December 2011

[Commentary] As absurd as it would be for regulators to block Google or Apple from operating in more than one medium, it's now almost 40 years since the Federal Communications Commission's cross-ownership rules have stopped newspapers from owning local broadcasters.

Newspapers and television broadcasters are among the media industry's most troubled companies. If they could, many newspaper companies would combine with television outlets to provide better news and lower combined costs. Whether they will be able to do so is up to the Supreme Court. In the early days of radio and television, local newspapers were so powerful that regulators convinced judges to let them discriminate against them by limiting their ownership of spectrum. Technology has now completely undermined any argument based on limited spectrum, yet U.S. law remains guided by the technology of 1969. That was the year the Supreme Court decided Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC, which said that bandwidth scarcity justified the now-repudiated "Fairness Doctrine." The justices understood even then, in the pre-personal computer and pre-Internet era, that their exception to the First Amendment was based only on the "present state of commercially acceptable technology." By 1972, federal appeals court Judge David Bazelon could forecast "it may be possible within 10 years to provide television viewers 400 channels through the advances of cable television." That prohibitions still exist on cross-ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations reminds us that once regulations are issued, it's almost impossible to get rid of them—no matter how much the technology on which they are based has changed.

Many newspaper companies are fighting for their lives as digital media offer benefits for both advertisers and readers that long ago ended the dominance of print. That should be an argument for no longer making newspaper companies the only ones that can't combine with broadcasters. The best way to preserve a diversity of voices is to let the troubled newspaper and broadcasting industries combine to help them compete and indeed survive.

Silicon Valley stars often get rich in their 20s, but the tech industry overall has been criticized as being stingy when it comes to public charity. Some executives, like Bill Gates, wait until they retire to become active philanthropists. Others, like Steve Jobs, may not give much publicly during their lives. And while there is evidence that the valley is more philanthropic than it seems, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, 41, says more could be done.

“The word ‘philanthropy’ brings up an image of somebody who’s had an illustrious career, has retired and is giving to highly established institutions that may or may not have ivy growing up their walls,” she says. “I personally have felt the need to give philanthropy a reboot.” While attending the Stanford Graduate School of Business, she created a business plan for an organization that would teach philanthropy and make grants using strategies borrowed from the venture capital industry. The group, SV2, now has 175 donors who have financed 35 early-stage nonprofits over 13 years and last year gave away almost $500,000. Arrillaga-Andreessen has taught a Stanford class on strategic philanthropy for 11 years and is on the board of her parents’ foundation. She started a center at Stanford to connect academics and nonprofits, and this fall published a book, “Giving 2.0: Transform Your Giving and Our World.” But her most powerful weapon may be her personal cachet.

NATO, fresh from its battlefield success in Libya, is focusing on the next front: cyberwar.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Dec 19 will collect bids from some of the world's top defense companies, including Lockheed Martin Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp., to update and expand the alliance's cybersecurity abilities. The €32 million ($42 million) contract, although valued at less than the price of one fighter jet, holds great significance because it cements the alliance's role in protecting cutting-edge infrastructure, say NATO officials. "It's a small amount of money but it's technically ambitious," said Suleyman Anil, head of NATO's Cyber Defense Section, in an interview. The systems being developed will need to collect and sift through vast amounts of data across NATO networks stretching from the U.S. to Afghanistan. The unit, NATO's Computer Incident Response Capability center, must also be able to assist member governments facing major cyberattacks. Defense contractors and technology companies from across the 28-country alliance are preparing to compete fiercely for the contract. Traditional military spending is getting slashed on both sides of the Atlantic, but cybersecurity remains one area where governments continue to invest. The NATO contract is unusual because it lacks the domestic politics that sway most national-defense procurements.

On the third day of clashes between security forces and protesters in the center of the capital, a new battle broke out on Dec 18 between Egypt’s state-run and independent media over whom to blame for the violence.

What is at stake in the propaganda war is public support ahead of the looming contest between an elected Parliament and the ruling military council over who will control the transitional government and oversee the drafting of a new constitution. Human rights activists called the government’s depiction of the protesters as hooligans an official campaign of distortion intended to cover up the military’s violence and bolster its image. Election monitors also said the violence and confusion were casting a shadow over continuing parliamentary elections — the first since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. Egyptian state television presented news on Sunday of a forensic report purporting to show that the bullets that caused the deaths were fired at close range. It was evidence, the presenters suggested, that the demonstrators who died had been killed by infiltrators in their ranks, not the security forces. State television also interviewed people who said that they were protesters who had been paid by liberal groups to attack the military, echoing propaganda from the last days of the Mubarak government. Later, after deprecating the protesters, state television reported that the top military officer, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, had paid a condolence call to their wounded. The new independent papers and satellite channels that have sprung up since Mr. Mubarak’s exit appeared to be covering a different country.