August 2012

CYBERSECURITY

CYBERSECURITY FAILS IN SENATE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Ramsey Cox, Jennifer Martinez]
The long battle for cybersecurity legislation ended August 2 as the Senate failed to pass a motion to end debate on the bill. The Cybersecurity Act, introduced by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), was rejected on a 52-46 vote — 60 votes were required to move forward with the legislation. The bill's collapse likely kills any legislative action on cybersecurity this year, punting efforts to 2013. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said the bill was critical for the nation’s security, but the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce objected to the bill. “We know how important this legislation is, we know it’s more important than getting a pat on the back from Chamber of Commerce,” Sen Reid said before the vote. “That’s why Republicans are running like a pack of scared cats.” “I am disappointed, perplexed and somewhat confused about how the Republicans want to proceed,” Sen Reid said. “Clearly they won’t until they have a sign-off from Chamber of Commerce.”
In a statement released shortly after the vote, White House press secretary Jay Carney criticized Republican opposition to the bill and called Congress's stalemate on cybersecurity "a profound disappointment."
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and the co-sponsors of the legislation said they are hopeful that the bill can be revived after the August recess despite the long odds against it.
benton.org/node/131430 | Hill, The | The Hill – Reid | The Hill – White House | White House | ars technica | NYTimes | B&C – Rockefeller | The Hill – another chance? | Washington Post | Politico
Recommend this Headline
back to top

DEATH OF CYBER BILL
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Steve Friess]
Over the last three years savvy business interests managed to water down a bill to beef up America's cybersecurity – and then Aug 2 it drowned. Key industries played one chamber against the other and one party against the other, knowing precisely where to toss their monkey wrenches. What they did not do: race to self-regulate to appease Congress the way industries in the crosshairs usually do — a sign that they believed they'd win in the end. A powerful coalition of industries — energy, financial services, technology and others — saw trouble brewing in the Senate, where a tough bill would have forced new digital standards at power plants, water systems and other key sites. So they turned to the House, where a friendly Republican majority passed a bill with voluntary new rules. Eventually the Senate followed suit with voluntary rules of its own. But then the Chamber of Commerce swooped in and said even the voluntary standards were too heavy-handed.
benton.org/node/131458 | Politico
Recommend this Headline
back to top

MORE ON INTERNET/BROADBAND

HOUSE OKs INTERNET RESOLUTION
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The House voted to approve H. Con. Res. 127, the "sense of the House" resolution backing a multistakeholder model of Internet governance. The resolution does not have the force of law, but instead indicates Congress' support of that model. Both Republicans and Democrats are concerned that at an upcoming treaty conference in Dubai in December -- the World Conference on International Telecommunications -- some of the 193 members, led by Russia and China, will attempt to extend ITU's oversight of international phone traffic to Internet traffic.
benton.org/node/131446 | Broadcasting&Cable | National Journal
Recommend this Headline
back to top

BANDWIDTH GETTING CHEAPER
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
IP transit costs are down, which means it costs less to stream bits from Netflix, Google and any other web traffic across the ocean and major land masses. According to new data from TeleGeography, the prices are not only dropping, but are doing so more rapidly from the second quarter in 2011 to the second quarter in 2012. Telegeography doesn’t explain why this occurring, but a rash of new investment and new transit routes coming online in the last year are probably helping drive down costs. For example the cost of a 10GigE port in London has dropped 57 percent to $3.13 per Mbps while the same ports in New York City have dropped 50 percent year over year to $3.50 per megabit. And Telegeography says that in few places in the world does transit cost more than $100 per megabit.
benton.org/node/131414 | GigaOm
Recommend this Headline
back to top

PRIVATE/PUBLIC PARTNERSHIPS
[SOURCE: Forbes, AUTHOR: Andrew Seybold]
Companies providing broadband services that can strike a deal with a city that already has or is planning fiber within the city will save on the huge upfront costs of providing faster and more robust Internet access, voice, and TV services, and will, therefore, enjoy larger profits. As wireless operators continue to roll out fourth-generation wireless services, they have to run fiber to each cell site within a city, an expensive project that is usually the roadblock to bringing wireless fourth-generation services up and running in a given area. Here again, private/public partnerships could speed up this process while providing still more ongoing revenue for a city. The impact for telephone, cable, and other companies could be substantial by helping reduce capital and operational expenses, and provide greater profits more quickly. Private/public partnerships is an idea whose time has come, not only in rural America, but in urban areas as well. The technology to make this happen has been around for a long time. The stumbling block for private companies, especially those that compete head-to-head in a given marketplace, is the upfront cost of deploying the technology and the uncertainty of how many paying subscribers they can win over to pay for the system. Seattle has one answer in leasing its fiber capacity, and Google seems to have hit on another by pre-selling neighborhoods before building, a process Google calls building a “fiberhood.” It is time to take a close look at these types of partnerships and to put them into place.
benton.org/node/131403 | Forbes
Recommend this Headline
back to top

ONLINE GAMBLING
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Cooper]
Cash-hungry states have long tried to poach business from one another. Now many are stepping up their efforts to lure gamblers from their neighbors to their growing ranks of slot machines, leaving states like Delaware, which embraced gambling early, struggling to keep up in what has become a feverish one-armed-bandit arms race. The rapid expansion of gambling, as recession-racked states have searched for new sources of money, has transformed the industry. States that once enjoyed near-monopolies on gambling — including Delaware, which legalized slotlike machines at its racetracks in 1994, and New Jersey, which opened the nation’s first casinos outside of Nevada in 1978 — have been suffering the most in the new casino-dotted national landscape. Gov. Jack Markell (D-DE) signed a law that could make Delaware the first state to offer Internet gambling — giving its residents the chance to bet on video lottery games and online versions of games like poker, blackjack and roulette without leaving their homes.
benton.org/node/131471 | New York Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top

EMPHASIS SHIFTING TO BROADBAND
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Shalini Ramachandran]
The two largest cable operators are looking to an unlikely source of inspiration: Google Fiber, their newest formidable competitor. Time Warner Cable Chief Executive Glenn Britt and Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts separately said this week they see Google's nascent one-gigabit communications network in Kansas City as a "laboratory" for encouraging new Internet services that will drive the adoption of faster broadband tiers -- ultimately benefiting their own businesses too. Britt described Google's service as exploring "what we could do as a society with more bandwidth," which is "a good thing, not a bad thing" for business. "We are constantly hoping that new applications and needs develop" for broadband, Roberts said as the largest cable operator reported higher second-quarter profits, also driven by broadband adoption. It will be a "positive development if we can help that happen and if Google can be part of making that happen," he said. At a time of slowing growth in the video business due to a mature pay-TV market and fierce competition from phone and satellite companies, broadband has become the main engine of growth for cable companies. Broadband is a high-margin business compared to video, where profits are squeezed by the ever-increasing programming costs cable operators must pay entertainment companies in order to carry their TV channels.
benton.org/node/131466 | Wall Street Journal
Recommend this Headline
back to top

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

AT&T’S THREE DEALS
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Paul Taylor]
AT&T is to acquire spectrum from three companies including NextWave Wireless, which it will acquire for $600 million in cash. According to Federal Communications Commission filings, AT&T has applied for approval to acquire additional spectrum from Comcast, the US cable TV operator, and from Horizon Wi-Com, a small Miami-based mobile broadband company. The acquisition price of NextWave, a wireless spectrum holding company, includes $25 million for its shares and an additional $25 million if certain conditions are met. NextWave, which was spun out from Qualcomm in 1995 and at one stage filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, holds licenses in the Wireless Communication Services and Advanced Wireless Service bands.
WCS spectrum was first auctioned in 1997, but has not been used for mobile data because of government restrictions designed to avoid possible interference with satellite radio transmissions in adjacent spectrum bands. In June, AT&T and Sirius XM, the US satellite radio operator, filed a joint proposal with the FCC that the two companies argue would enable the spectrum to be used for mobile internet services while protecting the adjacent satellite radio spectrum from interference. The FCC is reviewing that proposal. If approved, the company said it would begin initial deployment of WCS spectrum for added 4G LTE capacity in approximately three years.
benton.org/node/131464 | Financial Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top

AT&T BUYS NEXTWAVE
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kevin Fitchard]
AT&T may have just solved the problems that have plagued its Wireless Communications Services (WCS) spectrum, rendering the airwaves worthless since they were first auctioned in 1997. It plans to acquire NextWave Wireless, the next largest holder of WCS licenses, which would remove the primary obstacle to turning those 2.3 GHz airwaves into a viable 4G band. AT&T will pay $25 million for the spectrum plus a possible contingent payment of up to $25 million, which is paltry. But in a separate deal with shareholders it has agreed to take over NextWave’s $600 $550 million in debt. In exchange AT&T will get WCS licenses covering 210 million people. To understand the implications of the deal, you first have understand why WCS is such a problematic band.
benton.org/node/131429 | GigaOm | WSJ | ars technica
Recommend this Headline
back to top

MOBILE PHONE PROBLEMS
[SOURCE: Pew Internet & American Life Project, AUTHOR: Jan Lauren Boyles, Lee Rainie]
Even though mobile technology often simplifies the completion of everyday tasks, cell phone owners can also encounter technical glitches and unwanted intrusions on their phones. In an April 2012 survey, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project assessed the prevalence of four problems that cell owners might face. Some 88% of American adults have cell phones, according to this survey, and, of those cell owners:
72% of cell owners experience dropped calls at least occasionally. Some 32% of cell owners say they encounter this problem at least a few times a week or more frequently than that.
68% of cell owners receive unwanted sales or marketing calls at one time or another. And 25% of cell owners encounter this problem at least a few times a week or more frequently.
Some 79% of cell phone owners say they use text messaging on their cells. We asked them if they got spam or unwanted texts:
69% of those who are texters say they get unwanted spam or text messages. Of those texters, 25% face problems with spam/unwanted texts at least weekly.
Some 55% of cell phone owners say they use their phones to go online— to browse the internet, exchange emails, or download apps. We asked them if they experience slow download speeds that prevent things from loading as quickly as they would like:
77% of cell internet users say they experience slow download speeds that prevent things from loading as quickly as they would like. Of those cell internet users, 46% face slow download speeds weekly or more frequently.
benton.org/node/131406 | Pew Internet & American Life Project | MediaPost
Recommend this Headline
back to top

WAR FOR MOBILE
[SOURCE: Fortune, AUTHOR: Don Reisinger]
The mobile market seems to be all anybody ever talks about these days. Consumers have more smartphones and tablets to choose from every day. For the vendors, however, it's not all fun and games. For every Apple, there is a Nokia. And for every Google Android, there's a Symbian. There are, in other words, haves and have-nots. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the smartphone market. Back in May, research firm Asymco released a study it conducted on smartphone market operating profits spanning the second quarter of 2007 to now. And what the company found was shocking: Out of the $14.4 billion in operating profits generated in the fourth quarter, Apple made 73% of them. Samsung, its chief competitor, nabbed 26%. The remaining 1% -- a mere $144 million -- went to HTC. It was a much different story back in 2007, when Nokia owned well over half of the smartphone market's operating profits. RIM, LG, and Sony Ericsson were also doing well. Now, they've lost it all.
benton.org/node/131405 | Fortune
Recommend this Headline
back to top

WHY AREN’T PREPAID PLANS MORE POPULAR?
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Chen]
Prepaid phone plans, where you pay the full price for a cellphone and then pay lower monthly rates without a contract, seem to offer what most budget-conscious people want. So why haven’t they really caught on? The bait that reels most people into more expensive contracts is the subsidized price of a phone, said Tero Kuittinen, an independent analyst and a vice president of Alekstra, a company that helps customers manage their cellphone bills. “Right now, consumers don’t do the math, and they have a lot of resistance to paying $500 to $600 upfront, and they’d rather pay $100 upfront and then overspend,” he said. “That psychology has worked for hundreds of years, and it’s still working.” There are less obvious reasons, too. Another factor is that carriers aren’t marketing prepaid plans as heavily because they want more customers on contract plans. Finally, until recently, prepaid phone companies haven’t offered handsets that are as compelling as the ones you can get with a contract. Only in the last few months did the iPhone and some big Android phones become available through prepaid phone companies.
benton.org/node/131420 | New York Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top

APPLE-SAMSUNG MOTION
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: John Paczkowski]
Apple has asked the federal court judge presiding over its patent infringement case against Samsung to rule in its favor, after the South Korean company’s legal team publicly released evidence that had been excluded from trial. That evidence was pulled together in support of Samsung’s argument that Apple derived the original design of the iPhone from Sony — an argument excluded from the case because Samsung didn’t disclose it until after the discovery phase of the trial concluded. In a filing to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Apple said the court should sanction Samsung by ruling that the patents at issue in the case are valid and infringed by Samsung. And if the court declines to do so, it should at the very least instruct the jury that Samsung has engaged in “serious misconduct,” and bar the company from any further mention of its “Sony style” argument in court. Apple, in its motion for sanctions, argues that Samsung’s broadcast of excluded evidence is not only a clear attempt to prejudice the jury, but part of an emerging pattern of misconduct. From Apple’s perspective, Samsung’s release of excluded evidence at a time when the jury will be away from Court for two days, was not only a clear attempt to prejudice the jury but a gambit for a mistrial. But Apple has no plans to request a mistrial. To do so, the company argues, would be to reward Samsung’s misconduct.
benton.org/node/131427 | Wall Street Journal
Recommend this Headline
back to top

BOSTON VS VERIZON-SPECTRUMCO
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
In a letter this week to Attorney General Eric Holder, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said the city believes that Verizon's proposed purchase of wireless spectrum from cable operators and associated cross-marketing agreements are anticompetitive, not in the public interest and unlawful. In a separate letter, he asked Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley to oppose the transaction as well. Boston already filed comments opposing the deal, but in the letter to AG Holder emphasizes that Mayor Menino is concerned the deal will mean that Verizon and Comcast will "never compete" in Boston, "thereby effectively depriving our community, citizens, small businesses, schools, hospitals and educational facilities the benefits of video and broadband competition." To allow the deal, said Menino, would be to leave Boston "permanently on the wrong side of the digital divide."
benton.org/node/131418 | Broadcasting&Cable
Recommend this Headline
back to top

LICENSED SPECTRUM VS SHARED SPECTRUM
[SOURCE: AT&T, AUTHOR: Joan Marsh]
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, or PCAST, recently released a Report on “Realizing the Full Potential of Government-Held Spectrum to Spur Economic Growth.” The Report found that the new norm for spectrum use should be sharing, not exclusive licensing. While we agree that sharing paradigms should be explored as another option for spectrum management, sharing technologies have been long promised but remain largely unproven. The over-eager pursuit of unlicensed sharing models cannot turn a blind eye on the model proven to deliver investment, innovation, and jobs – exclusive licensing. Industry and government alike must continue with the hard work of clearing and licensing under-utilized government spectrum where feasible. On that point, we were heartened by statements made by Tom Power, White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Telecommunications, in the days following the Report, clarifying that the Administration has not given up on making parts of 1755-1850 MHz, which he called “this most appealing of spectrum,” available for exclusive commercial use.
benton.org/node/131402 | AT&T
Recommend this Headline
back to top

SPRINT SUBPOENA
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Lauren Pollock]
Sprint Nextel received a subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with its probe over the wireless carrier's collection of state and local taxes. The SEC's investigation follows a suit filed against Sprint by New York's attorney general in April, seeking $300 million for the carrier's alleged failure to pay sales taxes due on some of its wireless plans over the past seven years. At issue is exactly what proportion of a flat-rate calling plan can be taxed by the state where the customer lives. Sprint's position is that New York can only tax calls that start and end in the state. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, however, said state law requires cellphone companies to collect and pay sales taxes on the full amount of their monthly charges.
benton.org/node/131449 | Wall Street Journal
Recommend this Headline
back to top

ELECTIONS AND MEDIA

REVIWING POLITICAL AD FILES
[SOURCE: AdWeek, AUTHOR: Katy Bachman]
Public interest groups are practically salivating that starting August 2, television stations will have to begin posting online their political disclosure files containing information about who is spending what in the 2012 election. And they're organizing to take full advantage of the more easily-available information. Since Citizens United, groups like Free Press have been apoplectic about the onslaught of Super PACs flooding the airwaves during the lead-up to the November election, pushing political spending to new records. Now, with 95 days before the country heads to the polls, advocates for more transparency in political spending are taking some comfort in the FCC's new rule, which takes effect on Aug. 2. But don't get too excited. The files that will be available will be in PDF form, meaning it will take a lot of work to make some real sense of the spending. Plus, for starters, the FCC is only requiring the four network TV affiliates in the top 50 markets to post. That means no files for Hispanic stations, which in markets such as Los Angeles and Phoenix, the Spanish-language newscast is the top-rated newscast in the U.S. And ads placed prior to Aug. 2, don't have to be posted for another six months.
benton.org/node/131424 | AdWeek
Recommend this Headline
back to top

ONLINE PUBLIC INSPECTION FILE INTERFACE NOW AVAILABLE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
Starting August 2, all full-power television broadcasters will begin to upload new public inspection file documents to the Federal Communications Commission’s online public inspection file site, where the public will be able to access them. The interface for the site has been developed to vastly improve the accessibility of stations’ public files and to minimize the burden on broadcasters in providing them. The new site and interface implement the decision in the FCC’s recent Report & Order requiring television broadcast stations to post their public inspection files online in a central, Commission-hosted database.
Except for the political file, broadcasters will upload public file documents that are generated on and after August 2, but they will have six months after August 2 to upload public file documents that were in their public file prior to August 2. In the case of the political file, only broadcasters affiliated with the top four national TV networks in the top 50 television markets (Designated Market Areas or DMAs) are required to upload their political files, and only public file documents generated on and after August 2 need be uploaded. Those affiliated stations are not required to upload any political file documents generated prior to August 2. All other stations will, for now, maintain their political files at their stations. These stations will begin uploading their political files to the Commission’s online site on July 1, 2014. A list of the elements of the public inspection file may be found in the text at the site, along with brief explanations of each. Please note that there are a few exceptions to the uploading obligation, such as emails and letters from the public and certain documents related to Commission investigations.
benton.org/node/131422 | Federal Communications Commission
Recommend this Headline
back to top

GORE-ING OF ROMNEY
[SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Brendan Nyhan]
The profane confrontation between one of Mitt Romney’s press aides and reporters at the end of the presumptive GOP nominee’s difficult overseas trip has brought new attention to the way the 2012 race is being covered in the press—in particular, the media’s embarrassing gaffe obsession and the incentives it provides for campaigns to place ever-greater limitations on access to their candidates in unscripted settings. This dynamic has been especially pathological for Romney. While the gaffe patrol isn’t the only reason that the presidential campaigns are placing such tight limitations on the press, any discussion of those issues should acknowledge the role that the media’s seeming hostility toward Romney is playing in the coverage and in the access restrictions that have been imposed by his campaign.
benton.org/node/131400 | Columbia Journalism Review
Recommend this Headline
back to top

RADIO/TV

CPB GRANT FOR NPR DIVERSITY
[SOURCE: Corporation for Public Broadcasting, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced its intention to award a $1.5 million grant to National Public Radio to launch a major on-air and digital journalism initiative to increase the number of journalists from a diverse pool of candidates and help expand public media’s service to increasingly diverse communities. CPB announced the grant at the UNITY 2012 Convention, a gathering of media professionals from across the country. The two-year grant from CPB will help NPR create a diverse team of journalists that will build a digital service for stories that connect to Americans today – whatever their age, race, economic background or geographic location. The initiative will be guided by a senior online journalist who will oversee the creation and curation of original content each day. The reporting team will provide deep coverage of local communities around the country, the issues that affect them and the people of many backgrounds and opinions who make these communities unique. The new grant builds on the success of the CPB/Knight Foundation-funded Project Argo that helped NPR serve new broadcast and online audiences by focusing on a defined content subject.
The original content created by this new initiative will be optimized for all platforms. It will reach an audience that is younger and more racially and ethnically diverse than traditional radio listeners, through websites, on tablets, and through an array of mobile devices. In addition, the team will work closely with NPR editors to incorporate the stories into NPR’s national news programs, infusing new perspectives and sources throughout the network’s daily coverage.
benton.org/node/131419 | Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Recommend this Headline
back to top

SHRINKING PAY-TV MARKET?
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Yinka Adegoke]
Stubbornly high U.S. unemployment, a weak housing market combined with a mature business prone to regular programming blackouts has seen more than 400,000 American homes drop their pay-TV service since the start of the year. DirecTV, the No. 1 U.S. satellite TV provider, revealed its first ever quarterly customer losses, with some 52,000 homes dropping the service in the second quarter. That was more than analysts expected from a company long seen as the best run video provider in the industry. Time Warner Cable, the No. 2 cable provider, said it lost more subscribers than analysts expected with 169,000 customers leaving the service. While a small percentage of Time Warner Cable company's 12.3 million total customers, this is a 10th straight quarter of customer losses. "Basic video subscriber losses aren't getting better," said Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett of Time Warner Cable. He said in a client note that the company had done all right overall but "it is hard to shake the perception of an opportunity lost." The biggest U.S. TV distributor, Comcast, lost 176,000 video subscribers, which was considered an improvement as the rate of losses was better than recent quarters. Of the big four distributors, Dish Network, the other major satellite provider, said it lost just 10,000 subscribers, also considered an improvement. The newer entrants to the TV market -- Verizon Communications' FiOS TV and AT&T's U-verse -- added 275,000 customers during the quarter.
Peter Kafka of the Wall Street Journal counters: If you want to evaluate the state of the pay TV business, you have to include the results from the telco guys, who have been taking share from the cable and satellite guys. And you have to look at numbers for the whole year, not a single quarter. Once you do that, you end up with numbers that are basically flat, give or take a few thousand subscribers. You can argue that the pay TV industry’s no-growth or barely-there growth is due to a weak economy and lousy household formation numbers. Or you can argue that it’s because people really are swapping out pay TV for Netflix, Apple TV, etc. Or a mix of both, or whatever. But for now, at least, you can’t argue that the pay TV industry is shrinking.
benton.org/node/131465 | Reuters | Wall Street Journal
Recommend this Headline
back to top

PRIVACY

AUGUST AGENDA INCLUDES PRIVACY
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] On August 1, the Federal Trade Commission proposed to update the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule. Currently, sites aimed at children are required by law to ask a parent’s permission when collecting personal identifiable information such as e-mail addresses and names. But vague language in the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) could allow so-called third parties like Facebook and Twitter, whose services are attached to numerous smartphone games, to avoid the parental consent process. The FTC action this week is not the only development in the privacy arena. Also on August 1, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration provided more detail on the ongoing privacy multistakeholder process regarding mobile application transparency.
http://benton.org/node/131379
back to top

JOURNALISM

DIVERSITY IN JOURNALISM
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Tanzina Vega]
Nearly every four years since the mid-1990s, hundreds of journalists like those gathering in Las Vegas this week have come together under the banner of “Unity: Journalists of Color,” a nod toward the conference’s efforts to increase the number of minorities in newsrooms across the country. But for the first time, the National Association of Black Journalists, once a cornerstone of the event, is missing, having withdrawn from the conference and its parent organization amid a disagreement over finances. And a new group, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, is attending, bringing not only new faces to the event, but a new name: “Unity Journalists.” The name change comes as the number of minority journalists in American newsrooms is in decline — total newsroom employment at daily newspapers fell by 2.4 percent in 2011, according to the American Society of News Editors, while minority employment declined by 5.7 percent — and it has caused mixed feelings among some journalists who belong to the member groups. It also has raised questions about Unity’s decision to broaden its efforts to improve newsroom representation by including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender journalists, as well as racial and ethnic minority journalists.
benton.org/node/131469 | New York Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top

HEALTH

ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Chad Terhune]
Dozens of hospitals across the country lost access to crucial electronic medical records for about five hours during a major computer outage last week, raising fresh concerns about whether poorly designed technology can compromise patient care. Cerner Corp., a leading supplier of electronic health records to hospitals and doctors, said "human error" caused the outage July 23 that it said affected an unspecified number of hospitals that rely on the company to remotely store their medical information. Last week's episode highlighted some of the risks as hospitals and doctors' offices nationwide undergo a massive upgrade in the way they handle medical records. As part of the 2009 economic stimulus, the Obama administration is spending more than $27 billion to speed the switch to computerized patient records.
benton.org/node/131447 | Los Angeles Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top

POLICYMAKERS

RAND PAUL ON TECH
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a Tea Party favorite, appears to be trying to play a more assertive role in tech issues on Capitol Hill, indicating during a speech that his free-market views on most issues extend to tech as well. Speaking before the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, Sen Paul touched on many hot-button tech issues including cybersecurity, Internet regulation, privacy and piracy. He indicated that while he may support the importance of for example protecting intellectual property rights, he opposes heavy-handed government intervention. The speech was billed as a discussion of Internet freedom, but Rand discussed a wide range of issues including cybersecurity, which the Senate debated this week. He said he does not favor legislation that would impose a lot of government mandates, saying passing a law won't necessary prevent every cyber threat. "We may pass an immense cybersecurity bill, and something may still happen," Sen Paul said. However, he said he would support providing companies with an antitrust exemption so they can share information and also would back allowing government agencies to share some cyber-security information with the private sector.
benton.org/node/131415 | National Journal | The Hill
Recommend this Headline
back to top

COMPANY NEWS

FACEBOOK DUPLICATES AND FAKES
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Andrea Chang]
More than 83 million Facebook accounts are estimated to be duplicates or fakes, the social networking giant said in a regulatory filing this week. In the filing, Facebook said there are “inherent challenges in measuring usage of our products across large online and mobile populations around the world.” The company said there may be people who maintain more than one Facebook account, a violation of its terms of service. It estimates that duplicate accounts represent about 4.8% of its 955 million monthly active users as of June 30, which amounts to about 45.84 million accounts. Facebook also said it seeks to identify “false” accounts, which can be divided into two categories: user-misclassified accounts (such as personal profiles for pets or businesses) or undesirable accounts, which represent user profiles that appear to be intended for improper uses (such as spamming). Facebook estimated that user-misclassified accounts represent about 2.4% of its monthly active users (22.92 million), and undesirable accounts represent about 1.5% (14.325 million).
benton.org/node/131425 | Los Angeles Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top

ACCESSIBILITY

CELEBRATING ADA
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Karen Peltz Strauss]
I was honored to represent the Federal Communications Commission at the White House’s observation of the Americans with Disabilities Act’s (ADA) 22nd anniversary. The Commission joins the White House in celebrating the progress that the ADA and other nondiscrimination laws have made in creating new opportunities for people with disabilities to have access to, among other things, jobs, health care, communication, education, and transportation. My remarks at the event highlighted 4 areas of accomplishment by the Commission:
Adoption of rules (in April 2011) and the launching (on July 1, 2012) of the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program, which sets aside $10 million annually from the Telecommunications Relay Service Fund for the nationwide distribution of communications equipment to low income people who are deaf-blind.
Adoption of rules (in August 2011) requiring video description to be provided on approximately 4 hours of prime time or children’s television programming each week by local TV station affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC in the top 25 TV markets, as well as on the top 5 non-broadcast networks, i.e., Disney, Nickelodeon, TBS, TNT, and USA. These rules went into effect on July 1, 2012.
Adoption of rules (in October 2011) requiring advanced communications services (such as e-mail, instant messaging, and VoIP communications services) and the products used with those services to be accessible to people with disabilities. These rules go into effect in October of 2013.
Adoption of rules (in January 2012) that require closed captioned television programs to retain those captions when these are re-shown via Internet protocol. The implementation schedule for these rules begins September 30, 2012.
[Karen Peltz Strauss, Deputy Bureau Chief, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau]
benton.org/node/131462 | Federal Communications Commission
Recommend this Headline
back to top

STORIES FROM ABROAD

UK BROADBAND DELAY
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Daniel Thomas]
A key target for the UK government’s rollout of superfast broadband will be missed this year, raising doubts about ambitions to build a national high-speed network by 2015. Superfast broadband has been put at the top of the digital agenda by the coalition, with a target to become the most advanced in Europe in three years. Access to high-speed internet networks is seen as an economic and social catalyst, in particular for those working and living in more remote areas. However, in a week that saw government strategy criticized by the House of Lords for its overemphasis on speed to the detriment of coverage, the Financial Times has learnt that the timetable for local authorities seeking to use the government procurement process for rural broadband projects has been set back by three months at least. Furthermore, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport website shows that close to 30 of the 45 local authority and devolved areas covering the UK have not yet begun procurement and those with knowledge of the process have said that the delay could be longer, given the time it takes to tender contracts to private sector suppliers.
benton.org/node/131456 | Financial Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top

Benton

Search

Benton

Daily Digest

Analysis

August 2012

Senate Confirms Four Nominees to Privacy & Civil Liberties Board

Fast Facts on United States Submitting Initial Proposals to World Telecom Conference

Initial Input into the International Telecommunication Union's World Conference on International Telecommunications

Dr. Rev. Everett C. Parker: The Communication Industry’s Quintessential Fighter for Diversity

Study Reveals a Confused View of Mobile Phone Privacy and Security

After Settling for $1.25 Million, Does Verizon Still Charge for Tethering?

Little Public Awareness of Outside Campaign Spending Boom

Press Freedom Leads to Happiness, Environmental Quality, MU Study Finds

Headlines will return TUESDAY, August 7.

August 3, 2012 (Cybersecurity Act fails Senate vote)