations or community groups applying for coupons they don't need and giving them to people whose coupons were lost in the mail or expired before they could redeem them. They also asked whether, if there was money left over at the end of the program, it could be used for coupons for homes that have cable or satellite but still want a box. Currently, there is $990 million for coupons for anyone who requests them, with the rest reserved for houses with only analog, over-the-air reception, but NTIA's Baker has said there could be over $300 million to return to the treasury after the program concludes in March 2009.

ABC, CBS, NBC Stations Weigh In On White Spaces

TV stations affiliated with ABC, CBS and NBC have joined with their networks in asking the Federal Communications Commission to seek public comment before taking a vote on new rules that would pave the way for unlicensed wireless devices to share the band occupied by DTV signals and wireless microphones. In a filing with the commission, affiliate associations of the three networks said that the decision would have a "profound impact" on their continued viability. "Before hastily adopting rules that could irreversibly damage this important public service, the Commission first should issue a public notice seeking comment from members of the public on the 400-page OET report that was released just five days ago." The networks, joined by the National Association of Broadcasters and noncommercial broadcasters filed an emergency petition last week asking the FCC for the public comment period before voting.

Sprint to join rivals in cutting termination fees

Following its rivals, Sprint Nextel will soon begin trimming the fees customers face for canceling their cell phone service early. Chief Executive Dan Hesse said Tuesday that Sprint could start lowering the early termination fees as soon as December, once the company updates its billing software. The fee of $200 or more is charged to wireless subscribers who end their service before their two-year contract ends. The new policy would reduce the fee slightly for each month a subscriber stays with the plan. Competitors AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA already prorate their fees. A California judge this summer said such fees likely violate state law and ordered Sprint to reimburse customers more than $73 million. Days before that ruling, Verizon Wireless agreed to settle an identical lawsuit for $21 million.

Google keeps talking on Yahoo deal

Google Inc Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said on Tuesday the company had agreed to keep talking with the Justice Department about its proposed online advertising deal with Yahoo. Under the deal announced in June, Yahoo would turn over some of its online advertising space for Google to sell. Schmidt had said in August the company would move forward with the Yahoo search partnership in October, with or without approval from antitrust reviewers at the Justice Department.

News Corp: FCC Needs To Stop Regulating Speech

News Corp. President and COO Peter Chernin preached to fellow media executives, saying the Federal Communications Commission should get out of the business of regulating 'indecent' speech." Chernin argues that it is not too many steps from censoring unpopular entertainment to doing the same for unpopular political content. Chernin was teeing up Fox's arguments before the Supreme Court, which is hearing the FCC's challenge to a lower-court smackdown of the FCC's fleeting profanity ruling against Fox's Billboard awards broadcast. That hearing will be Nov 4, election day.

A Plumber Named Joe Drives Campaign Coverage

According to the Campaign Coverage Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, an Ohio plumber, cited by Sen John McCain (R-AZ) and mentioned some two dozen times during the Oct 15 presidential debate, was the No. 3 campaign storyline of the week (filling 8% of the election newshole) from Oct. 13-19. The final and perhaps most combative presidential debate of the campaign was the No. 1 campaign storyline (at 18% of the news hole). And even though both candidates produced new economic proposals costing an estimated $100 billion or so, coverage of their response to the financial meltdown barely edged out the plumber (at 9% of the coverage). Campaign coverage is also taking on an increasingly tactical lens in the final days. Last week, attention to tactics and strategy -- including McCain's invocation of the plumber to represent the working man -- accounted for 26% of the newshole, making that general theme the biggest component of the week's election coverage. Coverage of these strategic aspects of the race included the fight over key battleground states (7%) and the parade of polls, including numerous daily tracking surveys, at 5%.

The Internet and the Death of Rovian Politics

[Commentary] Sen John McCain (R-AZ) is running a textbook Rovian race: fear-based, smear-based, anything goes. But it isn't working. The glitch in the well-oiled machine? The Internet. Thanks to YouTube -- and blogging and instant fact-checking and viral emails -- it is getting harder and harder to get away with repeating brazen lies without paying a price, or to run under-the-radar smear campaigns without being exposed. But the McCain campaign hasn't gotten the message, hence the blizzard of racist, alarmist, xenophobic, innuendo-laden accusations being splattered at Sen Barack Obama (D-IL). It's as if Rove and his political arsonists keep lighting fires, only to see them doused by the powerful information spray the Internet has made possible.

FCC's Draft ICC/USF Reform Panics Competitors

The telecom industry's next iteration — one to rival changes forged by the 1984 Ma Bell breakup and the 1996 Telecom Act — could come on Tuesday, Nov. 4. That's the day FCC Chairman Kevin Martin hopes to pass sweeping intercarrier compensation (ICC) and Universal Service Fund (USF) reform — reform that competitive and rural providers fear will trammel their businesses, and favor RBOCs, if commissioners don't heed their concerns. The prospect of ICC and USF reform has been brewing since 2001. And throughout his tenure, Martin has indicated his position on issues such as USF contribution methods. Problem is, when he circulated a proposed order to fellow commissioners the week of Oct. 13, 2008, he did so without putting the entirety of it out for public comment; only the five FCC members know the details. And if those details include a shift in interconnection pricing regulation, as most insiders suspect they do, the repercussions — if the order passes as-is — will be monumental. "This does threaten regulatory stability," said John Heitmann, a partner in and founding member of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP's telecom practice. Sources say the FCC has not broken any laws by not calling for comment on the entire proposal. But CLEC and RLEC representatives are furious they won't get to see the minutiae before the Nov. 4 meeting. The question of transparency, in light of the breadth of ICC/USF reform, loomed large.

Benton

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