March 2010

Michelle Obama's 'news-free zone'

[Commentary] When Michelle Obama told Mike Huckabee a few weeks ago in an interview on Fox News Channel that her home was a "news-free zone," she wasn't just reflecting a desire to filter and ignore news we don't want to hear. Her statement, to my ear, also represented the culmination of the suburbanization of the American mind. And that's bad news for our future. Implicit in the suburban ideal is the notion that families must be at odds with the realities of the big bad world. It helps explain why the number of Americans going "newsless" is rising. In 2008, a study from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press showed that about a third of those younger than 25 said they got no news on a typical day, up from about 25% in 1998. Other studies have shown that more and more of those who do follow the news are tuning in only to their preferred subjects. Media analysts like to talk about "news burnout" and "information overload," and surely those phenomena are part of the equation. But there's a deeper phenomenon at work here. Too many citizens in what is still the world's most powerful nation are trying to hide from the harshness of reality. This escapism isn't teaching us what we need to know about how to grapple with the world.

Airport device follows fliers' phones

Today's smartphones and PDAs could have a new use in the nation's airports: helping passengers avoid long lines at security checkpoints.

The Transportation Security Administration is looking at installing devices in airports that home in and detect personal electronic equipment. The aim is to track how long people are stuck in security lines. Information about wait times could then be posted on websites and in airports across the country. "This technology will produce valuable data that can be used in a variety of ways," TSA spokeswoman Lauren Gaches said, noting it could help prevent checkpoint snarls. But civil-liberties experts worry that such a system enables the government to track people's whereabouts. "It's serious business when the government begins to get near people's personal-communication devices," said American Civil Liberties Union privacy expert Jay Stanley.

More communities banning 'television on a stick'

More than a dozen cities around the nation have banned what some consider a growing external driving distraction: digital billboards.

Digital billboards change images every four to 10 seconds, flashing multiple messages from one or more advertisers on the same sign. Opponents such as John Regenbogen of Scenic Missouri deride them as "television on a stick." Several communities have banned digital billboards outright, the most recent being Denver this month. Other places have put a moratorium on them pending a federal study on whether they distract drivers. At least one other city and two states are studying moratoriums. "The digital billboards are a distraction," says Fred Wessels, an alderman in St. Louis, which just approved a one-year moratorium on such signs."If they weren't distracting, they wouldn't be doing their job," says Max Ashburn, spokesman for Scenic America, a national non-profit group that seeks to limit billboards. Research on the issue is mixed. A Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study in 2007, financed by the billboard industry, found that they aren't distracting. A review of studies completed last year for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, however, concluded that they "attract drivers' eyes away from the road for extended, demonstrably unsafe periods of time."

Time Warner in $1.5 billion bid for MGM

Time Warner will bid $1.5 billion in what is expected to be an all-cash offer for the assets of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, owner of the James Bond film franchise.

The owner of CNN and Time magazine group controls Hollywood's largest film library and is seen as placed to generate strong returns from MGM's assets through its distribution network and relationships with pay TV companies. MGM, saddled with $3.7 billion in debt from a 2005 buy-out from a consortium of buyers led by Sony, initially attracted attention across Hollywood and beyond, with companies including News Corp, Liberty Media and AT&T seen as interested. But by last Friday's deadline, only three remained. MGM confirmed that a "number of bids" had been received and that it would review them over the next few weeks. MGM has not ruled out operating as an independent company. The studio had hoped to attract bids topping $2 billion, but has drawn offers of between $1.2bn to $1.5bn, raising the possibility of MGM lenders pushing for a prepackaged bankruptcy instead of facing a fire sale.

Health Care Generates its Biggest Week of Coverage

As it hurtled towards a climactic vote in Congress, the health-care debate accounted for more than a third of the newshole last week, its biggest week of media attention since the News Coverage Index began in January 2007.

Last minute deal-making, vote counting and suspense over a package of measures approved Sunday by the House of Representatives consumed 37% of the newshole during the week of March 15-21, according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. That topped the previous high of 32%, which occurred twice before: during the week of August 10-16, when tempers were flaring at town hall meetings, and from September 7-13, when President Obama addressed the issue in speech before a joint session of Congress that was marred by heckling. The second biggest story of the week, at 8%, was the economy—with coverage driven by a proposal to reform federal oversight of banking and investing. Though the level of economic coverage was lower than in previous weeks, this represented the fourth straight week of a health care/economy exacta at the top of the nation's news agenda.

Genachowski: Government Should Have "Restrained" Role In Broadband Rollout

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski will tell the Senate Commerce Committee Tuesday (March 23) that the government has a crucial but "restrained" role in the rollout of broadband, and should focus with "laser-like" precision on solutions.

In the first National broadband Plan oversight hearing, Chairman Genachowski will report that the plan has gotten support from a cross-section of industry players, and the plan is fiscally prudent, including touting the billions in revenue that could come from opportunities for new spectrum auctions "exceeding any funding or investments that the Plan suggests for Congressional consideration."

The FCC's visible hand

[Commentary] By the Federal Communications Commission's own account, broadband use in the United States has exploded over the past decade: "Fueled primarily by private sector investment and innovation, the American broadband ecosystem has evolved rapidly. The number of Americans who have broadband at home has grown from eight million in 2000 to nearly 200 million last year."

So it is curious that the FCC's newly released National Broadband Plan faults the market for failing to "bring the power and promise of broadband to us all" -- in reality, some 7 million households unable to get broadband because it is not offered in their areas. Such an assessment -- and the call for government intervention to subsidize service for rural or poor communities -- is premature, at best. To urge government caution is not the same as favoring complete inaction -- and the FCC plan is longer on aspiration than specific policy intentions, so in many areas it's hard to be sure what the agency has in mind. Certainly the FCC is right to monitor information about rates and accessibility and to explore how to make more efficient use of the airwaves. Government subsidies may become essential to fulfill public purposes, such as providing broadband to rural schools. It is useful to continue to mark America's standing in these matters in comparison to that of other nations. But it is hard to see in this field the signs of gross market failure.

Pipe dream

[Commentary] Almost uniquely among OECD countries, America has adopted no policies to require the owners of broadband cables to open their infrastructure to rival sellers in order to enhance competition. America relies almost exclusively on "facilities competition," the provision of rival infrastructures: a cable provider may compete, for example, with a network that runs optical fibre to the home. True, there is a legitimate worry that forcing a company to rent out parts of its infrastructure to competitors may deter investment, but a review of international broadband policies prepared for the Federal Communications Commission by Harvard's Berkman Centre for Internet & Society revealed a range of successful compromises in use in other countries. The FCC has availed itself of none of them, and suggests that wireless broadband could instead provide more competition. But wireless data transfer is very much slower and less reliable than fixed broadband; it is more a complement than a competitor.

If America's facilities-based system were really working, the country would at the very least enjoy first-rate broadband in dense urban areas where providers are most likely to recoup their investments quickly. Yet in February the Saïd Business School at Oxford and the Universidad de Oviedo released a study, funded by Cisco, that produced a broadband quality score based on bit volume and speed, mapped against current and probable future applications. Chicago, America's best-performing city, ranked 26th, below Sofia and Bucharest. No American city was judged "ready for tomorrow". Among countries America ranked 16th, which is roughly where it falls on almost any available measure of broadband penetration or quality. That is not good enough.

The FCC says that by 2020 it aims to ensure universal access at a speed of 4 megabits per second (Mbps), a fairly feeble target. It also sets a goal, but not much of a plan, to provide 100m homes with 100 Mbps. The commission does want to impose stricter reporting requirements on price, packaging and actual speeds. It is hard to see what consumers will do with this information if they have no competitors to flee to.

Test of National Broadband Plan will be in the Rankings

A six spot gain to 9th place in international broadband rankings would be a successful outcome for the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan, the Phoenix Center concludes in a new study.

"Evaluating Broadband Stimulus and the National Broadband Plan: Establishing Expectations for Broadband Rankings" says historical trends suggest the U.S. will likely move to 13th in broadband adoption by 2012 even without significant policy changes. The is currently ranked 15th for broadband adoption by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The Phoenix Center study finds that the United States will have to achieve a rank of at least 9th place to make a definitive conclusion that the stimulus funds and National Broadband Plan made a difference in U.S. broadband adoption.

FCC: Agencies need common cloud computing vision

Cloud computing can improve government efficiency, but federal agencies need coordinated guidance to address potential security pitfalls, according to the National Broadband Plan.

The Federal Communications Commission recommends the Office of Management and Budget supplement existing cloud-based projects -- in which shared software, applications and information are accessed through the Internet -- with a government-wide strategy that takes into account security and privacy concerns. "The federal government has pretty significant efforts going on, but one of the things we realized is that there were multiple flowers blooming and not a lot of guidance," said Eugene Huang, government operations director for the National Broadband Task Force, a panel of FCC officials, consultants and technology experts. "We're not interested in shutting down innovative programs, but instead in saying, 'Look, these things represent some of the cutting edge of what is possible in terms of computing and data centers,' " he said. "At a minimum, OMB and [the General Services Administration] should continue accelerating efforts."

Benton

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