May 29, 2012 (Stations Should Yank Worst of Political Ads)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, MAY 29, 2012
A look ahead to events to this week http://benton.org/calendar/2012-05-27--P1W/
BROADCASTING/TELEVISION
You Can Change the Channel, but Local News Is the Same
Stations Should Yank Worst of Political Ads - editorial
Dish Network Doesn’t Want to Blow Up TV. It Wants to Pay Less for It.
Last Call for the Low Power Television and Translator Digital Upgrade Program - public notice
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
Presidential Panel Urges More Flexible Use of Spectrum
Comments Sought On Privacy And Security Of Information Stored On Mobile Communications Devices - public notice
Location-Based Services: An Overview of Opportunities and Other Considerations - research
Mobile Devices Now Make Up About 20 Percent of U.S. Web Traffic [links to web]
Is Google or PayPal Leading the Charge in Mobile Payments? [links to web]
The Spectrum Shortage and African Americans
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Broadband Stimulus Grants Seen as Political Flashpoint
Healthy and Beneficial Broadband Pricing - analysis
Comcast's fight for the pipes of the Internet
Announcement of Members on Open Internet Advisory Committee - press release
Has Google changed its mind about sharing its fiber network?
Internet Defense League introduces 'cat signal' for websites
Internet phone service bill advances in California Senate
CONTENT
Trying to make dollars and sense out of YouTube's partner program - analysis [links to web]
Chicago Tribune to leap over pay wall
PRIVACY
Comments Sought On Privacy And Security Of Information Stored On Mobile Communications Devices - public notice
Location-Based Services: An Overview of Opportunities and Other Considerations - research
California Senate OKs ban to keep employers from social media passwords [links to web]
CYBERSECURITY
Building Cybersecurity Capability in the Electricity Sector
JOURNALISM
Buffett: I'll be 'hands-off' with newspapers
Chicago Tribune to leap over pay wall
OWNERSHIP
Facebook shareholders express anger, confusion about botched IPO
$8.5 Billion Skype Deal Presents a Puzzle for Microsoft [links to web]
Buffett: I'll be 'hands-off' with newspapers
Mr Cook goes to Washington
AGENDA
House considers bill to streamline FCC reports [links to web]
POLICYMAKERS
Announcement of Members on Open Internet Advisory Committee - press release
Austin Schlick, FCC General Counsel, to Step Down; Sean Lev Named General Counsel - press release
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Crackdown on Chinese Bloggers Who Fight the Censors With Puns
Antiwar Protester Disrupts Inquiry as Blair Testifies
Virus Infects Computers Across Middle East
Beijing faces Brussels action on telecoms aid
EU internet ‘cookies’ rules cause confusion [links to web]
France Telecom lifts Mobinil stake to 94% [links to web]
Google May Face Further U.K. Action After FCC Privacy Report
MORE ONLINE
Educators who use technology on their own are more likely to support ed tech [links to web]
BROADCASTING/TELEVISION
LOCAL TV NEWS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter]
Some local broadcast television stations compete for viewers, but they cooperate in gathering the news — maintaining technically separate ownership, but sharing office space, news video and even the scripts written for their nightly news anchors. That is why viewers see the same segments on car accidents, the same interviews with local politicians, the same high school sports highlights. The changes have drawn the ire of critics, who charge that there are fewer and fewer journalists actually covering local news. The agreements behind this sharing are also attracting the attention of another group of viewers — federal regulators. Amid stiff competition for advertising revenue, these agreements are a “survival strategy” for weak stations, said Perry Sook, the chairman and chief executive of Nexstar, which owns the CBS station here, KLST. The rise of the agreements resembles the retrenchment of the American newspaper industry, but it has been far less publicized. The Federal Communications Commission does not know how many agreements exist between stations, making it impossible to judge their effects. But FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski indicated last week that the FCC was beginning to study the issue. “It’s something we’re taking a close look at the FCC.” he said. He sounded especially curious about what he called behind-the-scenes cooperation between stations that collaboratively sell ads and negotiate contracts with distributors.
benton.org/node/124399 | New York Times
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STATIONS SHOULD YANK WORST ADS
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: Harry Jessell]
[Commentary] As part of its campaign to persuade broadcast television stations not to run third-party political attacks ads filled with distortion and flat-out falsehoods, the Annenberg Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania hosted a conference in Washington that thoroughly covered the trouble many political advertisers have with telling the truth and what obligations TV stations have to keep things honest. Annenberg is targeting stations because they run most of TV's political ads and because they do have ample discretion to reject third-party ads from interest groups, super PACs and the like. (Federal law requires stations to run ads from candidates just as they receive them.) To "help" stations, Annenberg is alerting them to ads that it has found to be far more fiction than fact. It is also trying to enlist viewers to pressure stations to bounce the ads. When I first wrote about the effort in March, I cautioned stations against relying on the work of Annenberg or any of the news organizations that have gotten into the political fact-checking business — Tampa Bay Times (PolitiFact), The Washington Post and the Associated Press. But I also said that stations do have the responsibility to make sure that third-party ads have some relation to reality. Using the other fact checkers as tip sheets, TV reporters ought to analyze ads themselves and air the results, and general managers ought to toss the worst of them. That's asking a lot, I know. No station wants to turn down business, and no station wants to become enmeshed in partisan politics around election time. Rejected advertisers are apt to charge that stations are favoring the opposition. But having attended the Annenberg conference and moderated one of the panels, I feel more strongly about my advice.
benton.org/node/124367 | TVNewsCheck
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DISH WANTS TO PAY LESS FOR TV
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Peter Kafka]
Does Charlie Ergen really want to blow up the TV business, using his ad-skipping “Auto Hop” feature? Like everyone else in America, Ergen likes TV, a lot. He just wants to pay less to watch it.
TV programmers have been able to push up the price for their shows, year after year, even as the audience for those shows gets smaller and smaller. Their latest move: Convincing pay-TV operators to pay them “retrans” fees for the four broadcast networks, which are theoretically supposed to be available to anyone in the country, free of charge. The pay-TV operators have been taking those fees and passing them along to consumers, because it’s easier to do that than anything else. And in that context, Ergen’s ad-skipping feature makes a lot of sense, because it freaks the networks out, for obvious reasons. So if the courts let it stand, then Ergen finally has real leverage when it comes to fees: If the networks won’t lower them, he’ll torch their ads.
benton.org/node/124374 | Wall Street Journal
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LOW POWER TV PROGRAM
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration, AUTHOR: William Cooperman]
The deadline for analog low-power television stations and translator stations to apply for a federal grant to cover digital upgrade costs is fast approaching. The last day that National Telecommunications and Information Administration can accept grant applications under the Digital Upgrade Program is July 2. While all full-power television stations in the United States had to upgrade to digital broadcasting in 2009, thousands of analog low-power television stations and translator stations have until 2015 to make the transition. The Digital Upgrade Program provides reimbursements of up to $20,000 to analog low-power stations in eligible rural communities that have completed the transition and are now broadcasting digital signals. Eligible stations include Class A stations, low-power television stations, as well as translator and booster stations. NTIA currently has $22 million available for Digital Upgrade Program awards. More than 1,000 low-power stations have already received funding. But NTIA’s authority for the program will expire on September 30. In order to process all applications by that deadline, NTIA must receive all applications by 5 p.m. on July 2.
benton.org/node/124351 | National Telecommunications and Information Administration
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SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
PCAST SPECTRUM REPORT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: John Markoff]
A just-completed report from a presidential advisory committee urges President Obama to adopt new computer technologies to make better use of a huge swath of the radio spectrum now controlled by federal agencies. The shift, which could be accomplished by presidential signature — and without Congressional involvement — would relieve spectrum congestion caused by the popularity of smartphones, and generate far more revenue for the federal government than auctioning spectrum to wireless carriers, according to the authors of the report. Making better use of the spectrum for cellphones would allow for more services, more competition and possibly lower prices for consumers using cellphone data services. The new plan, which calls on the government to electronically rent or lease spectrum for periods of time as short as seconds using newly available computerized radio technologies, was presented publicly May 25 to a meeting of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, or PCAST. The authors of the report included Eric E. Schmidt, the chairman of Google, Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer and Silicon Valley venture capitalists Mark P. Gorenberg and David E. Liddle, among others. The report is scheduled to be presented to the president in June after final editing.
benton.org/node/124384 | New York Times
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HONIG ON SPECTRUM AND AFRICAN AMERICANS
[SOURCE: Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, AUTHOR: Marcella Gadson]
Minority Media and Telecommunications Council co-founder and President David Honig took time away from planning MMTC’s Annual Conference to educate the leaders of America’s municipalities about spectrum at the World Conference of Mayors Broadband Symposium in Tuskegee (AL). Since many of the attendees knew very little about what spectrum was and why it is important to their cities, Honig focused his hour-long discussion on “The Future of Broadband: How to Alleviate the Spectrum Shortage.” The fact that so many of the nation’s leaders know little about something as important as the spectrum shortage can be disheartening, but not surprising. Spectrum is a topic many feel might be too technical to grasp, which is definitely not the case. This is why it is so important for industry experts to speak at conferences like this. For those who don’t know that much about spectrum (or want to brush up on the topic), Honig provided some valuable insight during his address. In spite of the importance of spectrum, one-third of Americans and forty percent of African Americans do not have a broadband connection in their homes. In addition, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, African Americans are behind on connecting to the Internet in general, with 70 percent of African Americans connecting, compared with 76 percent of whites. African Americans, however, are the heaviest adopters of wireless connections on their mobile phones. The African American mobile wireless subscription rate is 58 percent, compared to 41 percent for whites. According to Honig, this is a double-edged sword. “The relative affordability of mobile wireless broadband use versus costs for home broadband use sparked some to describe this phenomenon as the ‘minority wireless miracle,’” he stated. However, “Since African Americans are disproportionately relying on mobile wireless broadband for Internet access, they will be [disproportionately] affected if the supply of commercial spectrum is not increased.”
benton.org/node/124342 | Minority Media and Telecommunications Council
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
BROADBAND STIMULUS IS POLITICAL FLASHPOINT
[SOURCE: CIO, AUTHOR: Kenneth Corbin]
National Telecommunications and Information Administration head Lawrence Strickling acknowledged that beyond the technical and administrative hurdles his organization faces, it also confronts a public relations challenge. In a keynote address at a conference convened by a coalition representing community-level broadband projects, he urged members of the audience to call attention to their projects and highlight their successes. The NTIA charged with disbursing $7 billion in economic stimulus funding to jumpstart new broadband deployments. "We're in an election year," Assistant Secretary Strickling said. "There are people out there who have as their commitment the desire to try to embarrass this program. And they'll be looking at every little thing that you're doing." Just last week, Assistant Secretary Strickling appeared before the House Commerce Committee for an oversight hearing on the broadband grant program. For the first 15 minutes or so of the hearing, Assistant Secretary Strickling said he was quizzed about the cost of routers that one grant recipient in a member's district was using, a level of minutiae that signaled the extent to which the broadband program had been politicized. "There are folks out there who don't want to hear the truth about this. And it's important that every one of you be very vigilant," Assistant Secretary Strickling told members of the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition.
benton.org/node/124346 | CIO
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HEALTHY AND BENEFICIAL BROADBAND PRICING
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] Yes, this was the week of the Facebook debacle and the Google-Oracle decision, but we focus our weekly review instead on some remarks by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski at The Cable Show in Boston. He said, “usage-based pricing could be healthy and beneficial” for broadband and high-tech industries. “Business model innovation is very important,” he said. “There was a point of view a couple years ago that there was only one permissible pricing model for broadband. I didn’t agree.”
http://benton.org/node/124289
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COMCAST FIGHTING FOR NET PIPES
[SOURCE: Fortune, AUTHOR: Dan Mitchell]
If it seems as if Comcast has acted arrogantly in addressing widespread complaints that it favors its own video streams on its Internet service over those of its competitors, it could be in part because the company so dominates the Internet-service business in the markets where it operates. And that's a lot of markets. Internet access is the company's biggest area of growth. Comcast lost 37,000 cable customers last quarter, which was more than expected, but that was offset by a 5.7% rise in broadband revenues. That might help explain why the company at first thought it could brush off the loud complaints about its video-streaming policies. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings posted a diatribe on Facebook last month noting that off all the various streaming services he watched through his Xbox -- Netflix , Hulu, HBOgo, and Xfinity -- only Comcast's Xfinity didn't count against the 250-gigabyte monthly data cap Comcast was imposing on its customers. That seemed to violate at least the spirit of net-neutrality rules, and the FCC said it would look into the matter. Comcast has since abandoned data caps temporarily, and is testing alternative methods of addressing so-called bandwidth hogs. But at first, the company reacted with what many described as supreme disingenuousness. It claimed that because its Xfinity for Microsoft's Xbox service runs on a "private network" that is distinct from the Internet, net-neutrality rules (which demand that ISPs treat all data the same) didn't apply. But in practice, the service is sent into customers' homes via the same pipe as all other Internet traffic, so this didn't fly with critics. Neither did Comcast vice president for video David Cohen's dismissal of the criticism as mere "noise."
benton.org/node/124343 | Fortune
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ANNOUNCEMENT OF MEMBERS ON OPEN INTERNET ADVISORY COMMITTEE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
By this Public Notice, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announces the composition of the
Open Internet Advisory Committee (OIAC). The OIAC’s members include representatives from
community organizations, equipment manufacturers, content and application providers, venture capital
firms, startups, Internet service providers, and Internet governance organizations, as well as professors in
law, computer science, and economics.
The OIAC is a Federal Advisory Committee. Called for by the Commission in the Open Internet Order, its mission is to track and evaluate the effects of the FCC’s Open Internet rules,1 and to provide any recommendations it deems appropriate to the FCC regarding policies and practices related to preserving the open Internet. The OIAC will observe market developments regarding the freedom and openness of the Internet and will focus in particular on issues addressed in the FCC’s Open Internet rules, such as transparency, reasonable network management practices, differences in treatment of fixed and mobile broadband services, specialized services, and technical standards. Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Harvard Kennedy School, Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Co- Founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, will serve as Chair of the OIAC. David Clark, Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, will serve as Vice Chair. Henning Schulzrinne, Chief Technologist of the FCC, and Daniel Kirschner, Counselor to the General Counsel, will work with the OIAC Chair and Vice Chair in developing the work program. Daniel Kirschner will serve as Designated Federal Officer; Deborah Broderson, Legal Advisor, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, will also serve as liaison to the OIAC. The OIAC will announce its first meeting this summer. [Please see more at URL below]
benton.org/node/124359 | Federal Communications Commission
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IS GOOGLE STILL INTO SHARING?
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
It looks like Google is backing off its commitment to an open fiber to the home network. If so, that would be a blow to those hoping to also offer services over Google’s pipe as well as well as put a stop to using the project as an example of what true broadband competition at the physical level can look like. According to my recent conversations with sources, a reading of Google’s blog and evasions by the search giant when I asked about its stance, Google’s not as into sharing as it once was. Soon after Google proposed its fiber to the home project in Kansas City, Kan. one of the product managers announced that other ISPs and services could build on top of the future network to deliver their own services. Additionally, in its first blog posting, it stressed openness saying, “We’ll operate an “open access” network, giving users the choice of multiple service providers.” But in the last few days I’ve heard from a few sources in the fiber community that Google has been continuing to back off its open promises, I asked a Google spokeswoman if Google was still committed to opening up its network. She told me, “We are committed to providing the best product for our customers,” and declined to comment further.
benton.org/node/124348 | GigaOm
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INTERNET DEFENSE LEAGUE
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Deborah Netburn]
Internet defenders, assemble! Months after the success of the virtual protests against the SOPA online piracy bill, the nonprofit group Fight for the Future is forming the Internet Defense League -- an organization of people who support Internet freedom and have pledged to fight for it using whatever powers they have. "The Internet Blackout was just the beginning," the league founders write on a Web page announcing the project. "Together, our websites and personal networks can mobilize the planet to defend the Internet from bad laws and monopolies. Are you in?" Joining up is as simple as entering the URL of your website (or blog, YouTube channel, Twitter stream or Tumblr account) as well as an email address on the Internet Defense League's website. Then in a few weeks you'll get further instructions on how to place a piece of code on your website that will allow the league to alert you when you need to jump into action. That action might be allowing the league to take over your entire site or placing a message in a sidebar. You may be asked to show your readers a streaming video or urge them to contact a congressional representative. For now, the sign that you are needed will look like the bat signal the people of Gotham used to summon Batman, but with a cute cat face. They call it the "cat signal."
benton.org/node/124336 | Los Angeles Times
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CALIFORNIA INTERNET PHONE BILL
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Marc Lifsher]
A controversial bill that would ban state agencies from regulating telephones that use Internet connections passed a California state Senate committee after the measure's author accepted amendments that would strengthen some consumer protections. The proposal by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) is backed by AT&T, Verizon Communications, and cable and high-tech companies. They contend they need "certainty" that the California Public Utilities Commission will not try to oversee the Internet and phone companies that transmit voice signals over fiber optic lines. AT&T was the fifth-largest contributor to Padilla's campaign coffers with $23,900 from 2007 through 2010, according to nonpartisan political data firm MapLight. In all, Padilla received $69,644 from telecommunications services and equipment interests during that period. The suggested amendments, presented by Padilla at a hearing May 24 of the Senate Appropriations Committee, are designed to assuage the fears of PUC members that they'll be stripped of the few powers they still have to protect voice-over-Internet telephone customers. The new wording, which has not been legally drafted, ensures that Padilla's bill "will not be misinterpreted as going back on any existing consumer protection," he said. No changes will occur to laws that require telephone companies to guarantee service anywhere in California, provide subsidized basic services to low-income customers and maintain a 911 emergency network. The latest proposal also would empower PUC staff to take informal actions to resolve consumer complaints about voice-over-Internet billing or quality problems, Padilla said.
benton.org/node/124370 | Wall Street Journal
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PRIVACY
COMMENTS SOUGHT ON PRIVACY AND SECURITY OF INFORMATION STORED ON MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS DEVICES
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
In this Public Notice, the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, and Office of General Counsel jointly solicit comments regarding the privacy and datasecurity practices of mobile wireless service providers with respect to customer information stored on their users’ mobile communications devices, and the application of existing privacy and security requirements to that information. Since the Commission last solicited public input on this question five years ago, technologies and business practices have evolved dramatically. The devices consumers use to access mobile wireless networks have become more sophisticated and powerful, and their expanded capabilities have at times been used by wireless providers to collect information about particular customers’ use of the network -- sometimes, it appears, without informing the customer. Service providers’ collection and use of this information may be a legitimate and effective way to improve the quality of wireless services. At the same time, the collection, transmission, and storage of this customer-specific network information raise new privacy and security concerns.
benton.org/node/124361 | Federal Communications Commission | Wall Street Journal
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LOCATION-BASED SERVICES
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC staff]
A Federal Communications Commission staff report on location-based services (LBS) -- mobile services that combine information about a user’s physical location with online connectivity and are transforming the way Americans work and play. Drawing upon its experience in protecting consumer privacy, FCC staff believes:
LBS have tremendous potential to provide value and foster innovation to benefit the economy and consumers;
LBS industry players face challenges as they attempt to provide consumers with appropriate notice and choice with respect to the use of the data generated by LBS and the devices and networks that host them;
Industry is taking steps to respond to these challenges but the degree of responsiveness varies among companies and industry segments; and
New issues continue to emerge that need to be addressed, timely and responsively.
Consequently, in collaboration with federal partners and industry representatives, FCC staff will continue to monitor industry compliance with applicable statutory requirements and evolving industry best practices to ensure LBS evolves to meet its fullest potential while protecting the legitimate interests of consumers in safeguarding their personally identifiable information.
benton.org/node/124363 | Federal Communications Commission
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CYBERSECURITY
CYBERSECURITY AND THE ELECTRICITY SECTOR
[SOURCE: The White House, AUTHOR: Howard Schmidt]
On May 24, in partnership with industry, we took a step forward in better understanding the capabilities of our power grid and how we can improve our ability to protect it against cybersecurity threats. Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Poneman, Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Jane Lute and I hosted industry executives to conclude the Electricity Sector Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model initiative that we launched in January. This White House initiative has shown encouraging results as a tool to evaluate and strengthen cybersecurity capabilities and enable utilities to prioritize their actions and their cybersecurity investments. From the beginning of this initiative, our industry partners in this effort have been engaged at the executive level, which has made all the difference in how this effort helps raise awareness and institutionalizes processes within utilities and across the sector. I challenge all of the participants to continue the leadership you have demonstrated to continue strengthening cybersecurity capabilities. The model we have created explores ten domains, or categories of capabilities, and helps utilities determine the strength of their capabilities. With a waitlist of utilities eager to employ the model beyond the pilot participants, this model promises to significantly enhance our understanding of cybersecurity capabilities across the sector—a first step to understanding the cybersecurity posture of the grid. This effort will provide us with valuable insights to inform investment planning, research and development, and public-private partnership efforts.
benton.org/node/124347 | White House, The
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JOURNALISM
CHICAGO TRIB PAY WALL
[SOURCE: Crain’s Chicago Business, AUTHOR: Lynne Marek]
The Chicago Tribune is mulling a plan to charge online readers premiums for different kinds of content, a structure similar to the fee it charges for the print literary magazine it introduced this year. The city's largest newspaper is charting an unusual path as it aims to start charging online readers as early as July, although the details and timing are still in flux, according to sources. The Chicago Sun-Times started charging online readers in December. Crain's Chicago Business will introduce a metered subscription plan in June. While most newspapers have rolled out online metered systems that ask readers to pay for general access after viewing a certain number of pages free, the Tribune's approach would put a price tag on extra coverage in a particular area, such as sports, entertainment or literary news. The paper's experiment comes as the industry wrestles with declining print subscriptions and ad revenue and as its parent company seeks to exit bankruptcy. “The idea that there are some niches that some people would pay extra to get more is viable,” says Rich Gordon, a journalism professor at Northwestern University. “The question is, how many niches are there and how big are they?”
benton.org/node/124338 | Crain’s Chicago Business
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OWNERSHIP
FACEBOOK IPO
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Hayley Tsukayama]
A week after Facebook shares made their debut, the details of what went wrong with the sale are still unclear. Facebook is under fire for misjudging demand and pricing the stock too aggressively. Morgan Stanley, the lead IPO underwriter, has been accused of lowering its price estimates at the last minute but only sharing the information with select clients. Technical glitches on the Nasdaq exchange confused investors, who didn’t know the status of their bids. On May 24, during a conference call with its brokers, Morgan Stanley said it would review its orders from the stock’s opening day and compensate investors who overpaid, the Associated Press reported. But the firm hasn’t addressed the more disturbing charge that it withheld information from the public that it may have been required to reveal under U.S. securities law. The outrage from individual shareholders has manifested itself in numerous lawsuits.
benton.org/node/124373 | Washington Post
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BUFFETT HANDS-OFF NEWSPAPERS
[SOURCE: Omaha World-Herald, AUTHOR: Steve Jordan]
Warren Buffett has pledged a “hands-off” policy at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. newspapers and called for their editors and publishers to make their papers indispensable to anyone who cares about their city or town. “You should treat public policy issues just as you have in the past,” he wrote in a letter e-mailed Wednesday to publishers and editors of the daily newspapers that Berkshire owns and those it plans to buy from Media General. “I have some strong political views, but Berkshire owns the paper I don’t. And Berkshire will always be non-political,” he wrote. Buffett said he does not use Berkshire’s resources to speak on behalf of the company’s 600,000-plus shareholders. “I am 81, and many of you will outlive me as an employee of Berkshire,” he wrote. “But I am sure my successors will follow the ideas I am laying out in this letter. (Indeed, letting them know of this hands-off principle is a secondary reason for my writing this letter.)”
He also noted, “Berkshire buys for keeps.”
benton.org/node/124335 | Omaha World-Herald
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COOK IN WASHINGTON
[SOURCE: Fortune, AUTHOR: Tory Newmyer]
Apple CEO Tim Cook got barely any notice when he slipped into the Capitol for a handful of meetings with Congressional leaders. The low-key visit was in keeping with the company's traditional approach to Washington. But the fact that Cook visited at all signals a subtle but significant pivot for the outfit inside the Beltway. For years, Apple has hewed to a studiously hands-off lobbying strategy, flowing from co-founder and longtime CEO Steve Jobs' aversion to tangling with the policymaking process. As his successor begins to put his own imprint on the company, however, Cook wants key players in Washington to know they now have an open line to the chief executive in Cupertino. That was the message aides briefed on the meetings said Cook conveyed in sit-downs with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Cook didn't connect with the top House Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, who hails from neighboring San Francisco, because she was traveling back from an official trip to Afghanistan when he made his rounds. The huddles were brief and largely introductory.
benton.org/node/124339 | Fortune
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POLICYMAKERS
FCC GENERAL
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced that Austin Schlick will step down as General Counsel, effective mid-June. Sean Lev, currently Deputy General Counsel and Special Advisor to the Chairman, will become General Counsel.
Lev came to the FCC from the Department of Energy (DOE), where he served as the Acting General Counsel and Deputy General Counsel for Environment and Nuclear Programs. Before joining DOE in June 2009, Mr. Lev was a partner at Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, where his practice focused on telecommunications, administrative law, and appellate and general litigation. He was also an attorney on the Appellate Staff in the Civil Division at the United States Department of Justice. Prior to his service at DOJ, Mr. Lev clerked for the Honorable Patricia M. Wald of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was a Supervising Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He is also a magna cum laude graduate of Williams College.
benton.org/node/124364 | Federal Communications Commission
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
CHINESE BLOGGERS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Wines]
One of China’s largest hosts of Twitter-like microblogs decreed new punishments for users who post comments that its editors — and by extension, China’s government censors — deem inappropriate. The service, Sina Weibo, imposed “user contracts” that award each of its 300 million microbloggers a starting score of 80 points. Points can be deducted for online comments that are judged to be offensive. When a blogger reaches zero, the service stated, a user’s account will be canceled. Users who suffer lesser penalties can restore their 80 points by avoiding violations for two months. Deductions will cover a wide range of sins, including spreading rumors, calling for protests, promoting cults or superstitions and impugning China’s honor, the service stated. Most notably, the contracts also will punish time-honored tactics that bloggers have used to avoid censorship, like disguising comments on censored topics by using homonyms (where two different Chinese characters have nearly identical sounds), puns and other dodges.
benton.org/node/124395 | New York Times
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BLAIR TESTIMONY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: John Burns, Alan Cowell]
It has been 15 years since Tony Blair entered office as the most popular British prime minister in modern memory, and five years since he left the job in a climate of opprobrium so dire that he opted to virtually disappear from his country’s public life, turning to a life as a richly rewarded world traveler, diplomat and consultant. But if there has been something Nixonian about him, a man fallen from grace at home yet still widely celebrated abroad, Blair marked a comeback of a kind on May 28. Before a judicial inquiry that is examining Rupert Murdoch’s decades of what some saw as shadowy power over the country’s politicians, he rolled out a new model of himself, Tony Blair as the 60-ish, above-the-fray, unflappable elder statesmen. Along the way, Blair, 59, sought to take some of the heat out of the furor surrounding Murdoch, saying that despite bestowing his British newspapers’ backing on the Labour Party before Blair’s breakthrough election in 1997, the media tycoon had never sought to lobby him on issues that affected the commercial success of the Murdoch properties in Britain. Moreover, Blair said, the newspapers’ backing remained steady through two more Labour election victories, although Labour “decided more often against than in favor” on regulatory matters affecting Murdoch’s companies.
benton.org/node/124393 | New York Times | Wall Street Journal
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FLAME
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Nicole Perlroth]
A complex computer virus has been pilfering confidential information from computers in the Middle East for at least two years, according to a security report. The virus, called Flame, has been infecting computers in Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It has been grabbing images of users’ computer screens, recording their instant messaging chats, remotely turning on their microphones to record their audio conversations and monitoring their keystrokes and network traffic, according to a report by Kaspersky Labs, a Moscow-based security research firm. If the report’s findings prove to be true, Flame would be the third major Internet weapon to have been discovered since 2010. The first, named Stuxnet, was intended to attack software in specialized industrial equipment, and was used to destroy centrifuges in an Iranian nuclear facility in 2010. The second virus, called Duqu, like Flame, performed reconnaissance. Security researchers believe Duqu was created by the same group of programmers behind Stuxnet.
benton.org/node/124391 | New York Times
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EU DECISION ON HUAEWEI AND ZTE
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Joshua Chaffin]
The European Union is poised to launch one of its biggest trade cases against China in a generation after telling member states it has compiled firm evidence that Beijing’s telecommunications equipment companies have benefited from illegal state subsidies. The European Commission has been piecing together the case for months, according to several officials and executives briefed on the case, focusing on the activities of two Chinese makers of mobile network equipment, Huawei and ZTE. EU officials informed representatives from the bloc’s 27 member states at a closed-door meeting they believed the commission had “very solid evidence” that those companies benefited from illegal government subsidies and had sold products in the EU below cost, a practice known as “dumping.”
benton.org/node/124389 | Financial Times
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UK AND PRIVACY
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Heather Smith]
Google may face further action by a British privacy regulator for gathering personal data, after the agency reviews findings by a US investigation. The Information Commissioner’s Office is studying the Federal Communications Commission’s report on data gathering by Google for Street View “to consider what further action, if any, needs to be taken,” the UK watchdog said. While Street View cars photograph buildings and homes to provide street-level mapping to Google users, they went beyond that to using wireless connections to gather people’s personal communications.
benton.org/node/124365 | Bloomberg
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