Dec 18, 2008 (What will a Broadband Stimulus look like?)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for THURSDAY DECEMBER 18, 2008
THE ECONOMY
Compiling a To-Do List for Obama's New Deal
Broadband Stimulus Proposals for the 2ist Century
Will Fiber be Part of the Stimulus package?
Your Turn: Call for Broadband Action
Obama's team must fight 'cultural agoraphobia'
New York Latest to Propose Cable, Satellite Taxes
JOURNALISM
Big News in Washington, but Far Fewer Cover It
Bail Out Investigative Journalists
New business models for news are not that new
Detroit Stations Eye Opportunity As Papers Pull Back
Four Online Community News Sites to Expand Coverage with Knight Grants
What Afgans Want
FCC NEWS
Bush's controversial FCC chief loses power already
FCC gets complaints on Utley's on-air F-bomb
HEALTH
Medicare to pay doctors to embrace e-prescribing
HHS's Levitt Announces New Privacy Principles, Agency Issues Guidance
Software That Opens Worlds to the Disabled
WIRELESS
Cellphone-only Households Keep Climbing
French watchdog cancels iPhone contract
Rabbit-eared Homes Requesting Digital TV Coupons
DIGITAL CONTENT
Yahoo cuts data retention to three months
FTC recommends changes to cut identity theft
Google censors political-donation transparency ads
Staying Informed Without Drowning in Data
Obama's e-mails raise cash, concerns
THE ECONOMY
COMPILING A TO-DO LIST FOR OBAMA'S NEW DEAL
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jonathan Weisman, Christopher Rhoads]
It's being sold as the new New Deal. As president, Barack Obama plans hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending and tax cuts. The economic recovery package will cost a minimum of $600 billion over two years. It could flirt with $1 trillion. The need for fiscal stimulus is hardly debated with unemployment rising, wealth plunging and the Federal Reserve nearly out of ammunition. Obama has said repeatedly that in crisis, he sees opportunity -- to rebuild a national infrastructure that has been neglected for decades and to make down payments on policy initiatives that would have taken years to negotiate. President-elect Obama has announced the five broad categories of the plan: transportation and traditional infrastructure; school construction; energy efficiency, especially in government buildings; broadband Internet access; and health care information technology. In the midst of the 1990s' Internet boom, the Clinton administration grew concerned about the social and economic effects from lower-income families not having the same access to the Internet as higher-income families, the so-called "digital divide." Under George W. Bush, the debate shifted to economic competitiveness and whether the U.S. lags behind the rest of the world in broadband -- as measured by deployment, speeds and prices. Now, President-elect Obama is putting both issues back on the table. There are many ways to expand the network, and the choices Washington makes will create winners and losers. Stoking that engine could spark a lobbying war, as cable and phone providers vie for government largesse. The fiber optic industry is already busy making its pitch.
http://benton.org/node/20016
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BROADBAND STIMULUS PROPOSALS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
[SOURCE: Free Press, AUTHOR: S. Derek Turner]
Free Press released a comprehensive set of proposals that would deploy a forward-looking national broadband infrastructure. "Investing in the information superhighway is a concrete way for President-elect Barack Obama and Congress to kick start the economy and secure long-term prosperity," said S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press and author of the report. "But since future generations will be footing the bill for this stimulus package, Congress must ensure that these funds deliver the next-generation networks this country needs. There should be no blank checks." The policies detailed in the new report would allocate $44 billion over the next three years, immediately producing tens of thousands of new technology-sector jobs and generating hundreds of billions of dollars in economic activity. The proposed tax incentives and grant programs are designed to trigger new investments, not to fund projects previously planned by incumbent telecommunications companies. Free Press' broadband proposals address the problems of broadband availability and adoption, while also providing substantial immediate and future economic benefits. These proposals also stipulate that all networks constructed with or supported by broadband stimulus funding must be open, freely competitive platforms for ideas and commerce.
http://benton.org/node/19991
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WILL FIBER BE PART OF THE STIMULUS PACKAGE?
[SOURCE: Fiber-to-the-Home Council, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council is urging Congress to ensure that proposals for expanding broadband coverage are included in the economic recovery package that is expected to be introduced when the new Congress is seated in January. Council members called on Congress to use as a baseline for the economic recovery package a set of broadband tax and other incentives put forth by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) earlier this month. To this baseline measure, Congress should include additional incentives that enable the deployment of advanced infrastructure to all Americans.
http://benton.org/node/19990
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YOUR TURN: CALL FOR BROADBAND ACTION
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Charles Benton]
[Commentary] With people losing their jobs, their homes, their retirement, with the costs of health care and higher education continuing to rise above the ability of many Americans to pay, with global climate change threatening our world, why should high-speed Internet access be a priority? Because universal, affordable broadband is more than an end in itself; it is also a means to spur economic growth, boost the competitiveness of the United States in the global economy, and enable all our citizens to reach for the American Dream in the Digital Age. President-elect Obama has now announced that building out broadband will be part of his impending economic stimulus package - the largest public works construction program since the inception of the interstate highway system a half century ago. The Benton Foundation applauds the President-elect's commitment to improving our information infrastructure. But that commitment to broadband deployment does not negate the need for a National Broadband Strategy. To the contrary, it makes it compelling for the new Obama Administration, immediately upon taking office, to take the lead in crafting a well-conceived and thoughtful NBS. Today, I ask you to let President-elect Obama know that you support our call. Here's how you can help. Please visit change.org, the official web site of the Office of President-elect Obama, and leave your comments at the Technology Agenda.
http://www.benton.org/node/19973
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OBAMA'S TEAM MUST FIGHT 'CULTURAL AGORAPHOBIA'
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: James Boyle]
[Commentary] The history of the Internet -- and the future of the Internet -- is a choice between open and closed, free (in the sense of unconstrained) and proprietary. We have a bias, a cognitive filter, that causes us to undersestimate the benefits and overestimate the dangers of openness - call it cultural agoraphobia. It is not that openness is always right. It is not. Often we need strong intellectual property rights, privacy controls, networks that demand authentication. Rather it is that we need a balance between open and closed, owned and free and we are systematically likely to get the balance wrong. And herein lies the lesson for the Obama administration. Think about the policy choices of the future by applying our assumptions to the choices of our past.
http://benton.org/node/20015
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NEW YORK LATEST TO PROPOSE CABLE, SATELLITE TAXES
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Linda Haugsted]
Cable and satellite companies and their customers could be paying more for service in New York State, based on a proposed budget presented Tuesday by Gov David Paterson (D). Among the 88 new fees, 10 fines and 39 new tax items in the proposed budget, Gov Paterson has recommended applying a sales tax on video and radio services delivered by cable, satellite or "by similar means." The governor justified the recommendation noting that 23 other states tax video services. The current sales tax in New York state is 4%. Some telephone customers could also pay more on a recommendation to increase the regulatory fee paid by utilities. That levy would increase from .33% of interstate revenues to 1%.
http://benton.org/node/19977
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JOURNALISM
BIG NEWS IN WASHINGTON, BUT FAR FEWER COVER IT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Richard Perez-Pena]
Cox Newspapers, Advance Publications, and Copley Press are all closing their Washington (DC) bureaus. Those that remain have cut back drastically on Washington coverage, eliminating hundreds of journalists' jobs at a time when the federal government — and journalistic oversight of it — matters more than ever. Television and radio operations in Washington are shrinking, too, although not as sharply. The times may be news-rich, but newspapers are cash-poor, facing their direst financial straits since the Depression. Racing to cut costs as they lose revenue, most have decided that their future lies in local news, not national or international events. That has put a bull's-eye on expensive Washington bureaus. "I think the cop is leaving the beat here, and I think it's a terrible loss for citizens," said Andy Alexander, the Cox bureau chief, who is retiring.
http://benton.org/node/20014
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BAIL OUT INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISTS
[SOURCE: The Huffington Post, AUTHOR: Rob Kall]
[Commentary] While the Federal reserve and Congress are bailing out corporations so big we can't allow them to fail, let's talk about bailing out the newspaper industry. Or at least, journalism -- an element so essential to our democracy and the honest, efficient running of our government that we can't afford to be without it, either. The fact that the Tribune company has filed for bankruptcy, that newspapers are going solely online or cutting back to three-day-a-week delivery, troubles me. Democracy does not need ad sections, but it does need investigative independent reporters.
http://benton.org/node/19986
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NEW BUSINESS MODELS FOR NEWS ARE NOT THAT NEW
[SOURCE: Online Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Nikki Usher]
With online ad revenue down for the second quarter in a row and newspaper industry indicators suggesting that 2008 is going be the worst year yet, the frenzy continues for a new business model for news publishing that will magically boost revenue and stop the financial bloodletting. But innovation is sorely lacking in the new business models proposed; the truth is that many of them have been around since the early 1900s. In 1923, historian James Melvin Lee outlined in his History of American Journalism alternative business models that newspapers had tried to remove themselves from dependence on advertisers and circulation growth and that now seem strangely prescient: the endowment model, the municipal news model, an adless newspaper, religious news, and what can only be called the "bazooka gum" approach to circulation.
http://benton.org/node/19985
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DETROIT STATIONS EYE OPPORTUNITY AS PAPERS PULL BACK
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Michael Malone]
As a pair of venerable daily newspapers prepares to scale back distribution, broadcast stations in Detroit wonder what sort of opportunity the papers' decreased visibility spells for them. With its auto giants reeling, the economic climate in the #11 DMA is grim. While station managers say they're saddened to see their print brethren take such drastic steps, they're happy to reach out to the papers' advertisers. "We're doing a thorough analysis of who advertises in the paper on the days it won't be delivered," says WDIV VP/General Manager Marla Drutz. WDIV, owned by Post-Newsweek, has a partnership with Free Press that sees both parties' reporters pop up in the other's outlets. Drutz says the station will meet with Free Press executives to see how the downsizing affects their "co-marketing" agreement.
http://benton.org/node/19984
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FOUR ONLINE COMMUNITY NEWS SITES TO EXPAND COVERAGE WITH KNIGHT GRANTS
[SOURCE: John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, AUTHOR: Press release]
Four online community news sites will expand their local reporting staffs and bring their communities more content, with a combined $390,000 investment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The grants aim to help the non-profit sites draw a larger audience by providing more local news, a key to their long-term viability. The sites will expand coverage in areas that have been hard hit by cuts at traditional media companies. The grant recipients are: 1) MinnPost, which provides news and analysis, including video and audio, from experienced journalists primarily in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. 2) voiceofsandiego.org, the only professionally-staffed, nonprofit online news site in California. 3) Chi-town Daily News, which uses citizen journalists and staff reporters to cover Chicago's 75 neighborhoods. 4) St. Louis Beacon, which emphasizes local news on its site founded by veteran journalists, and partners with its local public TV station.
http://benton.org/node/19983
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WHAT AFGANS WANT
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: David Ignatius]
It's easy to get depressed reading the news out of Afghanistan. The insurgents are getting stronger, the United States is sending another 20,000 troops there -- and yet even Defense Secretary Bob Gates admits that American soldiers aren't a long-term solution. So what to do? In sorting out these policy dilemmas, it helps to talk to Afghans such as Saad and Jahid Mohseni, who are struggling with these problems every day. The two entrepreneurial brothers are running a media business in the war zone of Kabul and, far from giving up, they keep thinking of innovative ways to adapt and survive. Through their main channel, Tolo TV, they began broadcasting shows that symbolized the new Afghanistan -- from investigative reporting to a musical program called "Afghan Star."
http://benton.org/node/20009
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FCC NEWS
BUSH'S CONTROVERSIAL FCC CHIEF LOSES POWER ALREADY
[SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer, AUTHOR: Bob Fernandez]
The Kevin Martin era at the Federal Communications Commission has ended quietly even before the Obama administration takes over. The Bush appointee and bane of Comcast Corp. canceled today's meeting of the FCC after top Democrats in the House and the Senate told Martin in a letter Friday that he should scale back his priorities. Chairman Martin, the letter said, should focus the FCC on the digital, over-the-air TV transition, which is set for Feb. 17. No new FCC meeting has been scheduled, a commission spokesman said yesterday. President-elect Barack Obama is expected to name an interim chairman of the independent agency that regulates telephone, cable and other communications companies when he takes office in January. That interim position is likely to be filled by Democratic FCC Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein or Michael Copps. Martin could remain as a commissioner, but without the agenda-setting powers as chairman. Just about everyone agrees that the FCC needs change. "Change is needed, but it is not entirely because of things that Martin has done," said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of the nonprofit Media Access Project. "I do hope we will see improvements under the new FCC regime. More open meetings. No delay in issuing reports and orders. And more public notice about meetings with industry."
http://benton.org/node/20013
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FCC GETS COMPLAINTS ON UTLEY'S ON-AIR F-BOMB
[SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer, AUTHOR: Michael Klein]
Phillies second baseman Chase Utley's use of a colorful adjective during the team's World Series victory parade on Oct. 31 has landed in the lap of the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC reports it received 26 complaints from the public about Utley's language, which was heard live, in the late afternoon, on at least five television stations and one radio station, KYW (1060). Nielsen Media Research estimated that more than 825,000 local viewers saw part of the parade on CBS3, 6ABC, NBC10, Fox29, or Comcast SportsNet. Whether any of the stations will face sanctions is not clear.
http://benton.org/node/20008
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HEALTH
MEDICARE TO PAY DOCTORS TO EMBRACE E-PRESCRIBING
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Will Dunham]
Starting next month, Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, will offer financial bonuses to doctors who prescribe drugs electronically rather than on paper. Doctors who do not will face penalties from Medicare starting in 2012. This is intended to help persuade the vast majority of US doctors who do not "e-prescribe" to start, both to improve efficiency and curb medical errors. Proponents say that when a physician zaps a prescription electronically to a pharmacist rather than scribbling it on a piece of paper, it removes the possibility a patient might get the wrong drug because of a doctor's sloppy handwriting or a different medication with a similar name. And research shows that doctors using an e-prescribing system are prompted about price and are more likely to pick cheaper generics over pricier name brand drugs. The bonuses take effect just weeks before President-elect Barack Obama takes office with plans to overhaul the U.S. health care system, the world's most expensive.
http://benton.org/node/19988
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HHS'S LEVITT ANNOUNCES NEW PRIVACY PRINCIPLES, AGENCY ISSUES GUIDANCE
[SOURCE: Center for Democracy and Technology, AUTHOR: ]
HHS Secretary Leavitt announced Monday new key privacy principles for electronic health information exchange. In addition, HHS's Office of Civil Rights published new HIPAA Privacy Rule guidance, which provides important clarifying information on how the Privacy Rule governs covered entities engaged in electronic health information exchange. For example, it clarifies when covered entities must enter into business associate agreements with health information exchanges; it also makes clear that HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules cover consumer personal health records offered by covered entities. However, the guidance merely encourages the adoption of stronger privacy and security policies consistent with the new principles. CDT calls on Congress and the new Administration to implement a comprehensive, enforceable framework of protections for personal health information that builds public trust and facilitates widespread adoption of health IT.
http://benton.org/node/19987
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SOFTWARE THAT OPENS WORLDS TO THE DISABLED
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: James Flanigan]
One computer program would allow vision-impaired shoppers to point their cellphones at supermarket shelves and hear descriptions of products and prices. Another would allow a physically disabled person to guide a computer mouse using brain waves and eye movements. The two programs were among those created by eight groups of volunteers at a two-day software-writing competition this fall. The goal of the competition, sponsored by a nonprofit corporation, is to encourage new computer programs that help disabled people expand their capabilities. The corporation, set up by computer science students and graduates at the University of Southern California, is named Project:Possibility. It grew out of an idea two years ago by Christopher Leung, then a master's degree candidate in computer science and engineering at the university, who was working on a project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
http://benton.org/node/20011
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WIRELESS
CELLPHONE-ONLY HOUSEHOLDS KEEP CLIMBING
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Kim Dixon]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 17.5 percent of households in the United States have no traditional telephone and rely on wireless services only, which is up from 13.6 percent a year earlier. The percentage of households with a landline and a wireless phone declined slightly in the first half of 2008, at about 58.5 percent, compared with 58.9 percent a year earlier. About 2.5 percent of U.S. households had no phone at all in the first half of the year, compared with about 1.9 percent in 2007, according to the agency. The CDC concludes that telephone polls are being skewed because they have in the past only called those with traditional landlines.
http://benton.org/node/19976
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FRENCH WATCHDOG CANCELS IPHONE CONTRACT
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Ben Hall]
France's competition authority on Wednesday cancelled with immediate effect Orange's exclusive contract to provide Apple's latest iPhone to French consumers. The Competition Council ruling is the first time an exclusive iPhone sales agreement has been struck down in Europe and is bound to raise the prospect of legal challenges in the other countries where Apple has exclusive deals: Germany, the UK and the US. However, the council said its decision was partly shaped by specific concerns about the French mobile market, which it believes is less competitive than others. These concerns led it to the conclusion that Orange's five-year monopoly on selling the iPhone 3G was, as one official put it, "way too long".
http://benton.org/node/20012
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RABBIT-EARED HOMES REQUESTING DTV COUPONS
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration]
With two months until the transition to digital television concludes, the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that 76 percent of all households that rely on television with an antenna have requested coupons from the TV Converter Box Coupon Program. Based on self-reporting, 11 million households have requested coupons out of 14.3 million that Nielsen says rely on TV over-the-air. The program helps households switch to digital television when full-power TV broadcasters transition from analog to 100 percent digital broadcasts on February 17, 2009.
http://benton.org/node/19979
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DIGITAL CONTENT
YAHOO CUTS DATA RETENTION TO THREE MONTHS
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Kim Dixon]
Search engine Yahoo! Inc will cut to three months the time it stores personal data gathered from Web surfing, making its retention policy the shortest among peers, the company said on Wednesday. The company will "anonymize" the computer addresses of its users within three months in most cases, from a prior standard of 13 months. It is reserving the right to keep data for up to six months if fraud or system security are involved. "Google first went to 18 months and started this competition," said Ari Schwartz, vice president at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a privacy advocacy group. Yahoo's pledge is "significant because they are getting rid of some data after 90 days and they actually have an implementation plan to get this done," he added.
http://benton.org/node/19982
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FTC RECOMMENDS CHANGES TO CUT IDENTITY THEFT
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Diane Bartz]
On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission announced that companies and schools should find new ways to authenticate the identities of customers, employees and students that do not involve social security numbers. "Requiring all private sector entities that maintain consumer accounts to establish appropriate, risk-based consumer authentication programs could reduce the misuse of consumer data and the prevalence of identity theft," the agency said in its report. The commission also asked businesses that still use social security numbers to be more discreet.
http://benton.org/node/19981
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GOOGLE CENSORS POLITICAL-DONATION TRANSPARENCY ADS
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Chris Soghoian]
[Commenatry] Should members of the public be able to pay for Web advertisements detailing which companies have donated to politicians? While this seems like a great way to promote transparency in politics, Google forbids the practice -- we are free to name the politicians who take money but cannot name the companies that give it. With Google's domination of the search engine market, and the eyeballs that go along with it, the company's AdWords text ads have become a key way for activists, politicians, and corporations to reach the general public. However, over the past year, Google's excessively restrictive policies have resulted in the censorship of lawful advertisements that educated and informed the public. In one the cases involving religious groups placing anti-abortion ads, Google backed down. As this post will explore, Google's rather absurd, and little known, trademark policy seriously harms the ability of citizens to highlight the donations made to politicians by large corporations.
http://benton.org/node/19980
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STAYING INFORMED WITHOUT DROWNING IN DATA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jenna Wortham]
NewzNozzl pulls top news stories from social bookmarking sites to create a prefiltered flow of hot news items. Like Digg and its social bookmarking brethren, NewzNozzl welcomes interested parties to join the service to vote and share stories within the site. There are pitfalls to relying on a vast community of users. They may prefer to popularize more sensational news headlines. If that isn't quite what you're looking for, try sites like Addictomatic, Yahoo Buzz or BuzzTracker. These sites eschew the system of ranking user-submitted stories by popular votes and instead, rely on stories collected from a preapproved list of publishers. BuzzTracker, for example, follows more than 100,000 different news sources as diverse as Boing Boing and The Washington Post, and presents its daily list of offerings in an accessible layout.
http://benton.org/node/20010
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OBAMA'S E-MAILS RAISE CASH, CONCERNS
[SOURCE: Politico.com, AUTHOR: Kenneth Vogel]
A flurry of fundraising e-mails from the Obama campaign has some subscribers pleading for a break from the solicitations and has raised questions about whether Barack Obama has figured out how to harness the power of his online network once in the White House. In the five weeks since Election Day, Obama's once-cohesive Web presence has fragmented into a jumble of sometimes disparate-feeling fundraising pitches, YouTube videos and calls for activism spread across three websites. E-mails to the list of supporters have generated contributions to help victims of the California wildfires, invited questions for the transition team, prompted 500,000 responses to a survey about what Obama backers would like to do next and helped gin up thousands of house parties across the country last weekend, at which Obama supporters deliberated on how to maintain the campaign's grass-roots energy once he's inaugurated. And, of course, there are the fashion and novelty sale items -- including the Obama fleece scarf being hawked this week with a deadline duly noted to ensure delivery in time for Christmas.
http://benton.org/node/19978
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