October 2016

State Dept months late on explaining Clinton aide's missing emails

The State Department is months behind on a request that it explain how a former IT aide’s e-mails appeared to have disappeared, and Republicans are crying foul. Documents obtained by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and given to ABC News reportedly show that the State Department has not responded to a July request from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) despite a demand that it do so within 30 days. The missing e-mails are from Bryan Pagliano, an IT worker responsible for many aspects of the private e-mail setup Hillary Clinton used during her time as secretary of State.

In May, the State Department said that it did not have Pagliano’s e-mail archive, prompting outrage from the Obama Administration’s critics. It’s unclear whether Pagliano deleted his e-mails or they went missing through some other means. Despite the missing archive, the department has located some e-mails that Pagliano sent or received through the e-mail accounts of other government staffers. The National Archives, which has broad responsibilities for federal record storage, asked the State Department to describe the steps it has taken to recover Pagliano’s e-mails this summer. So far, officials have not responded. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the department is “still in the process” of responding to the letter.

Clinton ally's advice: Meet with NYT publisher to try to improve coverage

In July 2015, Hillary Clinton ally Neera Tanden, who is head of the progressive think tank the Center for American Progress, passed along advice that Hillary Clinton should try to set up a meeting with The New York Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., to get more favorable coverage from the newspaper.

In the e-mail, which was released Oct 26 as part of the WikiLeaks’ ongoing release of e-mails from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, Tanden said that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg used the tactic to “[change] the coverage moderately.” Tanden said in the e-mail that the advice came from “Howard,” presumably a reference to former New York City Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson, a longtime Democratic strategist who is now a senior adviser to Bloomberg. “[W]hen Bloomberg was having problems w the times he called Arthur Schulzberger (sic) and asked for coffee,” Tanden wrote in an e-mail to Podesta, dated July 9, 2015 and labeled as “Howard’s advice” in the subject line. “He made the case that they were treating him like a billionaire dilettante instead of Third term mayor. It changed the coverage moderately but also aired the issues in the newsroom so people were more conscious of it." Tanden added this caveat: “But Arthur is a pretty big wuss so he’s not going to do a lot more than that.”

The media is rigging the election by reporting WikiLeaks emails

[Commentary] The media is rigging this election in favor of Donald Trump by swallowing hook, line and sinker Russia's efforts to boost his campaign. The media continuously reports on hacked e-mails that intelligence officials with a high degree of certainly have traced to Russian hackers. Conveniently, Trump has failed to recognize this reality despite his penchant for truly absurd conspiracy theories such as Muslims in New Jersey cheering the 9/11 terrorist attacks or Sen Ted Cruz's (R-TX) father being part of the plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. This hacking represents a blatant and unprecedented effort by a hostile foreign power to influence the outcome of an American presidential election. The hacking is also a serious violation of American law. Under the federal Stored Communication Act, it is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison to hack into a private e-mail server.

So far, leakers linked to the Russians have released tens of thousands of Democratic documents and zero Republican documents. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out whom the Russians are attempting to elect in 2016. The media's complicity in Russian hacking tilts the playing field in favor of Trump because we have no Republican documents to compare with the material contained in the hacked Democratic e-mails, which may or may not have been doctored. It also threatens the long-term health of our democracy. By selectively leaking illegally obtained documents that the media dutifully covers, the Russians have proven that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain from such meddling in our elections.

[Lichtman is distinguished professor of history at American University in Washington.]

Comcast sues Nashville to halt rules that help Google Fiber

Comcast sued the Nashville (TN) metro government and mayor to stop a new ordinance designed to give Google Fiber faster access to utility poles. Comcast's complaint in US District Court in Nashville is similar to one already filed by AT&T in Sept. Both Internet service providers are trying to invalidate a One Touch Make Ready ordinance that lets new ISPs make all of the necessary wire adjustments on utility poles themselves instead of having to wait for incumbent providers like AT&T and Comcast to send work crews to move their own wires.

The ordinance was passed largely to benefit Google Fiber, which is offering service in Nashville but says that it hasn't been able to deploy faster because it is waiting to get access to thousands of poles. Nearly all the Nashville utility poles are owned either by the municipal Nashville Electric Service or AT&T. Because Comcast has wires on many of the poles, it has some control over how quickly Google Fiber can expand its network. When Google Fiber wants to attach wires to a new pole, it needs to wait for ISPs like Comcast to move their wires to make room for Google Fiber's.

Comcast signs up more cable TV subscribers, bucking the cord-cutting trend

Cable television company Comcast gained customers in the third quarter, bucking industry trends, and its broadcast of the Rio Summer Olympics hauled in $1.6 billion in revenue. Comcast announced that it gained a net 32,000 cable television subscribers during the July-through-September quarter, compared with a loss of 48,000 in the same quarter in 2015. The industry leader also gained 330,000 high-speed Internet customers, a slight increase over the year-earlier quarter. Comcast now has 28 million customers.

The company’s stock, however, was down $1.59, or 2.5%, to $62.94 around 8:30 a.m. Pacific time. Wall Street analysts have been eager to hear whether AT&T’s blockbuster $85.4-billion deal to buy Time Warner Inc. might prompt Comcast to rush out and buy a wireless phone company such as T-Mobile or Sprint to achieve the same kind of scale. Over the years, Comcast has been more acquisitive than most media conglomerates, buying entertainment company NBCUniversal in 2011 and DreamWorks Animation last summer.

Why you should stop obsessing about your kids’ screen time

The debate about screen time is getting more complicated. As we spend more time each day in front of a screen, concern is growing over the effect it could be having on our brains — particularly the brains of our children. Parents may be silently scolding themselves for giving their kids too much screen time, but the issue is more complicated than simply logging on to computers and other devices.

The week of Oct 17, the American Association of Pediatrics announced new guidance on how parents should think about screen time for their children. And on Oct 24, parent advisory group Common Sense Media released an in-depth look at media use among black and Latino teens, an even more complicated picture of the merits and dangers of screen time. The group decided to commission the case studies after seeing the results of a census of teen media use the group ran in 2015. That report found that teens, on average, were using media in some form for nine hours each day. It also found that minority teens, particularly black and Latino teens, were spending significantly more time with media than their white contemporaries and the overall average. It would be easy to draw some simple conclusions from that result about how socioeconomic factors may affect media use, said Common Sense research head Michael Robb. But Common Sense wanted to see if it could paint a more complex and personal picture, rather than using such a broad brush. Young people in the study also used their phones for critical communication that brings them closer to their families.

Pursuing Academic Freedom and Data Privacy Is a Balancing Act

Recently, undergraduates at Harvard University raised concerns about the institution handing over their data to an anti-affirmative action group as part of a lawsuit. Students for Fair Admissions, which is suing the university for allegedly discriminating against Asian American applicants, will have access to “academic, extracurricular, demographic and other information” from all undergrads who applied to Harvard between the fall 2009 and spring 2015, omitting names and Social Security numbers.

Protecting student information is increasingly challenging in an era when learners leave digital footprints of nearly all of their academic and extracurricular pursuits. Now universities, the overseers of student data, are charged with the double task of keeping that information safe and also protecting student privacy. The two can be at odds. “Universities need to provide students the freedom to explore ideas without the concern that they’re being monitored. That’s important in an academic environment,” says Lisa Ho, campus privacy officer at the University of California, Berkeley.

Directors Guild of America, Networks Strike New Network Staff Agreement

The Directors Guild of America has struck a tentative agreement with ABC, CBS and NBC on a new Network Staff agreement and the National Board has voted to send it to the members for a vote. The agreement covers news, sports and operations staffers at the TV networks and some of their owned local stations. According to DGA, the new agreements include a total 7.2% wage increase staggered over the three years -- 2% the first year, 2.5% for each of the next two.

The networks will also increase their contributions to the DGA pension plan. The guild also said that there were provisions "to address opportunities" for new media projects and local station concerns about "jurisdiction, long hours and compensation," but did not elaborate. The negotiations appeared to have gone fairly smoothly, beginning in September and resolved, at least tentatively, within a few weeks -- negotiations actually concluded in early October. The current contract expires June 30. The new contract, if ratified, extends from July 1 through June 30, 2020.

NTIA Announces Members of Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee

The US Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced the appointment by Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker of outside experts to serve on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC), which provides advice and expertise on a wide range of spectrum policy and technical issues. The 30 committee members, including 11 new experts, will serve two-year terms.

The committee provides advice and recommendations to the Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information aimed at strengthening the US global leadership role in wireless technology services and innovation while supporting the country's homeland security, national defense, and other critical government missions. In the upcoming term, NTIA expects CSMAC to continue working on, among other topics, enabling flexible federal access to non-federal spectrum on a shared basis and understanding challenges that are unique to 5G wireless systems. The Secretary selected members of the committee based on their technical background and expertise, as well as a diversity and balance in points of view, consistent with the CSMAC Membership Balance Plan. As Special Government Employees (SGEs), members serve in a personal capacity and do not represent any organization or interest.

Political Ads Found To Suppress Effectiveness of Brand Advertising

The political season has always posed problems for brand advertisers trying to fulfill media plans, given the diminished supply of inventory. Now, new research suggests that political ads — even those with positive messages — not only hog avails, but also deplete the effectiveness of adjacent brand ads and potentially tarnish brand image. The research is from J. Walter Thompson and Forethought, which found that brand advertising is perceived as 32% less relevant, 29% less entertaining and 27% less appealing when it follows a political ad. According to the research, the impact goes beyond just how consumers perceive a brand’s commercial. It negatively impacts the perception of the brand and product overall:
Brand reputation takes a 34% hit
Perception of product value declines by 32%
Product quality perception drops by 24%

“This research brings to light a couple of very interesting and surprising truths,” said Mark Truss, JWT’s global director of brand Intelligence. “Even political advertising with positive messages generates negative emotions in consumers. And the negative priming effect holds true even for very product-specific attributes, such as taste.”

Benton

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