Josh Stearns

We are announcing two new locally-based and locally-driven funds – totaling more than $2 million – that will invest in ideas, people, and organizations that are working to ensure people have access to the news and information they need in these communities. The funds will focus on building more healthy news ecosystems as a vital part of just communities and a healthy democracy.

[Commentary] According to the Supreme Court, police need a warrant to search the cellphones of people they arrest. The unanimous decision, which was handed down, is being heralded as a major victory for privacy rights and a landmark case with implications far beyond cellphones.

Many of the most important debates surrounding press freedom and privacy right now focus on how our fundamental freedoms, so long expressed and protected in the physical world, will translate to the digital age.

In response to the ruling Geoffrey King of the Committee to Protect Journalists said, "Today's decision closes a dangerous loophole faced by journalists who use mobile devices for news-gathering and reporting." The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, National Press Photographers Association and other news organizations filed a brief in the cases at the Supreme Court arguing that cellphone searches can interfere with news-gathering.

"A typical journalist's phone contains a wealth of private data," the news organizations wrote in the brief. "At any time a journalist's phone may include drafts of stories, interviews, corresponding photos or video, information about sources, and other confidential information necessary for reporting."

The decision is an important recognition that advances in our technology shouldn't result in erosions of our liberty. The case comes at a moment of renewed interest and concern for how government and law enforcement are using cellphones to track people. While the case is not likely to have an immediate impact on the practices of the NSA, it may create a new opening in that debate down the road.

[Stearns is Director, Journalism and Sustainability at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation]

[Commentary] If the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger goes through, one company will control way too much of what we see and how we see it online and on cable.

A bigger Comcast will also have the power and reach to determine the prices we all pay for cable and Internet service. Indeed, you’re not off the hook even if Comcast doesn’t serve your community; the company will be so huge that it’ll set the agenda for the entire industry. And its vision for the future of cable and the Internet could become the new normal.

Comcast doesn’t need to get any bigger: It already owns NBCUniversal, which includes local broadcast stations around the country and some of our nation’s oldest newsrooms and entertainment studios.

[Commentary] The proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger is all about the future of the Internet. The stakes are high, especially in light of the court decision that struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rules.

Comcast has taken advantage of the very real public concerns about the loss of net neutrality and tried to paint itself and the merger as saviors of the open Internet -- but this couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s precisely because Comcast has such a long history of bad behavior that federal regulators included net neutrality as a condition of Comcast’s 2011 merger with NBCUniversal. Worried about the enormous incentive Comcast would have to prioritize its own content and discriminate against others, regulators decided that the company would have to adhere to net neutrality principles until 2018.

Comcast has tried to assuage fears and sell its merger by promising to extend its net neutrality commitments to all Time Warner Cable customers. But like most merger requirements, this commitment comes with an expiration date. In 2018, Comcast will no longer have to abide by net neutrality, making this an empty promise.

[March 7]