November 2011

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2011

AT&T/T-MOBILE
   AT&T Merger With T-Mobile Faces Setbacks
   FCC in uncharted terrain on AT&T-T-Mobile - analysis
   AT&T Threatens to Sue FCC If Agency Ignores T-Mobile Pullout
   AT&T Faces New Hurdle
   Moffett: Time For AT&T To Concede Defeat in T-Mobile Merger Proposal
   AT&T-Mo what happens next? - analysis
   Asset Sale May Be Next for AT&T
   Why Verizon needs AT&T/T-Mobile to just disappear - analysis
   Don't Count Out AT&T --The Takeover Isn't Dead Yet - analysis

AGENDA
   FCC process reform, spectrum top year-end agenda for House Commerce

WIRELESS
   Fliers Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why
   Sen Grassley Unsatisfied With FCC LightSquared Document Drop

CONTENT
   Horror Show: Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley - editorial
   Piracy vs. an open Internet - editorial

TELEVISION
   FCC Media Bureau Denies Complaint Against Raycom in Honolulu, But Says Combo Violates 'Intent' of Rules
   Verizon Ordered To Stop Using ActiveVideo Patents
   Great Scott! Dunder Mifflin Morphs Into Real-Life Brand of Copy Paper
   PBS Introduces New Television Channel in Britain

LABOR
   When droids take your job - editorial

ELECTION AND MEDIA
   Welcome to the first 'Twitter election'
   GOP field running against the media

back to top

AT&T/T-MOBILE

AT&T/T-MOBILE SETBACKS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Edward Wyatt, Jenna Wortham]
AT&T and T-Mobile USA edged closer to scrapping their proposed merger, saying on November 24 (yes, Thanksgiving day) that they had withdrawn their application to the Federal Communications Commission to join their cellular phone operations. The FCC is not obligated to grant the request, however. It could deny the request, going ahead with its consideration and judicial hearing, or it could grant the request with prejudice, meaning that AT&T could not later refile the application. That would essentially kill the deal. Deutsche Telekom, the parent of T-Mobile, and AT&T said in a joint statement that they still intended to pursue the $39 billion merger and would prepare for a federal antitrust lawsuit that is seeking to block the deal. But the companies also said that AT&T planned to take a $4 billion charge against earnings to reflect the potential breakup fees that AT&T would have to pay Deutsche Telekom if the deal failed to go through. The application withdrawal appears in part meant to prevent the FCC from making public AT&T and T-Mobile records about the potential effects of the merger, records that could then be used by the Justice Department in its antitrust suit to block the deal. Deutsche Telekom, based in Germany, said in a statement that the withdrawal “is being undertaken by both companies to consolidate their strength and to focus their continuing efforts on obtaining antitrust clearance for the transaction from the Department of Justice. As soon as practical, Deutsche Telekom and AT&T intend to seek necessary FCC approval.” AT&T issued its own statement saying that the companies were taking this step “to facilitate the consideration of all options at the FCC,” as well as to consider other options. (Nov 24)
benton.org/node/106012 | New York Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top

UNCHARTERED TERRAIN
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Kim Hart]
Faced with an unprecedented turn of events, the Federal Communications Commission must figure out how to handle the AT&T/T-Mobile deal now that the companies have asked to withdraw their applications from the agency. FCC officials have three options:
• They can allow AT&T and Deutsche Telekom to withdraw the applications without prejudice, meaning the companies could refile at any time.
• They can allow the proceeding to end with prejudice. In that case, the companies would not be able to resubmit their applications later.
• They can go forward with its process to send the case to an administrative law judge and deny the companies’ request.
If the FCC decides to continue on that path and publish its hearing designation order, it could be even more damning for AT&T and T-Mobile. The order likely contains the FCC staff’s conclusions about the anti-competitive effects of the proposed merger and how the deal would affect consumer choice and prices.
The FCC has never faced this situation in a merger proceeding. The last time the FCC chose to send a merger proceeding to an administrative hearing was in 2002, when EchoStar and DirecTV tried to merge. The companies ended up dropping the deal entirely.
benton.org/node/106025 | Politico
Recommend this Headline
back to top

AT&T THREATENS FCC
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Todd Shields]
AT&T said it plans to sue the Federal Communications Commission if the agency doesn’t let the company withdraw its application to buy T-Mobile for $39 billion. The FCC is obligated by its own rules to honor AT&T’s move to rescind its application to acquire T-Mobile, Wayne Watts, general counsel for AT&T, said November 25 in a blog entry. “We have every right to withdraw our merger from the FCC, and the FCC has no right to stop us,” Watts said in the entry on the company’s public policy blog. “Any suggestion the agency might do otherwise would be an abuse of procedure which we would immediately challenge in court.” AT&T’s move is “a request” that the FCC “will consider,” agency spokeswoman Tammy Sun said November 24. The FCC should publish the order that would send the merger to a hearing, said Harold Feld, legal director Public Knowledge. “It is sure to contain conclusions that AT&T would like to keep quiet,” Feld said. (Nov 26)
benton.org/node/106011 | Bloomberg
Recommend this Headline
back to top

NEW HURDLE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Amy Schatz]
The Federal Communications Commission made clear how deep its opposition runs to AT&T's proposed $39 billion deal to acquire T-Mobile USA, saying AT&T must face an extra review next year that could eat up months even if the company wins an antitrust trial. The unusual decision by the FCC to call the extra hearing -- its first such move in nine years -- adds a new roadblock and forces AT&T to consider an unpalatable range of options. Giving up on the deal isn't an easy choice, because AT&T is on the hook to pay T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom AG a breakup fee of $3 billion plus airwaves and other rights worth an additional $3 billion or so. The merger agreement requires AT&T to secure all necessary approvals to close the deal by Sept. 20 -- a timeline that is now at risk, though the companies could agree to extend the deadline. AT&T can still opt to fight it out in Washington, but the Nov 22 move by the FCC showed that the company would have to overcome deep skepticism about the merits of allowing the second- and fourth-largest U.S. cellphone providers to combine. An FCC official said the agency has reached a conclusion similar to that of the Justice Department, finding that the combination would "significantly diminish competition." FCC officials questioned AT&T's statements that the merger would benefit consumers and allow the company to expand high-speed fourth-generation wireless service across the country faster. They also said confidential documents filed at the agency didn't support AT&T's contention that the deal would create nearly 100,000 jobs. An FCC official said the combination would instead "lead to massive job losses." AT&T called the action disappointing. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is preparing a formal request for the administrative hearing, officials said, and the request is expected to get the approval of FCC commissioners. The hearing would happen after the antitrust trial, assuming AT&T won the trial. An FCC administrative law judge would hear evidence from both sides. The administrative judge would then make a recommendation on the deal, which would then go to the FCC's commissioners for approval. (Nov 23)
benton.org/node/106010 | Wall Street Journal | NYTimes | WashPost | GigaOm
Recommend this Headline
back to top

MOFFETT: CONCEDE DEFEAT
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
In a memo to clients, top media analyst Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research, advised that it was time for AT&T to wave the white flag: "We believe that it is now time for AT&T to concede defeat and withdraw the merger," he wrote. Moffett said that given that the Department of Justice has sued to block the deal, and there would not be a second trial at the Federal Communications Commission that AT&T would have to win as well, he says the likelihood of success on both fronts is de minimis. He noted that AT&T could drag the process out given that it will have to pay a break-up fee if it does scrap the deal, but he also pointed out that the telecommunications giant will have to continue to do business with the FCC and DOJ. In fact, at the same time FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski circulated the order to block the deal, he also circulated one approving AT&T's purchase of Qualcomm spectrum. Moffitt said that the question for the company going forward was whether it will "pursue another deal to acquire spectrum; whether they instead will be forced to increase capital spending to sustain network quality as usage scales; or whether they will simply more aggressively ration consumption." (Nov 23)
benton.org/node/106009 | Multichannel News
Recommend this Headline
back to top

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
[Commentary] The question becomes whether in spite of almost unified opposition AT&T stays true to T-Mobile through the court trial scheduled for February 2012, or if T-Mobile’s parent company decides to cut its losses, renegotiate a smaller breakup fee and attempt to find another suitor. The last time the Federal Communications Commission sent a merger to administrative review in 2002, the two parties gave up. So far, AT&T may have cut back on its toughest language, but it hasn’t thrown in the towel. (Nov 22)
benton.org/node/106008 | GigaOm | more from Higginbotham
Recommend this Headline
back to top

ASSET SALE?
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Steve Lohr]
The ambitions of AT&T and T-Mobile’s corporate parent, Deutsche Telekom, must be scaled back if they want any chance at a deal, analysts say. To address the objections of the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission that a merger would be anticompetitive, AT&T could agree to sell off 40 percent or so T-Mobile’s assets to wireless rivals, analysts say. The policy goal, analysts say, would be to strengthen wireless competitors beyond the big two, Verizon Wireless and AT&T. So sales of mobile spectrum, cell towers and customers could not be made to Verizon, but to others, like Sprint and MetroPCS, the third- and fifth-largest carriers. Or perhaps assets could be sold to a well-heeled foreign company that, unlike Deutsche Telekom, is increasing its investment in the United States: América Móvil, headed by the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú. (Slim is a major shareholder in The New York Times Company.) Creative deal-making, analysts note, would be required to forge alliances and supply cash for spinoff purchases. The list of potential participants, they say, includes private equity firms, like SilverLake Partners, and cable companies, like Comcast and Time Warner, which own spectrum and whose Wi-Fi networks can work in tandem with cell networks. Each of the options would present obstacles. And it is not clear that AT&T would be interested in a drastically scaled-down deal. Yet the company has consistently argued that its main motivation for pursuing T-Mobile is to acquire scarce wireless spectrum, so AT&T can quickly build out high-speed, next-generation network capacity to improve its service. “If that is its goal, then AT&T has to explore ways to salvage as much spectrum out of the deal as it can,” said Kevin Werbach, an associate professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
benton.org/node/106026 | New York Times |
Recommend this Headline
back to top

VERIZON’S STAKE
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kevin Fitchard]
[Commentary] Sprint may have popped open champagne on Nov 22 after the Federal Communications Commission denounced AT&T’s proposed merger with T-Mobile USA and recommended it go to administrative hearings, but Verizon Wireless executives uttered a few sighs of relief as well. Of all the possible outcomes in the AT&T-Mo fallout, the FCC approving the merger with a laundry list of new regulations would have been the worst-case scenario for Verizon. It appears to have dodged a bullet. The FCC could have required AT&T to divest spectrum and networks in numerous markets; FCC staffers had competitive concerns in 99 of the top 100 markets. It could have imposed deadlines for deployments and stricter requirements on the population and geographic areas those networks covered. It might even have dictated commercial terms on how it used that spectrum, spelling out the terms of data roaming agreements and maybe even imposing restrictions on what AT&T could charge for data service. All of these would have been anathema to Verizon. Why? Because whatever restrictions and stipulations AT&T is forced to abide by if this merger goes through would return to haunt Verizon down the road. Verizon may be sitting pretty on a big fat LTE network today, but it readily admits it must go back to the market for more spectrum at some point. That means acquiring another operator, buying spectrum from a competitor or picking up new licenses at auction. Verizon may even weighing a bid on Sprint. Given the current regulatory environment, such a purchase would be out of the question today. But there are plenty of smaller players Verizon likely is eyeballing. Any future bid Verizon makes on a competitor or spectrum would be clouded by whatever requirements the FCC and Department of Justice would impose on AT&T/T-Mobile today. (Nov 23)
benton.org/node/106007 | GigaOm | Connected Planet
Recommend this Headline
back to top

DON’T COUNT AT&T OUT
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Art Brodsky]
[Commentary] With any other company, in any other merger, the action the Federal Communications Commission announced on Nov 22 would be the signal that a deal is dead. But when one of the parties involved is AT&T, the rules don't apply. AT&T isn't any other company. It has unlimited resources to continue the case for as long as it wants, which will have the effect of freezing T-Mobile's deployment and marketing. That was the point of the takeover to begin with. AT&T wanted to eliminate a competitor. Now they are almost doing the same thing. Meanwhile, AT&T can claim a victory of sorts. Even while fighting the Justice Department and the FCC, it will get something it really wants -- some high-value spectrum for its wireless services. As the consolation prize, the FCC said it would approve, with some as-yet-unknown conditions, AT&T's $1.9 billion purchase of spectrum from Qualcomm. The bottom line: AT&T can continue to hamstring a competitor and will get more spectrum to gain advantage over the rest of the market, even if it has to spend a few million more to keep the takeover going long past its expiration date. AT&T knows when to hold 'em and knows when to fold 'em. But not before it is ready to do so and not until after it has achieved its objectives. (Nov 23)
benton.org/node/106006 | Public Knowledge
Recommend this Headline
back to top

AGENDA

HOUSE COMMERCE COMMITTEE AGENDA
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
The House Commerce Committee will vote on legislation to reform processes at the Federal Communications Commission in the coming weeks. FCC process reform joins legislation to authorize voluntary incentive auctions of spectrum among the committee's top priorities before the end of the calendar year. The telecom subcommittee will mark up a spectrum bill on Dec 1. Noticeably absent from the committee's list of priorities is any mention of data security legislation.
benton.org/node/106024 | Hill, The | House Commerce
Recommend this Headline
back to top

WIRELESS

WIRELES DEVICES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Nick Bilton]
In 2010, no crashes were attributed to people using technology on a plane. None were in 2009. Or 2008, 2007 and so on. New technologies are often greeted with fear and that is certainly true of a disruptive technology like cellphones. Yet rules that are decades old persist without evidence to support the idea that someone reading an e-book or playing a video game during takeoff or landing is jeopardizing safety. Nevertheless, Les Dorr, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the agency would rather err on the side of caution when it comes to digital devices on planes. The government might be causing more unnecessary interference on planes by asking people to shut their devices down for take-off and landing and then giving them permission to restart all at the same time. According to electrical engineers, when the electronic device starts, electric current passes through every part of the gadget, including GPS, Wi-Fi, cellular radio and microprocessor. It’s the equivalent of waking someone up with a dozen people yelling into bullhorns. As more and more people transition from paper products to digital ones, maybe it’s time to change these rules.
benton.org/node/106023 | New York Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top

GRASSLEY UNSATISFIED
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was feeling none too thankful Nov 23 after the Federal Communications Commission put documents about its LightSquard waiver online. The FCC created a Web site to host the documents to honor various FOIA requests from private parties. The FCC did not provide the information directly to Sen Grassley, and a source familiar with the FOIA requests said the FCC had not received one from Grassley's office. Sen Grassley has for months been seeking information from the agency on the waiver it issued the company to launch a 4G wholesale terrestrial wireless broadband network using spectrum reserved for satellite. But he was not satisfied with the FCC's response-a source said the FCC gave him a heads-up that the info was online. Grassley's disaffection could translate to delays in confirming new FCC commissioners.
benton.org/node/106015 | Broadcasting&Cable
Recommend this Headline
back to top

CONTENT

HOLLYWOOD VS SILICON VALLEY
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: L Gordon Crovitz]
[Commentary] Washington regulating the Internet is akin to a gorilla playing a Stradivarius. Yet many legislators are being urged to play by lobbyists for Hollywood, perhaps the most technology-intolerant industry. The Motion Picture Association of America is the leading proponent for legislative proposals with ostensibly benign titles—the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect Intellectual Property Act in the Senate. These bills would go so far to protect copyright that they would strangle the Internet with regulation. The Web would be transformed from a permissive technology where innovation is welcome to one where websites are shut down first, questions asked later. The legislation has bipartisan support and could come up for a vote before the end of the year. If it passes, the government will take down an entire website when a copyright holder claims an infringement online. A violation could be a single link on a single page, such as user-generated content that includes a movie clip or song lyric. It would also be unlawful for a site to "avoid confirming a high probability" of infringement. This is legalese to make websites responsible for anything posted on them or potentially posted on them by third parties. Payment providers, ad networks and search engines would get infringement notices barring them from working with these sites, which would put the sites out of business before any violation is proven. Silicon Valley has belatedly realized it must fight the new proposals.
benton.org/node/106022 | Wall Street Journal
Recommend this Headline
back to top

PIRACY VS OPEN INTERNET
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] To avoid the reach of U.S. copyright laws, numerous online pirates have set up shop in countries less willing or able to enforce intellectual property rights. Policymakers agree that these "rogue" sites pose a real problem for U.S. artists and rights holders who aren't getting paid for the rampant distribution of their music, movies and other creative works. The question is how to help them. Lawmakers keep offering proposals, but they don't seem to be getting any closer to the right answer. The latest, HR 3261, comes from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and a dozen co-sponsors. Dubbed the Stop Online Piracy Act, it's designed to isolate foreign websites that commit or "facilitate" willful copyright infringements by cutting off their funding and shrinking their U.S. audience. In that sense, it's similar to its counterpart in the Senate, S 968, the PROTECT IP Act, which the Judiciary Committee has approved.
Both bills go to risky extremes, however, in their efforts to stop these sites from attracting an audience. Of the two, the House bill goes further down the wrong path, weakening protections for companies — including those based in the United States — that enable users to store, publish or sell goods online. The change could force such companies to monitor everything their users do, turning them into a private security force for copyright and trademark owners.
benton.org/node/106021 | Los Angeles Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top

TELEVISION

HONOLULU DECISION
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Federal Communications Commission’s Media Bureau has rejected Media Council Hawaii's (MCH) challenge to Raycom's combination of a duopoly and shared services agreement involving three stations in Honolulu, but it also signaled it agreed with MCH that the station combination violated the intent of FCC rules. The bureau said it could take that into account at license renewal time and pointed out that the FCC was planning to look at shared services agreements in its quadrennial media ownership review. The bureau also fined Raycom $10,000 for not making its public inspection file available for public inspection on a timely basis.
"Media Council Hawaii is very disappointed with the Bureau's decision and will likely seek review by the full Commission," said Angela Campbell, counsel for the group. "The Bureau's failure to enforce the ownership limits here will been seen as a "green light" for others to evade the TV duopoly rule by entering into similar sharing arrangements. The commitment to address the issue of shared services in the 2010 quadrennial review, while welcome, is likely to come too late to prevent the significant loss of diversity and competition from these shared service agreements.
benton.org/node/106016 | Broadcasting&Cable
Recommend this Headline
back to top

VERIZON-ACTIVEVIDEO DECISION
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Todd Spangler]
A federal judge ruled Nov 23 that Verizon Communications must stop using two patents owned by interactive TV firm ActiveVideo Networks, issuing a permanent injunction effective May 23, 2012, and ordering the telco to pay ActiveVideo $2.74 per FiOS TV subscriber per month starting Dec. 1. Verizon as of Sept. 30 had 3.98 million FiOS TV subscribers. That means the telco will owe at least $10.9 million per month to ActiveVideo -- whose largest customer is Cablevision Systems -- until the permanent injunction is in effect. In August, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found Verizon's FiOS TV violated four of five patents asserted by ActiveVideo and awarded ActiveVideo $115 million in damages. ActiveVideo filed a motion for an injunction barring Verizon from using two patents in August 2011, after originally suing the telco in May 2010. Last month, Judge Raymond Jackson for the Eastern District of Virginia added at least $24.1 million in supplemental damages and interest to the amount Verizon must pay to ActiveVideo. While Verizon had argued against ActiveVideo's claim of "irreparable harm" because the two companies are not direct competitors, "There is no doubt that ActiveVideo suffers indirect losses when Cablevision suffers direct losses from Verizon's infringement," Judge Jackson wrote in the order. Verizon said it would appeal the decision.
benton.org/node/106014 | Multichannel News | Multichannel – follow-up
Recommend this Headline
back to top

DUNDER MIFFLIN PAPER
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Suzanne Vranica]
The struggles of fictional paper company Dunder Mifflin to compete with real-life office-supply chains like Staples Inc. are a running joke on NBC's "The Office." Now, an online outlet owned by Staples is using the Dunder Mifflin name to try to sell more copy paper. Staples' Quill.com has struck a licensing deal with NBC's parent company to launch a Dunder Mifflin brand. Priced largely above private-label copy paper, the Dunder Mifflin packages will be emblazoned with slogans such as "Our motto is, 'Quabity First' " and "Get Your Scrant on," well-known phrases from the comedy series. The marketing deal is an effort to combat what Quill's chief marketing officer, Sergio Pereira, calls a "race to the bottom in the paper business." In the estimated $3 billion North American copy-paper market, sales have been declining at about 3% a year—even more during the recession, said Mark Connelly, an analyst at CLSA. The decline stems from a shrinking volume of workplace printing, in part due to the greater use of PDF documents and email. It doesn't help that consumers are most swayed by price when they buy paper, said Pereira. The Dunder Mifflin deal is an example of "reverse product placement." For decades, marketers have worked to embed their brands in the plots of TV shows and movies as a way to stand out in a crowded ad market. Nowadays, they are seeing value in bringing to life fictional brands that are already part of pop culture. That can be far cheaper than building brands from scratch.
benton.org/node/106020 | Wall Street Journal
Recommend this Headline
back to top

PBS UK
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Eric Pfanner]
As Britain takes its news media to task, an American import, the Public Broadcasting Service, hopes to make a name for itself by offering a sober antidote to the tales of tabloid newspaper excesses that have been leading the news bulletins of late. This month, as a public inquiry delves into the intrusive Fleet Street reporting techniques that have shocked many Britons, PBS introduced a new channel in Britain, its first international television venture. Does Britain, home to the BBC, one of the most respected broadcasters in the world, really need to import serious television from the United States? When many Britons think of American television, they imagine silly sitcoms or the “fair and balanced” output of Fox News — owned by the same company, News Corporation, whose newspapers are first in the firing line in the investigation into the hacking of celebrities’ mobile phones. “It’s very different from people’s perception of what an American TV channel is like,” said Richard Kingsbury, general manager of the new channel, called PBS UK.
benton.org/node/106013 | New York Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top

LABOR

TECH AND JOBS
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The stubbornly high unemployment rate has left policymakers wondering whether there's something more at work than just an unusually steep recession. Have the country, its businesses and its markets changed in some fundamental way, leaving millions of Americans with skills that are no longer needed? Economists are sharply divided on that point, but two from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology make a compelling argument that the technology revolution is vaporizing careers faster than many Americans can embark on new ones. If the authors are right, there's no short-term fix to the fundamental problem U.S. workers face. But as lawmakers struggle to breathe life into the moribund economy and bring down budget deficits, they need to recognize that growth over the long term depends on how well the country harnesses the technology-fueled advances in productivity. That means equipping far more Americans with skills relevant to the new era. Otherwise, the stagnating wages and employment of the past decade will become the painful new normal.
benton.org/node/106019 | Los Angeles Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top

ELECTION AND MEDIA

TWITTER ELECTION
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Already, 2012 is shaping up to be the first “Twitter election,” but the social media site presents both pitfalls and opportunities for political campaigns. The rise of new Internet services has been a game changer in recent campaign cycles. In 2006, a YouTube video of then-Sen. George Allen (R-VA) using the term “macaca” helped sink his reelection bid, and in 2008, then-Sen Barack Obama (D-IL), energized his young supporters through Facebook. In 2012, the Web phenomenon most likely to change the political dynamic is Twitter, the social networking site that creates a real-time loop of communication among its users. Patrick Hynes, a communications consultant who worked for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and Tim Pawlenty’s Political Action Committee in 2011, said Twitter can be an effective tool for pushing stories onto the media’s radar.
benton.org/node/106018 | Hill, The
Recommend this Headline
back to top

RUNNING AGAINST MEDIA
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Niall Stanage]
Media coverage of conservatives is again in the spotlight, with the furor over the treatment of presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on the “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” TV show. Fallon’s house band, The Roots, played a segment of Fishbone’s “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” to accompany Bachmann’s stage entrance night. Rep Bachmann was unaware of the musical reference at the time, but later described the incident as “an outrage” and “clearly a form of bias on the part of the Hollywood entertainment elite.” The controversy is the latest in a series of contentious media episodes that have marked the GOP presidential race, from a June Newsweek cover of a heavily photo-shopped Mitt Romney bearing the headline “The Mormon Moment” to the recent coverage of allegations of sexual harassment against Herman Cain. A number of GOP hopefuls — Bachmann, Cain and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich prominent among them — have responded with head-on attacks on the media. The attacks may be sincere but, experts say, they also have the advantage of having an electoral appeal, at least to the Republican electorate.
benton.org/node/106017 | Hill, The
Recommend this Headline
back to top