November 2012

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

PUBLIC OFFICIALS EMBRACE SOCIAL MEDIA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter, Jennifer Preston]
With Hurricane Sandy, public officials and government agencies have embraced social media to a greater degree than ever. For proof, look no further than the Twitter feed of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York: 400 messages on Oct 30, 300 on Oct 31 and well over 100 on Nov 1, featuring everything from photos of storm surge damage to updates on power restoration. It is usually Cuomo’s aides, not the governor, typing the messages. But he and his staff recognize that social media “is a highly effective method of communicating information in a time of crisis,” said Joshua Vlasto, Cuomo’s deputy communications director. The governor’s followers have increased to 50,000 from 20,000. Although phone service has been spotty in some places across the Northeast, people with working signals have been reliant on texting and social networking to a degree not seen during previous disasters.
benton.org/node/138393 | New York Times
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RECOVERING CELL PHONE SERVICE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Chen]
Three days into the aftermath of Sandy, wireless service is still lacking in parts of New York City and other hard-hit areas, according to people living in those areas. The carriers have been struggling to keep their services running, mostly because of the loss of power. But they say they have been making progress. Here’s what they have to report.
Verizon Wireless said its network improved a bit.
AT&T made a vague statement about its progress in troubled areas and declined to provide statistics. But it said it had made an agreement with Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, to roll out RVs where people can charge their phones.
Sprint was clearer about the status of its network, specifically in troubled areas, saying 20 percent of its network was still down in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
T-Mobile USA said that 15 percent of its network in New York City was down, and that in Staten Island 20 percent was still down.
benton.org/node/138394 | New York Times | The Hill | USAToday | Washington Post
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A CITY WITHOUT NEWSPAPERS
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Matthew Flamm]
For a media-saturated, always-connected city, the aftermath of Sandy has in some ways been stranger than the storm. There were no newspapers on newsstands -- if newsstands were open -- across large portions of the city. Like everything else with Sandy, the media disruption was uneven. Bridge and tunnel closures blocked delivery of The New York Times in Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, a spokeswoman said. But trucks were able to get through to parts of Queens, Long Island and Brooklyn from the paper's printing plant in College Point, Queens.
benton.org/node/138347 | AdAge
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SANDY AND LOCAL ONLINE NEWS
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Cotton Delo]
"Hyperlocal" news sites that focus their coverage on small towns and city neighborhoods are reporting big traffic surges from Sandy, with local residents keen to find out about their towns' storm preparedness Oct 29 and about property damage and when power would be restored on Oct 30, with much of it driven by search. Spikes were reported by corporate news brands and individually owned sites alike. AOL-owned Patch, which operates roughly 860 sites across the country but has high penetrations in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, reported its highest-ever traffic day Monday -- page views were up 88% from the previous highest day. The Daily Voice, a competing network with 53 sites in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts, said traffic Monday was two times higher than normal. Sheepshead Bites, a four-year-old independent site covering the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn, also reported its highest-ever traffic day Monday on its Facebook page. And eight-year-old independent Baristanet, which covers Montclair, Bloomfield and Glen Ridge, N.J., reported traffic Tuesday was on course to be three times higher than the average 8,000 to 9,000 daily visits, notwithstanding the fact that much of Montclair is without power.
benton.org/node/138353 | AdAge
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SANDY AND SILICON ALLEY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Dominic Basulto]
In the days and hours leading up to the arrival of Superstorm Sandy in the New York area, the storm looked like it might end up being the most-photographed, most-tweeted and most-blogged-about natural disaster in history. In fact, so many remarkable photos of Sandy were being shared on Twitter and Instagram that even the major news organizations with a boots-on-the-ground presence in the region were actively encouraging people to send in their photos. At one point, according to Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, 10 photos of Hurricane Sandy were being shared every second. That narrative about technology and the power of social media, however, is starting to shift in the aftermath of the storm as millions of people in New York City suddenly confront a life without power and without public transportation. All of those would-be citizen journalists sending out Instagram photos of a darkened New York skyline or tweeting out updates from their neighborhood — they all require power for their digital devices — and that’s something that many people in the New York area no longer have. In lower Manhattan and in neighborhoods stretching up to 34th Street — precisely the area where many of New York’s fledgling start-ups are located — the power has been shut off completely and may not be restored for days.
benton.org/node/138352 | Washington Post
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MEDIA AND ELECTIONS

THE MEDIA AND ELECTION RESULTS
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Stephen Ohlemacher]
Most Americans are pretty certain they know who won an election from news media, which play a large role in not only reporting election results but figuring out who won — usually long before the last votes are counted and certified. It works like this: The United States has a decentralized system for counting votes in national elections. No single government authority oversees the process. Instead, officials in more than 4,000 counties, townships and parishes across the nation tally votes for president, Congress, governor, state legislature and a host of state and local offices. The Associated Press will deploy more than 5,000 workers on Nov. 6 to collect vote results from government agencies and report them to news organizations — and the public — around the world. In all, The AP will report results for nearly 7,000 races. Government officials get the final say on who wins elections — Congress verifies the Electoral College votes for president and vice president, while state and county officials certify election results in their jurisdictions. But the media get the first word on election night, an important role in the democratic process of a nation that demands fast and accurate information.
benton.org/node/138390 | Associated Press
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BOTH CANDIDATES RECEIVED MORE NEGATIVE THAN POSITIVE COVERAGE IN MAINSTREAM NEWS
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
From the conventions to the eve of the final presidential debate, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have both received more negative than positive coverage from the news media, though overall Obama has had an edge, according to a new study. That advantage for Obama, however, disappeared after the debates began in early October and news coverage shifted in Romney's direction, mirroring the momentum change reflected in many public opinion polls, the study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found. Overall from August 27 through October 21, 19% of stories about Obama studied in a cross section of mainstream media were clearly favorable in tone while 30% were unfavorable and 51% mixed. This is a differential of 11 percentage points between unfavorable and favorable stories. For Romney, 15% of the stories studied were favorable, 38% were unfavorable and 47% were mixed-a differential toward negative stories of 23 points. Most of the advantage in coverage for Obama, however, came in September in the form of highly negative coverage for Romney. This was a period when the GOP nominee was losing ground in the polls, he was criticized for his comments about Libya, and a video surfaced in which he effectively dismissed 47% of the American public. All that changed almost overnight after the first debate on October 3. From that day through October 21, the coverage in effect reversed. In all, 20% of stories about Romney were favorable, 30% were unfavorable, and 50% were mixed-a differential of 10 points to the negative. For Obama, 13% of stories were favorable, 36% were unfavorable, and 50% were mixed-a differential of 23 points.
benton.org/node/138389 | Project for Excellence in Journalism
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TV POLITICAL AD REVENUE
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: ]
According to SNL Kagan’s most recent projections, this year’s television station political advertising revenue is expected to increase to $2.6 billion, a 68% increase over the 2008 total of $1.6 billion. The swing states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, predictably have emerged as the political battleground for 2012 presidential election spending. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign has outspent President Barack Obama in TV and radio advertising in these states, with well over half a billion dollars already spent with local broadcasters. As the election approaches, political revenue projections will be put to the test as the presidential candidates compete in local markets to close the gap on much-needed electoral votes. SNL Kagan estimates that 80% of political revenues were generated in the second half of each of the last three election years, with roughly 60% of the total coming in during the fourth quarter alone. If this holds true this year, the top 10 publicly held TV broadcast affiliate groups will see a 57.5% average increase in political revenue over 2008. Total political revenue for these groups would be $625.3 million, a 41.9% increase from $440.5 million in 2008.
benton.org/node/138350 | TVNewsCheck
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LEAKING WEB SITE VISITOR DATA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Natasha Singer]
The presidential campaign sites BarackObama.com and MittRomney.com have recently ratcheted up their use of third-party Web trackers. These are companies, like ad networks and data brokers working on behalf of the campaigns, that collect information about users’ online activities to show political ads to people tailored to their own interests and beliefs. Spokesmen for each campaign have separately said that their own campaign had put safeguards in place to protect that user data. But now a new study by Jonathan Mayer, a graduate student in computer science and law at Stanford University, reports that both sites are leaking information about site visitors to a number of third-party trackers operating on their pages. Several pages on the Obama site included a user’s personal information in the page title at the top of the page or in the URL address, Mayer said, thereby giving third parties operating on the site the opportunity to collect identifying data. The information flowing to third parties, he said, variously included the username; the proper name under which a person registered; and their street address and ZIP code. On the Romney site, Mayer said, he found that a number of pages included the user’s name in the page title. Many pages also included a unique numerical ID number in the URL, which flowed to third parties, he said.
benton.org/node/138351 | New York Times
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INVESTIGATION OF ANTI-OBAMA TEXT MESSAGES
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a gay-rights group, has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate an onslaught of anti-Obama text messages. The group said the unsolicited messages were a "blatant" violation of anti-spamming rules, and urged the commission to impose the maximum fine on those responsible. The texts covered a variety of topics, including gay rights, abortion and Medicare, and reached people who had never asked to receive them, including HRC supporters. "Obama supports homosexuality and its radical social agenda. Say No to Obama on Nov 6!" one read, according to HRC. "Stop Obama from forcing gay marriage on the states. Your vote is your voice," read another.
benton.org/node/138348 | Hill, The
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GOOGLE BACKS OBAMA
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
Few can accuse Google's top executives of holding a grudge. Despite facing a possible antitrust lawsuit from the Obama Administration's Federal Trade Commission, Google's leaders are still backing the president when it comes to donations to his reelection effort. Leading the way is Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who served as an adviser to then-Sen. Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and is now a member of the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. Schmidt has given $5,000 to the Obama reelection campaign and an additional $30,800 to the Obama Victory Fund, the joint fundraising committee for Obama and the Democratic National Committee, according to Federal Election Commission records. In all, President Barack Obama has received more than $737,000 from Google-related donors -- the president's third biggest contributor, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Microsoft-related contributors are the second biggest donors to Obama, giving more than $761,000, according to the center's data.
benton.org/node/138346 | National Journal
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

VERIZON, METROPCS FILING
[SOURCE: The Verge, AUTHOR: Dan Seifert]
Verizon Wireless and MetroPCS have filed a joint appeal against a court decision concerning the Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality rules. The carriers contend that the FCC is over stepping its bounds with the regulation, which is designed to prevent network operators from controlling traffic to apps, services, and other functions on an individual basis. Verizon and MetroPCS make four main complaints against the FCC: the existing Telecommunications Act prevents the FCC from applying regulation to broadband access, which these rules allegedly allow; the FCC doesn't have the authority to enact these rules; the order itself violates the first and fifth amendments; and that the rules are arbitrary and capricious.
benton.org/node/138375 | Verge, The | read the appeal
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GLOBAL BANDWIDTH RACE
[SOURCE: Knowledge@Wharton, AUTHOR: Kevin Werbach]
A Q&A with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski. He says: “We've focused the FCC on broadband because wired and wireless broadband, high speed Internet, is our central platform for economic growth and innovation for years to come. In many ways, things are going really well for the U.S. when it comes to broadband. Think about where we were four years ago: If we were talking about mobile broadband, we would have been talking about mobile innovation and we would have been saying, "Hey, in Japan and South Korea there's incredible mobile innovation. In Europe, they are ahead of us on 3G infrastructure." Flash forward to now, [and] the U.S. has regained global leadership in mobile broadband. [In terms of] infrastructure, the U.S. is the first country in the world getting to scale with 4G LTE, the next generation of mobile broadband. No one else is even close. So we are the world's test bed for 4G LTE applications and services. On the innovation side, it's a completely different world. You know, around the [globe] they are using American apps, whether it's Twitter or Facebook or Google -- that's what the rest of the world is using, a major change in four years. And then think about operating systems. Four years ago, the percentage of mobile devices globally that had American-made operating systems was under 20%. Today it's over 80%. That's a very, very fast change. And so we are strongly positioned to continue to lead the world when it comes to mobile broadband, an incredibly important platform for innovation and economic growth. But we have some real challenges in order to keep that going.”
benton.org/node/138341 | Knowledge@Wharton
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

TELCOS MUST LEARN FROM OPS COMMUNITY
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
There are as many small base stations out in the world as there are large base stations attached to cell phone towers, according to an Informa Telecoms & Media report. That doubles the number of equipment telcos must monitor and manage to help deliver a crystal clear signal on your cell phone, but it also creates a management nightmare and perhaps, an opportunity. The report states that between October and November 2012, the number of small cells reached 6.1 million with macrocells worldwide totaling 5.9 million. Most of the small cells at 80 percent are inside people’s homes helping improve the cell signal inside the house. But others are in crowded venues like offices and stadiums where the smaller cells act as a backup and signal booster for larger cell towers nearby. Sprint by the way has deployed a million of those small cells–up from 250,000 in 2011. For operators who now have up to four times as many base stations to manage, the network complexity can be daunting. Sure these small cells boost the quality of the subscriber experience but managing all of those end points comes at a cost. And who will pay it? Some operators charge users for their in-home femtocells, which can frustrate people who believe that the operator should provide quality coverage as part of the basic service.
benton.org/node/138345 | GigaOm
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OWNERSHIP

FTC STAFF RECOMMENDS GOOGLE SUIT
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Sara Forden]
Google should be sued by the Federal Trade Commission for trying to block competitors’ access to key smartphone-technology patents in violation of antitrust law, the agency’s staff told commissioners in a formal recommendation, according to four people familiar with the matter. A majority of the agency’s five commissioners are inclined to sue, according to the people, who declined to be identified because the matter isn’t public. A final decision on the staff recommendation, made last month, isn’t likely until after the Nov. 6 presidential election, they said. At issue are Google’s efforts to block U.S. imports of products made by Microsoft and Apple by claiming the devices, which rely on industry-standard technology, infringe patents owned by Google’s Motorola Mobility unit, the people said.
benton.org/node/138380 | Bloomberg
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TELEVISION

WE SHOULD BROADEN SCOPE OF PBS
[SOURCE: Chronicle of Philanthropy, AUTHOR: Vincent Stehle]
[Commentary] If Big Bird were on the ballot on Election Day, he’d probably win in a landslide. But in our closely divided partisan election cycle, public broadcasting has once again become a sign of divided government. Sadly, in all the joking and sloganeering, what has gotten lost is a key opportunity to talk about what America really needs: a more expansive public media service. By injecting public broadcasting into the 2012 campaign, politicians have brought into view just how paltry a sum the federal Treasury provides to public television and radio stations. The 2012 budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the principal source of federal dollars for public media, was just $445-million, roughly 0.01 percent of the federal budget. Adding a little more to it would hardly cause significant deficit pain. It is time for our political leaders to give public outlets the resources it takes to satisfy the news and information needs of communities. And it’s time for public broadcasters to pledge that they will never try to shore up their financial position by taking on the corrupting influence of political contributions on behalf of the least trusted crop of politicians in our nation’s history.
[Stehle is executive director of Media Impact Funders, an organization of grant makers that was formerly called Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media]
benton.org/node/138342 | Chronicle of Philanthropy
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

GOOGLE AND DATA MINING
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Craig Timberg]
The privacy policies of Google and other tech firms could allow them to mine personal data held by government agencies that use cloud-based e-mail, database and document services, an industry group warned. The group, SafeGov.org, a consortium of industry experts promoting safe government use of cloud services, raised the concern as Google has sought to defuse controversy over changes to its privacy policy that allow for more extensive tracking of consumers. SafeGov.org first highlighted this issue in January after Google announced plans to consolidate its privacy policy across more than 60 services, including Gmail and YouTube, allowing tracking of users as they move among those sites. The group recently renewed its call for greater safeguards after European data-protection commissioners last month identified significant legal shortcomings in the policy and called for changes. Google officials say the changes to its privacy policy do not affect the bundle of productivity software it sells to governments, which are governed by contractual provisions.
benton.org/node/138385 | Washington Post
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

INTERNET SURVEILLANCE IN RUSSIA
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Andrei Soldatov, Irina Borogan]
On the surface, it’s all about protecting Russian kids from internet pedophiles. In reality, the Kremlin’s new “Single Register” of banned websites, which went into effect November 1, will wind up blocking all kinds of online political speech. And, thanks to the spread of new internet-monitoring technologies, the Register could well become a tool for spying on millions of Russians. Signed into law by Vladimir Putin on July 28, the internet-filtering measure contains a single, innocuous-sounding paragraph that allows those compiling the Register to draw on court decisions relating to the banning of websites. The problem is, the courts have ruled to block more than child pornographers’ sites. The judges have also agreed to online bans on political extremists and opponents of the Putin regime. The principle of internet censorship is not a new one to the Russian authorities. For five years, regional prosecutors have been busy implementing regional court decisions requiring providers to block access to banned sites. To date this has not been done systematically: Sites blocked in one region remained accessible in others. The Register removes this problem.
benton.org/node/138384 | Wired
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SYRIA’S DIGITAL PROXY WAR
[SOURCE: The Atlantic, AUTHOR: Sean Lyngaas]
There is a proxy war going on in Syria, one measured in megabytes rather than in arms. On one side, Iran is providing Bashar al-Assad's regime with the tools of digital dictatorship to locate and bait the Syrian opposition. On the other side, the United States is trying to help the opposition protect itself from such attacks and set up alternate channels of communication. The outcome of this proxy war will affect the lives of many Syrians and the credibility of the State Department's efforts to promote digital freedom internationally.
benton.org/node/138370 | Atlantic, The
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APPLE SAMSUNG STATEMENT
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Charles Arthur]
The UK court of appeal has reprimanded Apple over the wording of the statement on its website acknowledging that Samsung did not infringe the iPad tablet's registered design, and ordered it to put an altered statement on its homepage – rather than tucked away in a linked page – until 14 December. The acknowledgement put up last week, linked from the home page by a tiny link, was deemed to be "non-compliant" with the order that the court had made in October. The court has now ordered it to correct the statement – and the judges, Lord Justice Longmore, Lord Justice Kitchin and Sir Robin Jacob, indicated that they were not pleased with Apple's failure to put a simpler statement on the site. At a hearing in the court in London on November 1, the judge told Apple that it had to change the wording of the statement within 48 hours, carry it on its home page, and use at least 11-point font.
benton.org/node/138336 | Guardian, The
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November 2012

Hugh Grant leads fresh calls for an end to self-regulation of the press

Weekly Digest

Sandy, Sandy, my darlin', you hurt me real bad

November 2, 2012 (Communications After Sandy)

What Cellphone Carriers Say About Hurricane Recovery

In Crisis, Public Officials Embrace Social Media

TV Medium Is Planning Storm Relief by Telethon

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