July 2010

ESPN's internal journalism watchdog sharply criticized the cable-sports network for what he said were ethical missteps in its recent broadcast of a TV program devoted to basketball star LeBron James.

In a column on ESPN's website, the ombudsman harshly criticized ESPN for over-hyping its coverage of James, for failing to explicitly disclose to viewers the ties between James and ESPN, and for what he said was an effective payment for a news story - which is typically considered improper for journalists. "ESPN made some major mistakes handling the entire affair," said Don Ohlmeyer, the journalism watchdog, or ombudsman. "ESPN should never have traded [advertising] inventory for access or allowed a subject to select his inquisitor."

[Commentary] While there's nothing new about lamenting over America's falling in the standings relative to broadband in the rest of the world, Daily continues to be amazed at how that gap seems to be widening, not just in the capacity and cost of bandwidth customers have access to, but in how quickly other countries are moving forward with real plans to achieve real progress relative to the US.

Here in the US we barely have our first broadband plan. We're still caught up in debates over whether or not we're setting the standard for broadband too high, whether or not government should play any role in the deployment of broadband, and whether or not the agency charged with overseeing our country's communications infrastructure even has the authority to regulate broadband.

After comparing that to the rest of the world, Daily concludes: If we feel any pride as a nation, if we have any sense about what our economic future can and should look like, then we need to make sure these stories about where the rest of the world's heading aren't swept underneath the carpet. The time to act is now. The rest of the world realizes this and is moving forward full steam ahead. The question is when will America wake up and start getting serious about our international competitiveness as a whole rather than focusing almost all of our attention on how do we get every American connected to yesterday's networks.

On July 21, more than 150 rural education stakeholders and technology experts from 26 states came together to learn from one another and provide feedback to federal officials. The National Rural Education Technology Summit included the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture and the Federal Communications Commission.

"Knowledge knows no boundaries and we cannot allow distance to stand between students, education and opportunity," said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. "We have the hardware, the latest software, and huge investments are being made in the build-out of the national broadband plan to connect us as never before." Secretary Duncan announced the creation of the Online Learning Registry which will provide access to the thousands of documents, photos and other data housed at the Smithsonian. This online registry was one of the many recommendations made by the National Broadband Plan.

"No technological innovation in our lifetime has greater potential to transform education than high-speed Internet," said FCC Chairman Genachowski. "But computers and connections alone are not enough to seize the opportunities of broadband for education. The National Broadband Plan recommended that the federal government increase the pool of high-quality digital resources that educators can easily find, access, and combine with other content to help their students learn. I am very pleased to see this recommendation being adopted. The Learning Registry will put a library of world-class educational content at the fingertips of every American student and teacher."

[Commentary] As we can all see now, when Fox says jump, the Obama administration asks how high? (Then jumps one inch less and considers it a progressive victory). Is there anyone Obama won't fire or throw under the bus if Fox asks him to? What if they ask Obama to fire himself? Would he do it? Or would he just fire Biden and say he met them halfway? I understand the Obama team is playing the old Washington games and think they're very clever at it. But those games don't work anymore. Bad news cycles are not created by genuine mistakes anymore, they're artificially created by Fox News channel. You can't make them go away by giving into them. You're just feeding the beast. And more importantly, you're starving your own side. It isn't about fighting Fox News to make yourself feel better. It's about ignoring their silly attacks so you can actually bring us the progressive change you promised. Otherwise, we would be retarded to come and vote for you again.