September 2013

In a packed Washington courtroom, the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard arguments in Verizon v. Federal Communications Commission, the landmark case challenging the FCC's authority to regulate the Internet.

The panel of three judges was so interested in the case that they extended the oral arguments from the traditional 45 minutes to two hours, still only a short time for a roomful of attorneys to determine the fate of Internet regulation. "I found it chilling -- judges trying to figure out where Internet governance should go," said former FCC commissioner Robert McDowell, now a fellow with the Hudson Institute. By the end of the day, most Washington prognosticators believed the court would strike down at least some, if not all, of the FCC's rules. Many believed the court could "split the baby" in a mixed decision. What seemed especially vulnerable based on the judges' questions is the provision that the FCC can force broadband providers to provide their service free to "edge" companies like Netflix, Amazon or YouTube. Doing so would reclassify Internet service providers as common carrier services -- a move that is prohibited by the Communications Act. If the court strikes the provision, Internet providers, cable and telecommunications companies could charge Netflix-like companies to deliver a better connection to customers.

It’s not only in the US that network neutrality is under threat. In Europe, too, Internet service providers may soon be expressly permitted to charge content providers for carrying their traffic – but, as it turns out, this is causing divisions within Europe’s executive body.

The European Commission’s digital agenda chief, Neelie Kroes, said in June that she would propose the EU’s first network neutrality legislation, as part of a wider package of laws to promote a single telecoms market in Europe. On the plus side, she said the blocking or throttling of services on competitive grounds – a mobile network provider blocking Skype because it steals voice customers, for example – would be outlawed. However, she also said ISPs would also be allowed to offer end users connections that come with a guaranteed quality of service. And what also came out in subsequent leaked drafts of the new legislation was that ISPs will be – you guessed it – allowed to charge content providers to carry their traffic “with a defined quality of service or dedicated capacity so long as the provision of such specialized services does not substantially impair the quality of internet services.”

[Commentary] Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on The Press, Politics and Public Policy and the Nieman Journalism Lab launched Riptide, a new project about the disruption of journalism by technology.

The project bills itself as an “oral history of the epic collision between journalism and digital technology, from 1980 to the present.” But looking at the final product and their list of sources, it appears that the project misses a key aspect of how the digital age disrupted traditional journalism: Digital advances, particularly the spread of the Internet and the rise of blogging, gave a powerful new way for voices marginalized in the elite journalism sphere to spread their stories. Jeanne Brooks, the digital director of nonprofit group the Online News Association, counted just five white women, two men of color, and zero women of color among 61 people interviewed for the project. All three of the project’s authors are also white men. That’s a 100 percent white male group using 90 percent white male perspective on the changes in journalism field and calling it a defining narrative.

Prime time isn't normally the place advertisers target young men. Broadcast viewers are predominantly female -- even more so when sports is excluded. No wonder the major TV networks have churned out series after series starring powerful and quirky female leads. But the success of male-skewing cable hits like "The Walking Dead" and "Breaking Bad" has given broadcasters a renewed focus on men to strike a better balance between the genders.

On the slate this fall season, which kicks off soon, are male-centric comedies like Fox's "Dads," "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" and CBS's "We Are Men"; genre series like ABC's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" and the CW's "Tomorrow People"; along with gritty dramas like NBC's "The Blacklist" and the retread "Ironside." The hope is that men will help halt the broadcast-ratings decline: The networks collectively lost about 8% of their audience last season. Fox relinquished its No. 1 spot as the most-watched broadcaster among adults 18 to 49 to CBS, while ABC came in last place among the Big Four in the demo.