December 2009

Top trade judges on Monday rejected a Chinese appeal against a World Trade Organization ruling that said many of its curbs on foreign films, books and other cultural products violate open trading rules. The decision -- turning down Chinese complaints that an original WTO panel had erred in backing much of a case brought by the United States against the restrictions -- made no recommendation on how China should now handle the issue. US Trade Representative Ron Kirk called the ruling a "big win" for the United States and U.S. filmmakers, recording companies and book publishers frustrated by widespread piracy in China and their difficultly selling legitimate products. The judges from the WTO's Appellate Body said that China had produced no evidence that the panel was wrong in any of its findings against Beijing in a case some commentators have linked to the communist state's censorship practices. But they also turned down a U.S. appeal against part of the panel's ruling -- that China could fairly claim that its strict controls on firms importing printed material were aimed at protecting public morals. The appeal ruling comes at a time of growing concern among U.S. companies about China's respect for intellectual property.

Sam Zell, the real estate investor who took the Chicago-based Tribune Co. private in an $8.3 billion stock buyback two years ago, must face an employee lawsuit claiming he knowingly violated federal pension laws. US District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer in Chicago rejected Zell's request to dismiss the suit filed last year. The employees accuse Zell of working with board members and others who allegedly breached their fiduciary duty to the workers. The judge said that Zell helped engineer the transaction that left Tribune with almost $13 billion in debt even if he wasn't responsible to the Employee Stock Ownership Plan that privatized the newspaper and broadcasting company. As many as 10,000 workers may have lost money as a result of how the shareholder buyout was executed.

Funds appropriated for the Commerce Department last week include $10 million for an initiative to combat cyber espionage, including efforts by foreign criminals and enemy nations to hack into a computer system that tracks smuggling of weapons of mass destruction and other dangerous goods. The 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which President Obama signed into law Dec. 16, includes more than $100 million for Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security, which regulates the export of sensitive goods and technologies, and enforces export control regulations. The bureau's budget includes $10 million for the Cyber Espionage Response Initiative, to fund an increase in cybersecurity personnel and security enhancements to computer systems that maintain sensitive data about international trade, including illegal export activities.

Print is dying, newsrooms are shrinking and the media industry is generally in the toilet. The relationship between reporters and think-tanks, at least in the national-security arena, is starting to shift. Think tanks are starting to become full-time patrons of the news business, and they are bankrolling book projects, blogs and even war reporting. The Center for a New American Security, for instance, has funded a string of first-rate defense reporters through its Writers in Residence Program. The latest launch: The Fourth Star, by Washington Post reporter Greg Jaffe and former New York Times reporter David Cloud. CNAS also signed up New York Times reporters Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt to work on a joint book project, titled Counterstrike. Longtime Post reporter Tom Ricks, who published The Gamble this year, is a senior fellow at CNAS. (Ricks worked on Fiasco, his previous bestseller, while in residence at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.)It makes economic sense. Tightfisted newspaper publishers aren't too generous with book leave these days; management keeps cutting bureaus and scaling back travel budgets; and who wouldn't jump at a writer-in-residence gig, especially when the bean-counters are pressuring reporters to take buyouts? But what does this mean for journalism? When think tanks are often a revolving door for government service, what happens when reporters who become office-mates of past or future political appointees? How do you keep national security reporting from becoming an echo chamber of the Beltway policy elite? It's hard enough giving objective analysis of some policy maven's ideas, after you two have shared a few cocktails together. Now imagine how much tougher that becomes, when the policy maven is in the next cubicle over. Awkwaaaard!