September 2013

What liberal mainstream media?

[Commentary] Fox News is the No. 1 cable news channel in the country. The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, is the No. 1-selling newspaper in the country. Rush Limbaugh is the No. 1 most listened to talk radio host in the country and Drudge Report, the conservative online news aggregator, is the No. 1 traffic driver for political news sites. So, let's cycle back through that: The dominant players across all news platforms are Fox News (by viewers), The Wall Street Journal (by circulation); Rush Limbaugh (by listeners); and Drudge Report (by traffic). So, when conservatives slam the "liberal mainstream media" -- what the hell are they talking about?

I've put this question to conservative media figures over recent months, and the answer is usually the same: Yes, conservative outlets hold the top spots, but they're competing with an entire liberal media infrastructure that includes ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, the liberal blogosphere, and so on and so forth. But how big is the "liberal" infrastructure, really? Fox News often outperforms CNN and MSNBC combined. The broadcast networks air actual news programming for roughly one hour a day, cumulatively, and again for an hour on Sunday mornings. No one on talk radio comes close to Limbaugh or to Sean Hannity, who occupies the number-two spot. The Huffington Post doesn't hold a candle to the Drudge Report in terms of influence or outbound traffic*. But, ok, perhaps there is a point to be made on the cumulative influence of the Times, the Post and other papers when compared to the Journal. Overall, however, we're a long way from the days when Roger Ailes, the founder of Fox News, could claim there was no voice for conservatives in the mainstream media.

The Internet began as a government project. So why has government fallen so far behind?

In the 1970s, the Internet was primarily a project of the US military. Large businesses adopted the technology later, and ordinary consumers didn't get access until the 1990s. For much of the 20th Century, that pattern was the norm: The government could often use its vast resources to develop cutting-edge technologies that were only later adapted to civilian use. But that trend is starting to reverse itself, according to Aaron Levie, chief executive of the cloud storage company Box.

Today, cutting-edge technologies are often developed first for consumer products and then only gradually adopted by governments. “One thing that government can take from the private sector is the idea that the customer is always right,” said former DC mayor Adrian Fenty, now an adviser at Andreessen Horowitz. Technologies like crowdsourcing and crowdfunding, he noted, offer tools for analyzing citizens in the same way a company analyzes its core customers. Governments at all levels are coming around on moving files and processes to the cloud, but that’s just the first step, Levie said. Now that the foundation is in place, governments have to think about how best to use that tech to collaborate and make things better for citizens.

CPB Board Re-Elects Cahill as Board Chair and Sembler as Vice Chair

The board of directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) unanimously re-elected Patricia Cahill to serve as chair and Elizabeth Sembler to serve as vice chair. Patricia Cahill was appointed to the CPB board by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate in August 2009. Cahill currently serves as an assistant professor of Communications Studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Elizabeth Sembler was appointed to the CPB board by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in October 2008. Sembler served as both the director of engagement at Congregation B'nai Israel in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the director of Kesher, a Jewish afterschool program for students at the Ben Gamla Hebrew Language charter school in Clearwater, Florida.

Verizon, Caught Red-Handed

[Commentary] Verizon is violating Federal Communications Commission statutes and its promise that it open up its high-speed LTE network to any device. The company has now on multiple occasions refused to connect my Google Nexus 7 LTE tablet, though the device was publicized widely as working on Verizon and though I have confirmed that it can work on its network. Verizon is thus clearly violating FCC regulations governing its acquisition of the spectrum that enables its LTE service, which require it to open to *all* devices. Google anticipated precisely this situation when it entered the spectrum auction Verizon won and insisted then on open access as an FCC condition of the sale: Google ended up marketing an unlocked device made to run on Verizon's LTE network and now Verizon refuses to honor its promise to abide by the rules of its auction to do so.

[Jeff Jarvis is author of 'Public Parts' and 'What Would Google Do?']

What Can Washington Do for Mark Zuckerberg?

Times have changed since the Facebook CEO first visited DC in 2010--now, he has a lot more power.

When Mark Zuckerberg talks with Atlantic editor in chief James Bennet in an interview at the Newseum in Washington, he’ll be speaking as a newly minted DC insider. Earlier this year, he co-founded the lobbying organization, FWD.us, dedicated to promoting “policies to keep the United States and its citizens competitive in a global economy.” So far, that has mostly meant immigration reform, although the group’s stated goals also include improving education and increasing the funding available for scientific research. The organization has retained at least two DC lobbying firms and run ad campaigns for Republican senators who needed political cover at home so they could cooperate in bipartisan immigration reform in Washington. In doing so, Zuckerberg is positioning himself as a leader on these issues, using as leverage Silicon Valley’s cash, his own celebrity, and a long list of tech notables who have backed FWD.us. He will meet with top congressional Republicans and Democrats, including House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. The group is slated to discuss immigration reform. Prospects for passage in the House have dimmed, but Zuckerberg is clearly trying to keep the issue alive.

The Next Step on the Path to an Online-Only Education?

MIT will soon bundle massive open online courses (MOOCs) together into “course sequences” which tackle a coherent subject matter. After finishing one of these “XSeries” sequences, students can pay to take a test, which will earn them a special “Verified Certificate” from edX. The end-of-sequences tests will cost around $700, and they’ll verify a student’s identity in part through their webcam.

DOJ Clears the Air on E-Cigarette Ads

[Commentary] Can broadcasters air ads for e-cigarettes? Given the Department of Justice’s dim view under existing tobacco ad restrictions of any ad that even mentions the word "cigarette", many assumed that the DOJ would take a similar view of e-cigarette advertising. However, because the DOJ has not publicly moved to take action against a growing number of e-cigarette ads, broadcasters have so far been left wondering where the government stands on the issue. My Pillsbury colleague Paul Cicelski has obtained clarification from the Department of Justice in the form of a letter stating the DOJ's position on e-cigarette advertising. The letter notes that the ad ban covers "any roll of tobacco" wrapped in paper, tobacco, or any other substance likely to be purchased by consumers as a "cigarette". It proceeds to note that while e-cigarettes are often manufactured to look like conventional cigarettes, they do not contain a "roll of tobacco" and therefore are not subject to the federal ban on cigarette ads. So does that mean the floodgates are open on e-cigarette ads? Not quite.

Court: Facebook ‘Like’ Is Protected By the First Amendment

“Liking” something on Facebook is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled, reviving a closely watched case over the extent to which the Constitution shields what we do online.

In doing so, the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a former deputy sheriff in Hampton (VA) who said he was sacked for “liking” the Facebook page of a man running against his boss for city sheriff. “Liking” the campaign page, the court said, was the “Internet equivalent of displaying a political sign in one’s front yard, which the Supreme Court has held is substantive speech.” The Richmond-based appeals court reversed a ruling by a federal district judge, Raymond A. Jackson, who threw out the lawsuit last year on the grounds that a Facebook “like” was “insufficient speech to merit constitutional protection.”

House Judiciary Committee Releases Principles on Internet Sales Tax

The House Judiciary Committee released basic principles pertaining to the issue of Internet sales tax. To develop these principles, the Committee received input directly from taxpayers, industry and trade groups, and representatives of state and local governments. The principles are intended to guide discussion on this issue and spark creative solutions.

  1. Tax Relief – Using the Internet should not create new or discriminatory taxes not faced in the offline world. Nor should any fresh precedent be created for other areas of interstate taxation by States.
  2. Tech Neutrality – Brick & Mortar, Exclusively Online, and Brick & Click businesses should all be on equal footing. The sales tax compliance burden on online Internet sellers should not be less, but neither should it be greater than that on similarly situated offline businesses.
  3. No Regulation Without Representation – Those who would bear state taxation, regulation and compliance burdens should have direct recourse to protest unfair, unwise or discriminatory rates and enforcement.
  4. Simplicity – Governments should not stifle businesses by shifting onerous compliance requirements onto them; laws should be so simple and compliance so inexpensive and reliable as to render a small business exemption unnecessary.
  5. Tax Competition – Governments should be encouraged to compete with one another to keep tax rates low and American businesses should not be disadvantaged vis-a-vis their foreign competitors.
  6. States' Rights – States should be sovereign within their physical boundaries. In addition, the federal government should not mandate that States impose any sales tax compliance burdens.
  7. Privacy Rights – Sensitive customer data must be protected.

Privacy advocate, Adobe director to lead Do Not Track talks

A privacy advocate and a director at Adobe will take over the contentious and stalled Do Not Track talks at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the group's stakeholders were told during a weekly conference call.

Adobe’s Carl Cargill and Justin Brookman, from the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), join Intel’s Matthias Schunter as co-chairs of the stakeholder group. Cargill is Adobe’s standards principal, while Brookman leads the CDT’s Project on Consumer Privacy. Carill and Brookman replace outgoing co-chair Peter Swire, who was selected for the White House’s surveillance review panel last month. Prior to Swire, the group was led by Stanford University’s Aleecia McDonald.