March 2016

Donald Trump’s attack on Heidi Cruz is a case study in the need for media diversity

[Commentary] If news outlets needed to be reminded of just how valuable and necessary diversity in their ranks really is, Donald Trump’s nasty campaign of innuendo and objectification against Heidi Cruz ought to do the trick. Most anyone could see why Trump’s retweet of a photo demeaned Heidi Cruz, wife of Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) and a managing director at Goldman Sachs. But female journalists have contributed strong, thoughtful perspectives to coverage that their male counterparts might have overlooked. It was CNN anchor Kate Bolduan who explained that "as I look at this retweet, as a woman, it's demeaning to not only Ted Cruz's wife; it's demeaning to Melania Trump because she's got a lot more going for her than just her looks, and you don't see that in this retweet."

Indeed, Trump had promoted a kind of trophy contest that objectified both women — a point I hadn't seen in the press before Bolduan weighed in. Newsrooms need more than just gender diversity, of course, but the events of this week illustrate how critical women, specifically, are to producing comprehensive coverage. It's not about constant injections of advocacy into the news — and I don't think anyone would accuse Bolduan, Cupp or Kelly of administering such injections — it's about having staffs comprised of people with wide-ranging life experiences who notice things others might miss and who can help audiences understand complex issues in ways they might not have considered. Trump's pattern of behavior suggests more episodes like this one are on the way. As media tell the story of those incidents, they would do well to remember this week and make sure their storytellers are diverse.

Court stops FCC’s latest attempt to lower prison phone rates

Prison phone companies have convinced a court to halt new rate caps on inmate calling for the second time in March. The first stay was issued March 7 and prevented the Federal Communications Commission from implementing new rate caps of 11¢ to 22¢ per minute on both interstate and intrastate calls from prisons. But the stay—which remains in place while the prison phone companies' lawsuit against the FCC is still pending—did not disturb an earlier "interim" cap of 21¢ to 25¢ per minute that applied only to interstate calls, those that cross state lines. The order also didn't specifically object to the FCC changing its definition of "inmate calling service" to include both interstate and intrastate calls. Seizing on this ambiguity, the FCC decided that it could impose the interim caps on both interstate and intrastate calls. But prison phone companies Securus Technologies, Global Tel*Link (GTL), and Telmate all asked the federal appeals court to stop the caps from being applied to intrastate calls. Securus Technologies CEO Richard Smith argued that confusion about the rate caps could cause "chaos and confusion" in prisons, threatening security. A court order issued March 23 sided with the prison phone companies, saying that "petitioners have satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review." As a result, the interim rate caps will still apply only to interstate calls.

6 Depressing Reasons Your Local Newspaper Now Reads Like Buzzfeed

[Commentary] The week of March 21, two local newspapers in southern California were sold to the second-highest bidder after the US Department of Justice blocked the highest bidder, who they claimed would form a regional media monopoly. It sounds juicy even without all of the legal details, but this isn’t the most buzzworthy media news. It does, however, relay the state of local media in the context of 2016’s great media consolidation.

Don’t think about this news as a revelatory statement that “newspapers are dying.” Newspapers, mainly their brands, have cross-platform value even in the evolved media landscape. If it hasn’t already, your local media outlets have been forced to farm content from the same heap of viral nonsense that we see filling our newsfeeds every day. They can’t get away with publishing a copy of printed content to their desktop-only website and failing to capture the value of their brand’s reach. What exactly is happening to our local and regional papers and alternative zines? They are part of the media consolidation that has been widely referenced in 2016. In today’s media landscape, local news is becoming obsolete. The Facebook pages of your childhood television station or newspaper might look more like the generic Internet that bombards you every day, aggregating traffic by piggybacking trends.

The dark web is too slow and annoying for terrorists to even bother with, experts say

Terrorists are skulking around the dark web, the bit of the Internet that can only be accessed by specific software, propagating messages of hate and extremism, right? Not really, according to data gathered by Thomas Rid and Daniel Moore of the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. “The one thing that was surprising was that there was so little militant, extremist presence. Only a handful of sites,” Rid said. The two designed a system to crawl “hidden services” on Tor, the network of computers that obfuscates the identities of those connected to it, to try to categorize the content found on those hidden sites. People who run a hidden service can’t be easily identified either. So why aren’t jihadis taking advantage of running dark web sites? Rid and Moore don’t know for sure, but they guess that it’s for the same reason so few other people publish information on the dark web: It’s just too fiddly. “Hidden services are sometimes slow, and not as stable as you might hope. So ease of use is not as great as it could be. There are better alternatives,” Rid said.

The Dream Of Usable E-mail Encryption Is Still A Work In Progress

Tech-savvy people have had a way to send secure e-mail since the mid 1990s, when legendary cryptographer Phil Zimmermann created the encryption software known as Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP. But despite more than 20 years of existence, PGP, as well as its free replacement GPG, has never been mainstream. That’s because it’s a relatively hard-to-use tool for the few who would bother to use the command line, clunky e-mail clients’ extensions, and bootstrapped software. But in 2014, in the aftermath of the Edward Snowden revelations, Google and Yahoo, the two largest e-mail providers in the world, promised to change that once and for all with a browser plugin that would make sending encrypted e-mails so seamless anyone could use it.

Now, it’s been almost two years, and encryption is making headlines thanks to the public fight between the FBI and Apple over the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino (CA) shooters. The controversial case has prompted several tech companies not only to support Apple in court, but also promise even more encryption in their services. Yet, Google and Yahoo’s projects on secure end-to-end encrypted e-mail have yet to see the light of day. That’s why some are starting to question how much Google and Yahoo really care about making this happen.

A Regional Repack is Reasonable Way To Go

[Commentary] The bickering in Washington over how long TV broadcasters should have to move to new channels after the incentive auction has not been productive. It's time for the Federal Communications Commission to listen to AT&T and the National Association of Broadcasters, dump the current 39-month deadline and adopt a regional phase-in approach. It makes the most sense for wireless carriers as well as for broadcasters and their viewers. For once, let reason prevail.

FCC Seeks Comment on Petitions Concerning the Commission's Rule on Opt-Out Notices on Fax Advertisements

Three petitions have been filed seeking a waiver of section 64.1200(a)(4)(iv) of the Federal Communications Commission’s rules, which requires that an opt-out notice containing certain information be included in fax ads sent to a consumer who has provided prior express invitation or permission. With this Public Notice, we seek comment on the Petitions as described below.

Specifically, the Petitioners seek retroactive waivers of the opt-out notice requirement for fax ads they sent where prior express invitation or permission allegedly had been obtained from the recipient. The Petitioners argue that good cause exists because they are similarly situated to parties who were granted retroactive waivers from this requirement by the Commission in the Anda Order. In the Anda Order, the Commission granted retroactive waivers to several individual petitioners because of uncertainty about whether the opt-out notice applied to “solicited” faxes. The waivers granted in the Anda Order apply only to the individual petitioners listed in that order. The Commission noted, however, that other, similarly situated parties may also seek waivers. We therefore seek comment on the Petitioners’ requests for waiver consistent with the guidance set forth in the Anda Order.

Tackling the Digital Divide in the Pacific Northwest

As the headquarters for a number of technology industry pioneers, Seattle (WA) has a thriving digital economy. But even in this high-tech hub, 93,000 residents – or 15 percent of the city’s population – don’t subscribe to the Internet From urban centers such as Seattle and Portland (OR) to rural towns such as Toledo (WA), civic leaders, industry officials and community activists are making progress in narrowing the digital divide. But the job is not done. That’s the picture that emerged from a daylong regional broadband workshop that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration hosted in partnership with the non-profit Next Century Cities in Seattle.

The event was the sixth in an ongoing series of regional workshops that NTIA is organizing as part of our BroadbandUSA program, which provides free hands-on technical assistance, toolkits, guides, webinars and other support to help communities expand local broadband deployment and adoption. The Seattle workshop brought together roughly 250 stakeholders – including local, state and federal officials, tribal leaders, industry representatives and community activists – to study broadband challenges facing the Pacific Northwest, explore potential solutions and examine success stories from Washington and surrounding states.

A new bill would force prepaid phone buyers to register themselves

A new bill, Closing the Pre-Paid Mobile Device Security Gap Act of 2016, would require people to provide identification and officially register themselves when buying a prepaid phone.

Rep Jackie Speier (D-CA), who introduced the bill, called the prepaid phone "loophole" an "egregious gap in our legal framework" that allows terrorists and criminals to prosper. The bill was only introduced on March 23 and has yet to be approved by the House Judiciary Committee. It’s unclear whether it will gain more traction, but nonetheless, similar attempts to register prepaid buyers have proven controversial, as critics point out that regulations may penalize legitimate buyers. Sen Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduced a similar bill six years ago that would have required identification to purchase one. As explained in a New York Times story at the time, terrorists and criminals aren’t the only ones who purchase the temporary devices. Journalists use them, too, primarily for confidential conversations with sources who prefer to remain unassociated with news organizations. Victims of abuse and people with lower incomes also often purchase the phones.

E-books are not the answer to a literacy crisis

[Commentary] The White House recently announced the launch of Open eBooks, an app giving access to thousands of free e-books to any educator, student or administrator at one of the more than 66,000 Title I schools or any of the 194 Defense Department Education Activity schools in the United States. It’s an admirable endeavor and recognizes that we have a literacy problem. However, it brings to mind Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous line: “Water, water, every where/ Nor any drop to drink.”

Technology is repeatedly touted as a cure for the United States’ educational woes, promising everything from banishing boredom to widespread reform. There is more technology in our classrooms and homes than ever, but too often these expensive technologies yield few gains in learning or gains not commensurate with cost. Serving as the executive director of the Virginia Children’s Book Festival, in the heart of a literacy desert, has taught me two things: Literacy is an instilled value, and too frequently reading is a luxury instead of a necessity. The Open eBooks initiative is laudable, but it fails to address the root of the country’s literacy crisis. While it will make textbooks and storybooks accessible to those lucky enough to have the technology, without critical intervention to create a culture of reading in every home and school, that access has little chance of making any meaningful change. At best, the program and ConnectED must be seen as supplementary solutions to a problem we haven’t addressed in a sustained and intensive manner. At worst, Open eBooks will go the way of Crewe Primary’s iPads: well-intentioned but extraordinarily insufficient.

[Juanita Giles is the executive director of the Virginia Children’s Book Festival]

Benton

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