September 2013

Campaign Journalism in the Age of Twitter

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.

‘Sesame Street’ Widens Its Focus

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.

The uncomfortable truth about personalized learning

[Commentary] There doesn’t need to be a fight between teaching and technology in the classroom. The right combination of the two can deliver personalized learning to improve kids’ understanding and enable success.

When McGraw-Hill first started publishing textbooks in the late 1800s, some who were concerned that these books would render instructors obsolete because they contained all of the information students would need to master. Obviously, these concerns sound absurd now, and I can’t help but wonder if in 10 years, the concerns about personalized education technology will sound equally trivial. The reality is that professors have been personalizing education for centuries, using different teaching strategies to reach different students as individuals. Fortunately, advancements in education technology – specifically, some of the recent developments in adaptive learning – are helping instructors provide personalized instruction more efficiently and effectively than ever before and in ways that increase student engagement and improve outcomes. Unlike fears fueled by dark futuristic conspiracy theories of robots replacing instructors, teachers will stay, but will need to be competent in real-time data analysis for better feedback, giving personalized instruction and, being freed from paperwork and mundane tasks, more individualized attention in classroom management. But to do this, we need to acknowledge and validate educators’ concerns while managing the change, have a real conversation about technology’s promise and define terms, and provide the support instructors need.

[Stephen Laster is chief digital officer of McGraw-Hill Education in charge of e-learning and educational technology strategy.]

Brazil Angered Over Report NSA Spied on President

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.

Egypt press crackdown and propaganda

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.

Federal Communications Commission Consolidated Reporting Act

The 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.

Cumulus Media Will Buy a Radio Syndicator

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.

Judge Says Search Warrants for E-mails Must Be ‘Limited’

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.

For News From Syrian Battleground, a Reliance on Social Media

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.”

Facebook facial recognition policy draws attention from German privacy regulator

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

Search