December 2009

As Anchors Change at ABC and MSNBC, Will Executives Ignore Diversity Again?

[Commentary] When NBC needed a new anchor for Meet the Press, I hoped. After Lou Dobbs finally jumped off CNN, I wondered. And now, with major anchor changes underway at ABC News and MSNBC, I'm certain. The TV industry has a fresh chance to build anchor lineups which look more like America, allowing journalists of color a shot at the highest-profile jobs. But so far, executives don't seem particularly inclined to blaze any new trails.

Court Rules Evidence Against Telecoms Insufficient To Show Collusion

The major U.S. wireless companies may have raised text messaging fees at around the same time, but that doesn't mean they conspired to fix prices, a judge has ruled. Allegations of price increases "do not give rise to more than the 'mere possibility' of an agreement, which is insufficient to state a claim for conspiracy," U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kennelly in Illinois ruled last week as he dismissed an antitrust class-action lawsuit against the carriers. The case encompassed several consumer class-action lawsuits filed against Sprint/Nextel, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile last year, shortly after prices climbed to 20 cents per message. The consumers alleged that the companies began aligning their texting fees in 2005, when Sprint/Nextel, AT&T and Verizon started charging 10 cents per message; T-Mobile started charging 10 cents in 2006. The companies subsequently raised prices to 15 cents in the first half of 2007. Sprint/Nextel boosted the price again to 20 cents towards the end of that year, and the other three followed throughout 2008, according to the lawsuit.

Google Lays Out Display Ad Democratization Strategy

Google wants to simplify the process of buying and selling display advertising across the Web in 2010, and has set up a strategy to achieve the goal. In a Webcast Tuesday, Googlers laid out the plan to simplicity the buying and selling process, increase performance, and maintain an open platform to serve ads across PCs and mobile phones. Simplifying the process will attract more marketers to online display advertising, a medium that has become easily measurable in clicks, impressions and conversions. Google believes running display ads on the Google content network of more than one million Web sites helps marketers optimize campaigns and measure results. J.P. Morgan analyst Imran Khan points in a research note to the fact the Google Content Network reaches 85% of global users and can host CPM or CPC ads. Opening the display marketplace to more companies means Google has the ability to support a variety of companies that want to advertise.

Panel: Government should educate workforce on benefits of social media

Agencies looking to increase employee use of social media should focus on explaining the benefits of such tools and training workers to use them appropriately, government officials said on Tuesday. Panelists at an event sponsored by the nonprofit group AFFIRM at The George Washington University emphasized the importance of communication and marketing when introducing employees to new technologies, but also noted the challenges of integrating social networking into federal agencies. Emma Antunes, project manager for NASA's internal social network Spacebook, said employees must be educated to understand the potential benefits of using social media.

Drug data mining ban unlikely in Senate bill

Apparently, a Democratic proposal to ban the collection of doctors' prescription records for marketing purposes is unlikely to be included as part of the Senate's overall health reform bill. A member of the staff of Sen Herb Kohl (D-WI), a main sponsor of the amendment, said the change was not likely to come up for a vote or be included as part of a package of changes to be offered later by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). "We don't think it's likely that the ... amendment will come to a vote or be included in the manager's amendment," the staff member said. Dozens of amendments have been offered as part of the Senate's legislation to overhaul the nation's $2.5 trillion healthcare system, President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. There have been few votes on such changes so far but Democratic senators vowed to finish work on the bill as soon as this week. A ban on so-called "data mining" would have a huge impact on pharmaceutical data companies such as IMS Health and McKesson Corp's Verispan that collect and sell such data for a variety of uses.

Nurses Claim Their Seat at the Health IT Decision-Making Table

Many of the policy discussions about health IT appear to focus almost exclusively on how such systems might affect physicians and physician workflow. We're hearing a lot about computerized physician order entry systems, physician performance measurement and physician incentives for electronic health record adoption. But what about nurses? Although they might not get as much press time, nurses are actively taking a seat at the table and participating in federal discussions about best practices, standards and the meaningful use of EHRs. Organizations such as the Alliance for Nursing Informatics, the National League for Nursing and TIGER (Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform) have been working furiously behind the scenes to get nurses on the frontlines of the health IT debates. As a result of their efforts, the Health IT Policy Committee and the Health IT Standards Committee both count a nurse among their ranks. Through such representation, nurses are beginning to have a greater say in how federal health IT standards might shape up.

Most lab results still on paper, impeding push for e-health records

Digitizing medical lab tests is one of the key components of a plan to develop a national electronic health record system, but the majority of lab reports are issued in paper form, one of the top executives heading up the initiative told a health policy panel on Tuesday. About 200,000 medical labs operate in the United States, including 8,500 in hospitals, 5,200 commercial labs and about 115,000 in clinicians' offices. Most fail to use standards when reporting test results, even when exchanging them electronically, Micky Tripathi, co-chair of the Information Technology Policy Committee's information exchange work group, told the Health Information Technology Policy Committee. The panel is in charge of setting policies for electronic health records.

Hispanics, African Americans and Broadband Adoption

Only 42 percent of African Americans and Hispanics regularly use the Internet, yet they overwhelmingly agree that Internet access is critical to achieving success, according to new findings from a national survey of 900 minority adults conducted by Brilliant Corners Research, led by Pollster Cornell Belcher.

Poll respondents strongly agree on several Internet-enabled, life-changing benefits that make access so valuable:

More than 60 percent (64%) of those polled strongly believe the Internet is important, because students with access can receive tutoring and help with their homework.
Forty-three percent of respondents strongly agree that students with Internet access achieve higher grades.
More than three in five (61%) strongly feel households with Internet access have greater access to commerce, education, health care, entertainment and communication.
Approximately half (48%) strongly agree that Internet is valuable, because tech-connected families receive more health information.
More than 60 percent (62%) strongly believe individuals with Internet access have more opportunities to work from home.
Nearly seven in ten (68%) respondents strongly agree that small business owners with Internet access are better able to reach and expand their customer base.
One in two (51%) strongly feel Internet access increases awareness and access to government services.
Most of the respondents said they accessed the Internet from home - 78 percent - and slightly more than two-thirds (68%) said they access the Internet from a private portal, as opposed to a public portal, such as at anchor institutions like the library.

Comcast To Fund African-American Broadband Initiative

The Comcast Foundation said it will make a $50,000 grant to the National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL) in an effort to foster greater adoption of broadband Internet services within African American homes. The NBCSL/Comcast Broadband Legislative Fellowship will help spearhead efforts to develop recommendations to Congress and the Federal Communications Commission as they develop national and local solutions to alleviate disparities in broadband access, adoption, and use.

Broadcast, Wireless Industries Keep Powder Dry at House Spectrum Hearing

The heads of the broadcast and wireless industries left the tough rhetoric at home Tuesday as they each made their cases for the future of spectrum in an increasingly broadband-centric world. National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith and CTIA President Steve Largent avoided turning the proceedings in a referendum on the relative value of broadcasting versus broadband. Smith said that either/or was a false choice, and that would need to be part of the communications future. Largent's focus was on getting more spectrum, "wherever it comes from." All the witnesses were in agreement on the two baseline bills that were the subject of the hearing in the House Energy & Commerce Committee Communications Subcommittee. Those bills would require the FCC and National Telecommunications & Information Administration to inventory spectrum use with an eye toward freeing up more for wireless broadband and then to find a more efficient way to re-auction and reallocate that spectrum. The hearing touched on a number of points, including alternatives to reclaiming spectrum from broadcasters that included dynamic spectrum sharing, compression and modulation improvements that would make more efficient use of the current spectrum holdings. But Dale Hatfield, co-chair of the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee, said that while such spectrum efficiency measures like compression and modulation would help, they would likely not be enough, and that the most promising avenues were reclaiming spectrum and sharing.

Former radio station owner Rep Greg Walden (R-OR) called a paper by top Federal Communications Commission spectrum adviser Stuart Benjamin that recommends regulating television broadcasting out of business "a real abomination." He said, "I hope this committee will look at some of the things he's had to say." Rep Walden owned Columbia Gorge Broadcasting, which operated five radio stations, but sold them in 2007 to avoid any conflict of interest that might arise with his congressional duties.

Rep Steve Buyer took aim at the Comcast/NBC deal saying the committee needs to see over the horizon at "the impact that this type of merger is going to have on a multimedia platform and advertising model." NAB's Smith said some of his members had concerns as well.

Benton

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