September 3, 2013 (Vodafone Sells Its Stake in Verizon Wireless)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2013
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
US spy agencies mounted 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, documents show
Microsoft says the government’s transparency report isn’t enough. Here’s why.
These are the companies alleged to have links to the NSA surveillance scandal
The ACLU wages a long-shot legal battle against NSA surveillance - analysis [links to web]
Judge Says Search Warrants for E-mails Must Be ‘Limited’
How “cell tower dumps” caught the High Country Bandits—and why it matters - analysis [links to web]
Syria’s largest city dropped off the Internet [links to web]
Egypt moves closer to Al-Jazeera TV affiliate ban
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Latest Broadband Numbers Highlight Persistent Problems - analysis
Big surprise: Michael Powell defends the cable industry - analysis [links to web]
Syria’s largest city dropped off the Internet [links to web]
The Internet’s next victim: Advertising [links to web]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
As Expected, Vodafone Sells Its Stake in Verizon Wireless for $130 Billion, Giving Verizon Communications Full Ownership
Vodafone Won't Use Sale Proceeds for Major Acquisitions
At the Heart Of Verizon-Vodafone, Differing Outlooks for the US Market - analysis
Microsoft in $7 Billion Deal for Nokia Cellphone Business
Here’s why Microsoft is buying Nokia’s phone business - analysis
NTIA Awards Additional SLIGP Grants to Assist FirstNet Planning - press release [links to web]
Phone Users Have 'Duty' Not to Text Drivers
Verizon ends AT&T’s JD Power winning streak [links to web]
Apple to Pay up to $280 Credit for Used iPhones [links to web]
RADIO/TELEVISION
CBS and Time Warner Cable End Contract Dispute
Cumulus Media Will Buy a Radio Syndicator
Retransmission: When antennas help and when they don't - analysis
Then there were none - last political broadcaster - op-ed
Blocking TV ads: The new Whack-a-Mole? [links to web]
‘Sesame Street’ Widens Its Focus
JOURNALISM
Then there were none - last political broadcaster - op-ed
For News From Syrian Battleground, a Reliance on Social Media
ESPN vs. NFL: A Win for the NFL Is a Loss for the Players and Fans - op-ed [links to web]
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
Campaign Journalism in the Age of Twitter
Then there were none - last political broadcaster - op-ed
EDUCATION
‘Sesame Street’ Widens Its Focus
The uncomfortable truth about personalized learning - op-ed [links to web]
FCC NEWS
FCC Acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn Names Mark Stephens Acting Managing Director; Dr. David A. Bray Chief Information Officer - press release
Federal Communications Commission Consolidated Reporting Act - research
NEWS FROM ABROAD
Brazil Angered Over Report NSA Spied on President
Syria’s largest city dropped off the Internet [links to web]
Facebook facial recognition policy draws attention from German privacy regulator
Egypt moves closer to Al-Jazeera TV affiliate ban
Egypt press crackdown and propaganda
MORE ONLINE
At Library of Congress, changes are afoot in technology as well as in physical space [links to web]
E-Books Could Be the Future Of Social Media - analysis [links to web]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
US SPY AGENCIES MOUNTED 231 OFFENSIVE CYBER-OPERATIONS IN 2011, DOCUMENTS SHOW
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Barton Gellman, Ellen Nakashima]
US intelligence services carried out 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, the leading edge of a clandestine campaign that embraces the Internet as a theater of spying, sabotage and war. That disclosure, in a classified intelligence budget provided by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, provides new evidence that the Obama Administration’s growing ranks of cyberwarriors infiltrate and disrupt foreign computer networks. The documents provided by Snowden and interviews with former US officials describe a campaign of computer intrusions that is far broader and more aggressive than previously understood. The Obama Administration treats all such cyber-operations as clandestine and declines to acknowledge them. The scope and scale of offensive operations represent an evolution in policy, which in the past sought to preserve an international norm against acts of aggression in cyberspace, in part because US economic and military power depend so heavily on computers. Of the 231 offensive operations conducted in 2011, the budget said, nearly three-quarters were against top-priority targets, which former officials say includes adversaries such as Iran, Russia, China and North Korea and activities such as nuclear proliferation. US agencies define offensive cyber-operations as activities intended “to manipulate, disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy information resident in computers or computer networks, or the computers and networks themselves,” according to a Presidential directive issued in October 2012.
benton.org/node/158133 | Washington Post
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MICROSOFT SAYS THE GOVERNMENT’S TRANSPARENCY REPORT ISN’T ENOUGH. HERE’S WHY.
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Brian Fung]
A day after the Obama Administration announced it would start releasing annual reports on the government’s surveillance activity, Microsoft said it plans to continue its legal fight for permission to produce more detailed breakdowns of government information requests. Microsoft’s top lawyer, Brad Smith, wrote in a blog post that separate negotiations with the Justice Department to allow tech companies to speak more openly about federal data requests had broken down. While Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had made a good “first step” in agreeing to release some of the data, it wasn’t enough, Smith wrote. Microsoft isn’t satisfied with the fact that Clapper’s agency intends to publish a report disclosing the total number of court orders for surveillance granted to the NSA over the previous year. The company wants to be able to discuss just the court orders that it receives, rather than a larger bucket of reports that also includes demands made of other tech companies. In accordance with the practices contained in its own transparency report, Microsoft said that the government should break down those numbers even more to distinguish requests for user metadata, such as IP addresses and e-mail header information, from demands for user content, which would expose personally identifiable information such as the actual text of e-mails to law enforcement. This is the first time Microsoft has asked for a breakdown along content-vs-metadata lines. In its initial motion to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court requesting greater freedom to talk about data requests, Microsoft asked only to disclose aggregate numbers. Unless the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s top judge intervenes, however, it seems as though Silicon Valley and the administration have reached a stalemate.
benton.org/node/158128 | Washington Post | Los Angeles Times | The Hill
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THESE ARE THE COMPANIES ALLEGED TO HAVE LINKS TO THE NSA SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: David Meyer]
The global surveillance scandal involves many players in the corporate world and — thanks to Edward Snowden — details of their identities and relationships with the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies continue to dribble out. The web firms named in the original Prism scandal are as follows: Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google, Paltalk, AOL. All have denied giving the NSA “direct access” to their servers, but Snowden has maintained that they do so, and the roles played by these companies are part of the focus of French prosecutors looking into the affair. Microsoft and many other US tech firms are also alleged to disclose security flaws in their products to US intelligence services before they inform other customers around the world. This would give the NSA and other agencies a headstart on patching their own systems, but it could also give them a window of opportunity to exploit the flaws in order to attack others. The Washington Post published a scoop that gave some insight into one of the most interesting allegations that the NSA, CIA and other US intelligence agencies not only reimburse their partners in the telecommunications industry for the costs incurred in accessing data from their systems, but that some of the telcos also make a profit on the deal. It is uncertain which ones, but AT&T has been named by the Wall Street Journal as being associated with the Blarney program (2013 fiscal year budget, according to Washington Post: $65.96 million). Like AT&T, Verizon is also apparently collaborating with US intelligence on American soil. The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that Australia’s Telstra works closely with US intelligence – a condition it had to meet in order to get a Federal Communications Commission license for its Reach business in Asia (which also involves Hong Kong-based PCCW). Such conditions appear to be a recurring theme when it comes to international firms merging or going into partnership with US operators, or operators with cables in the US as well, such as: Japan’s SoftBank, Deutsche Telekom, and Vodafone (the Verizon partnership).
benton.org/node/158126 | GigaOm
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JUDGE SAYS SEARCH WARRANTS FOR E-MAILS MUST BE ‘LIMITED’
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Somini Sengupta]
Can law enforcement obtain a search warrant to dig through a vast trove of e-mails, instant messages and chat logs because they have reasonable suspicion that the owners of those accounts robbed computer equipment from a private company? No, according to a ruling by a federal judge in Kansas. The case is significant in that it limits what constitutes unreasonable search and seizure, as protected by the Fourth Amendment, in the age of big data. The magistrate judge, David J. Waxse, denied the government’s search warrant requests on the grounds that it has to be particular and “reasonable in nature of breadth.” Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University and an expert on surveillance law, interpreted it this way on Twitter: “You can’t look through the kitchen sink to get the evidence, as you do with physical searches.” The judge went on to say that the government’s search order ought to have “sufficient limits or boundaries” to the communications that law enforcement officials can rifle through. He suggested that the search order be limited to certain keywords or that an independent vendor be asked to automate the process of finding relevant material. That is to say, use data-mining techniques to not rummage through everything.
benton.org/node/158137 | New York Times
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
LATEST BROADBAND NUMBERS HIGHLIGHT PERSISTENT PROBLEMS
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] A look at Pew’s findings in terms of broadband usage in the United States. Pew finds that 85% of American adults ages 18 and older use the Internet and 70% of American adults have a high-speed broadband connection at home, and 80% have a broadband connection, a smartphone or both. That means that 20% of Americans have neither a home broadband connection nor a smartphone. The demographic factors most correlated with home broadband adoption continue to be educational attainment, age, and household income. Including smartphones in Pew’s broadband definition actually exacerbates differences in broadband adoption rates between young and old. “It is dangerous to call everything ‘broadband,’” former White House aide to President Barack Obama Susan Crawford wrote in Wired, “because it allows us to pretend there’s a vibrant marketplace for high-speed Internet access, with satellite duking it out with cable modem access, mobile wireless supplanting the need for a wire at home, and no need for oversight or a change in industrial policy.” Pew does not include smartphones in its definition of what constitutes a “broadband user” – mainly because there is no widespread consensus as to whether 3G or 4G smartphones qualify as “broadband” speed, and many would question whether they offer the same utility to users as a dedicated home Internet connection.
http://benton.org/node/158107
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
VODAFONE, VERIZON AGREE ON $130 BILLION DEAL
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Ina Fried]
Verizon Communications and Britain’s Vodafone announced a deal that will give Verizon total ownership of the wireless company that bears its name. Vodafone will sell its 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless for $130 billion, in what is said to be the third-largest corporate deal of all time. The deal marks the end of a long, largely successful joint venture between the two companies. Both parties had, at various times, sought to buy out the other. Verizon is paying Vodafone with a mixture of cash and stock. To fund the $58.9 billion cash portion, Verizon is getting financing from J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Barclays. It will also issue $60.2 billion in stock, subject to certain price collars. It is also issuing $5 billion in notes to Vodafone, selling its stake in Vodafone Omnitel, and offering $2.5 billion in “other consideration.” The deal, if approved by regulators and both companies’ shareholders, is unlikely to mean much change for customers, but marks a continued trend of mergers and acquisitions in the US wireless business.
benton.org/node/158151 | Wall Street Journal | WSJ | NY Times
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VODAFONE PROCEEDS TO SHAREHOLDERS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Sam Schechner]
Vodafone plans to turn $84 billion, the bulk of the proceeds from the sale of its biggest asset, over to shareholders rather than go on a major shopping spree, raising the prospect that the slimmed-down company could itself become an acquisition target. Leftover cash—about $30 billion after taxes—will help Vodafone fund a three-year, £6 billion ($9.3 billion) program to speed up its deployment of high-speed wireless and fixed networks, with the rest left on the balance sheet to reduce Vodafone's net debt, which stood at $38.78 billion on June 30. Smaller acquisitions might be considered for some fixed-line operators, but the company said they aren't necessary.
benton.org/node/158150 | Wall Street Journal
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AT THE HEART OF VERIZON-VODAFONE, DIFFERING OUTLOOKS FOR THE US MARKET
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Ryan Knutson]
At the center of what could be a $130 billion deal between Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group are sharply different views of the US wireless market. The companies’ joint venture, Verizon Wireless, is the largest carrier in the US, a market with only four national players and a lot less pressure on price than in the hyper-competitive European market. But that is shifting, as No. 3 carrier Sprint and No. 4 T-Mobile US get better capitalized and more aggressive, raising the question of whether the market might be at its peak. Verizon is betting the answer is no as it negotiates to buy Vodafone’s 45% stake in Verizon Wireless and effectively double down in the US. Vodafone, on the other hand, may have been motivated to sell, in part, on the consideration that the value of its stake may not have much further to rise. It remains to be seen which was right. The idea of buying Vodafone’s stake has been on the table for years. Vodafone had an option to sell its stake in 2004 for roughly $10 billion, but it didn’t exercise it. Holding out will look like a smart decision if the deal goes through now. Holding out further might not make as much sense. Even though the US market is one of the world’s strongest in both revenue growth and margins, there are more active cellphone subscribers than people in the US, and there are signs the industry may soon descend into a battle over price. Annual subscriber growth in the wireless business has shrunk to about 2%, down from around 15% nine years ago, according to Moffett Research.
benton.org/node/158134 | Wall Street Journal
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MICROSOFT BUYING NOKIA
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Shira Ovide]
Microsoft struck a $7 billion deal to acquire Nokia’s core cellphone business, a bold move to try to catch up in a fast-growing mobile business that is now dominated by Samsung and Apple. The deal comes on the heels of announcing the planned retirement of Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. As part of the deal for the devices-and-services business, Microsoft will bring aboard several executives who could be contenders for Ballmer's job. Microsoft will pay €3.79 billion to buy "substantially all" of the Nokia business, which includes its smartphone operations. Microsoft will also pay €1.65 billion to license Nokia's patents, the companies said, bringing the deal to €5.44 billion, or $7.18 billion. Stephen Elop, Nokia's CEO, and several other executives are joining Microsoft as part of the deal. Elop, a former Microsoft executive, is among the names being circulated as Ballmer's successor. Microsoft recently announced that Ballmer will retire from his post within a year, or when the next CEO is chosen.
benton.org/node/158148 | Wall Street Journal | NYTimes | FT
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WHY MICROSOFT IS BUYING NOKIA
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Timothy Lee]
[Commentary] Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia cements a partnership that has been central to Microsoft’s mobile device strategy in recent years. Two years ago, Nokia announced that it would adopt Microsoft’s software for its smartphones. The new deal would make that alliance permanent. Why does Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer want to do that? Microsoft believes that deeper integration between devices, software, and services will be needed to compete effectively with Apple and Google’s mobile ecosystems. “Devices help services and services help devices.” The company believes that more closely integrating the two will improve the user experience and help to “build a large user base.” Such vertical integration, of course, has been essential to Apple’s business model for the iPhone, and Microsoft has adopted a similar strategy for its Surface line of tablets. Microsoft also believes that vertical integration will make it easier to finance the development of the Windows Phone platform.
benton.org/node/158147 | Washington Post
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PHONE USERS HAVE 'DUTY' NOT TO TEXT DRIVERS
[SOURCE: PCMagazine, AUTHOR: Chloe Albanesius]
The New Jersey Superior Court found that a girl is not responsible for an accident that occurred after she texted a friend who was driving, but concluded that residents do have a "duty" not to text someone they know is behind the wheel. We conclude that a person sending text messages has a duty not to text someone who is driving if the texter knows, or has special reason to know, the recipient will view the text while driving,” the Superior Court found. On the "duty not to text someone who is driving" part of the ruling, the court pointed to a 2007 case that concluded that a "duty is an obligation imposed by law requiring one party 'to conform to a particular standard of conduct toward another.'" In determining whether someone is liable, the court must consider: the relationship of the parties, the nature of the attendant risk, the opportunity and ability to exercise care, and the public interest in the proposed solution.
benton.org/node/158117 | PCMagazine
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RADIO/TELEVISION
CBS AND TIME WARNER CABLE END CONTRACT DISPUTE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Bill Carter]
CBS and Time Warner Cable ended their protracted contract dispute with CBS winning not only a significant financial increase for its programming, but also its stake in the digital future. The agreement between the two sides restored the CBS network and its related channels, including Showtime, to millions of cable subscribers largely in three major cities: New York, Los Angeles and Dallas. The outcome underscored the leverage that the owners of important television content, especially sports like NFL football, retain over distributors like cable systems. The looming National Football League season, which starts this week, includes key games every week on CBS. The two sides did not release any specific information on the terms of the agreement. Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn said, “I am pleased CBS and Time Warner Cable have resolved their retransmission consent negotiations, which for too long have deprived millions of consumers of access to CBS programming. At the end of the day, media companies should accept shared responsibility for putting their audience’s interests above other interests and do all they can to avoid these kinds of disputes in the future.”
benton.org/node/158149 | New York Times | LA Times | WSJ | Broadcasting&Cable
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CUMULUS MEDIA WILL BUY A RADIO SYNDICATOR
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Ben Sisario]
In a deal that could heighten the competition in radio against Clear Channel Communications, long the industry’s dominant player, Cumulus Media has agreed to buy Dial Global, a syndicator of sports, talk and music programming to thousands of stations, for $260 million. The complex deal involves four radio companies. To finance its acquisition of Dial, Cumulus is selling 68 of its stations to Townsquare Media, a broadcaster that operates mostly in small markets. Townsquare will pay $238 million for 53 of those stations. For the other 15, Townsquare will give Cumulus five stations in Fresno (CA) that it is acquiring as part of an 11-station deal with yet another radio owner, Peak II Holding. (To comply with Federal Communications Commission regulations, Townsquare will place three of the stations from Cumulus in trust for a future sale.) The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, would let Cumulus beef up its syndication business with programs from the National Football League, the Olympics and NASCAR, as well as news and entertainment. Clear Channel’s Premiere Radio Networks division dominates the market with major talk hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. If all the transactions are approved, which the companies said they expect by the end of the year, Cumulus will be left with 460 stations in the United States, and Townsquare with 312. CBS Radio has 126 stations, but most are in larger markets and have greater revenue. Developing and branding content has become critical for radio broadcasters as they face competition from satellite and digital services like Pandora. Those services are starting to become common features in new cars, radio’s traditional stronghold.
benton.org/node/158138 | New York Times
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RETRANS: WHEN ANTENNAS HELP AND WHEN THEY DON'T
[SOURCE: SNL Kagan, AUTHOR: Sarah Barry James]
When it comes to retransmission consent disputes, over-the-air antennas may not be the perfect solution, but they have gotten better. In the days of analog TV, antennas generally were not a good solution for customers impacted by a blackout such as the CBS channel blackout for Time Warner Cable subscribers in select markets. The digital TV transition helped to solve some issues with bad or disrupted reception in places like New York City due to high-rise buildings, and helped alleviate some of the hassles with switching between cable video input and over-the-air (OTA) service. Of course, one risk of encouraging customers to use OTA antennas is that some viewers may opt to drop their pay TV subscription altogether. "Some people may come to realize that if they want good, quality HD ... then the best way to get it is over the air," said Merrill Weiss, head of the consulting firm Merrill Weiss Group. "The best quality you'll see is over the air. The broadcasters have to compress it to make it fit into their channels. The cable operators compress it even more to fit more programming into their cable systems. So every time it's compressed, it's degraded. So the best you can get normally is over-the-air, the next best is satellite or cable, and then after that is probably what comes over the Internet." Moreover, customers that drop their pay TV service and become OTA households would not have to worry about switching inputs or future retransmission consent battles. "Unfortunately, a lot of people don't realize you can get television for free," said National Association of Broadcasters spokesman Dennis Wharton. But by encouraging customers to use antennas, Time Warner Cable is actually helping to get the word out.
benton.org/node/158118 | SNL Kagan
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JOURNALISM
CALIFORNIAN POLITICAL BROADCASTERS
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: Randy Shandobil]
[Commentary] We're almost extinct: broadcast political reporters. Last week, ABC news, in a cost-cutting move, closed its Sacramento bureau and laid off two political reporters, Nannette Miranda and Mark Matthews. There are now no remaining broadcast reporters covering politics full time in the Bay Area. Up until a few years ago, Northern California was flush with broadcast political reporters, some of them very good. But in 2010 one of the best, Hank Plante, retired from San Francisco's CBS affiliate. Shortly after that, the well-connected Kevin Riggs left Sacramento's NBC affiliate to join a political consulting firm and I left KTVU to start my own business. None of us has been replaced and now Miranda and Matthews will join us, watching from the sidelines. Good political journalism can motivate viewers to call their legislator and get involved in shaping legislation. But with less broadcast coverage of politics, will voters become even more apathetic? With almost no broadcast scrutiny, who will our legislators listen to: their constituents or lobbyists? [Shandobil is an Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist]
benton.org/node/158146 | San Francisco Chronicle
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FOR NEWS FROM SYRIAN BATTLEGROUND, A RELIANCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Ben Sisario]
When Secretary of State John Kerry delivered the United States’ report about the use of chemical weapons in Syria, he noted that “all hell broke loose in the social media” just 90 minutes after the alleged attack. As evidence of atrocities, the report cites thousands of social media updates and videos, along with reports from intelligence agencies, journalists and medical personnel. Western journalists are struggling to cover what the world has so far seen largely through YouTube. But while some television news crews have been filing reports from Damascus, the dangers of reporters being killed or kidnapped there — as well as visa problems — have kept most journalists outside the country’s borders and heightened the need for third-party images. For networks without a Syrian correspondent, partnerships with other organizations supply some video. ABC works with the BBC, for example, and NBC with ITN. But the networks also rely on YouTube and other third-party sources, which have yielded some of the most vivid and disturbing video of the conflict, but has also brought a host of verification problems. ABC News, Reuters and other outlets use Storyful, a company that scours social sites and verifies videos through tests like comparing street scenes to maps and checking an uploader’s affiliated accounts. The New York Times has also worked with Storyful in the past. David Clinch, Storyful’s executive editor, said it first learned of a possible chemical attack last week from videos, and alerted its clients within an hour of the incident. “This content is often the only content available,” Clinch wrote in an e-mail, “because news organizations either can’t get to the scene of suspected chemical attacks, don’t have anyone in Syria (some do but most don’t) or their staff cannot go out from Damascus.”
benton.org/node/158136 | New York Times
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
CAMPAIGN JOURNALISM IN THE AGE OF TWITTER
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
For modern political reporters, there is no single narrative, only whatever is going on in the moment, often of little consequence, but always something that can be blogged, tweeted or filmed and turned into content. According to Peter Hamby, a political reporter at CNN, Mitt Romney’s campaign never came to terms with the new dynamic. Instead, his organization responded with a defensive crouch that fenced off the candidate from the very people he needed to reach. Romney campaign’s decision to staff the campaign press effort with young people was a grievous tactical error. In his report, Hamby wrote that the growing role of so-called embeds, or television reporters attached to the campaign, had infuriated the Romney staff. “If I had to pick three words to characterize the embeds, it would be young, inexperienced and angry,” an unnamed Romney adviser told Hamby. According to the report, the Obama campaign did a much better job of adapting to those realities than the Republican opponent. Rather than just waiting to see what bad tidings Twitter might bring, the campaign was often in the thick of things. “A negative story or provocative Web video could fly from the desk of an Obama staffer to BuzzFeed and onto Twitter in a matter of minutes, generating precious clicks and shares along the way,” Hamby wrote in the report. Furthermore, he suggested that politicians who came of age in the Twitter era will have an advantage over Hillary Rodham Clinton, who relies on a command-and-control approach in which information is carefully doled out and any journalistic offenders are disciplined. “I wonder if the machinery of Clinton-world, the layers of staff and ’90s-era wise men, are prepared to deal with the next generation of Instagramming journalist, social media natives who fetishize authenticity,” he said.
benton.org/node/158144 | New York Times
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EDUCATION
SESAME STREET
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Elizabeth Jensen]
Simple ABCs and 123s? So old school. In the last four years, “Sesame Street” has set itself a much larger goal: teaching nature, math, science and engineering concepts and problem-solving to a preschool audience — with topics like how a pulley works or how to go about investigating what’s making Mr. Snuffleupagus sneeze. The content is wrapped in the traditional silliness; these are still Muppets. But the more sophisticated programming, on a show that frequently draws an audience even younger than the 3- to-5-year-olds it targets, raises a question: Is there any evidence that it is doing anything more than making PBS and parents feel good? Officials at Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization that produces the show, believe the new approach has succeeded in introducing children — at least, the target-age audience — to scientific ideas and methods.
benton.org/node/158143 | New York Times
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FCC NEWS
FCC ACTING CHAIRWOMAN MIGNON CLYBURN NAMES MARK STEPHENS ACTING MANAGING DIRECTOR; DR. DAVID A. BRAY CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
Federal Communications Commission Acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn announced senior staff appointments, naming Mark Stephens Acting Managing Director and Dr. David A. Bray as the Commission’s Chief Information Officer (CIO). As Acting Managing Director, Stephens will manage the Commission's budget and financial programs, human resources, contracts, purchasing, communications, computer services, physical space, security, and distribution of official FCC documents. In his role as CIO, Dr. Bray will implement a tech-forward strategy to equip workers with effective technology, cut costs, and shift the Commission’s IT trajectory towards more sustainable and secure cloud-based solutions. Mr. Stephens and Dr. Bray, along with other senior managers, will work in the Office of the Managing Director (OMD) to coordinate the administration and management of the Commission.
In addition, Acting Chairwoman Clyburn announced David Valdez as Special Counsel to her office. In that role, Valdez will oversee issues relating to regulatory reforms to facilitate innovation in government and assist in managing the FCC’s various Advisory Committees.
benton.org/node/158115 | Federal Communications Commission
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FCC CONSOLIDATED REPORTING ACT
[SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office, AUTHOR: Susan Willie]
The Federal Communications Commission Consolidated Reporting Act of 2013 (HR 2844) would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to prepare a biennial report for the Congress that assesses certain characteristics of the communications industry. The report would analyze the state of competition in the markets for voice, video, and data services, as well as the availability of high-speed and high-quality telecommunications services. Further, the bill would require the FCC to determine whether laws and regulations pose a barrier to entry into communications markets and to include that information in the biennial report. H.R. 2844 also would relieve the FCC of requirements to prepare certain other reports on topics ranging from access to satellite services to prices for cable services. In all, the bill would eliminate more than 20 reports and notices, some that remain in current law even though deadlines for their completion have passed. CBO estimates that implementing the provisions of H.R. 2844 would not have a significant net effect on the agency’s discretionary costs. Any additional expenses the FCC would incur to prepare the new assessment of the communications industry would be offset by a reduction in costs that would otherwise be incurred for reports that would be eliminated under the bill. Under current law, the FCC is authorized to collect fees sufficient to offset the cost of its regulatory activities each year; therefore, CBO estimates that the net cost to implement the provisions of H.R. 2844 would be negligible, assuming annual appropriation actions consistent with the agency’s authorities. Enacting H.R. 2844 would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply.
benton.org/node/158139 | Congressional Budget Office
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NEWS FROM ABROAD
BRAZIL AND NSA SPYING
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Simon Romero, Randal Archibold]
Brazil’s government summoned the United States ambassador to respond to new revelations of American surveillance of President Dilma Rousseff and her top aides, complicating relations between the countries ahead of Rousseff’s state visit to Washington next month. The report, based on documents provided by the fugitive NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden to Glenn Greenwald, an American journalist living in Brazil, described how the NSA used different computer programs to filter through communications and gain access to specific e-mails, telephone calls and text messages of Rousseff’s top aides.
benton.org/node/158141 | New York Times
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FACEBOOK FACIAL RECOGNITION POLICY DRAWS ATTENTION FROM GERMAN PRIVACY REGULATOR
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Hayley Tsukayama]
Facebook proposed changes to two of its most important legal documents, and new language on how the networking site deals with facial recognition technology has already raised some eyebrows — including those of a German privacy regulator, according to a report from PC World. The social network had previously run into some resistance from European regulators who wanted it to be more explicit about how it uses such technology. Following recommendations from the Irish Data Protection Commission, the company then deleted all facial recognition data from European users from its servers. So German privacy regulators were surprised to see mention of facial recognition technology in the German version of the proposed policy. Facebook declined to comment on Hamburg privacy commissioner Johannes Caspar’s statement that he was “astonished” to see the technology mentioned in the policy proposal, but spokeswoman Jodi Seth confirmed that facial recognition features are not currently being implemented in Europe. Facebook chief privacy officer Erin Egan said that she believes tagging actually improves user privacy, because it offers an automatic way for users to police which images of their faces are posted to the Web site. “The benefit in being tagged is that you know photos exist,” Egan told the newspaper. Those interested can view a list of the changes Facebook is planning to make to its policies on its Web site. Users have seven days to provide suggestions and other input to the firm before the changes become official.
benton.org/node/158135 | New York Times
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EGYPT MOVES CLOSER TO AL-JAZEERA TV AFFILIATE BAN
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Maggie Michael]
Egypt's interim government called an Al-Jazeera local affiliate that broadcasts in Arabic a national threat, moving closer to banning its broadcasts beamed from Qatar after the affiliate aired recordings of declarations by fugitive leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Qatar-based television network said four journalists working for its English service were arrested in Cairo. Three government ministers issued a statement saying that Al-Jazeera Mubashir Misr is operating "illegally, in violation to the profession's standards and without a permit to work in Egypt." The ministers also said the channel used satellite transmission without a license and spread "rumors and claims which are harmful to Egyptian national security and threaten the country's unity," without referring specifically to the broadcasts of the fugitives' declarations.
benton.org/node/158120 | Associated Press
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EGYPT’S PRESS CRACKDOWN
[SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Dan Murphy]
Egypt's military-backed government signaled an expanded crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood by announcing that deposed President Mohamed Morsi, who was elected president in June 2012 and deposed this July 3, would be put on trial for inciting violence. That decision came less than two weeks after President Hosni Mubarak, who headed a military-backed dictatorship for 30 years until February 2011, was released from prison and placed under house arrest while awaiting a trial of his own. Morsi, meanwhile, remains in the secret prison Egypt's military whisked him to shortly after it removed him from office. Looking a little further, the current regime appears eager to shut down most political avenues and media outlets it can't control.
benton.org/node/158140 | Christian Science Monitor, The
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