Headlines will be on a break Aug 12-18.
POLICY & POLITICS
Kerry Pledges Diversity-Minded FCC
Kerry Suggests Merging Technology Administration, NTIA
AT THE FCC
Copps Vows More Ownership Hearings
Copps Criticizes FCC's Work so far on Homeland Security
Measures to Safeguard the E-Rate Program
BIG MEDIA'S BIG CRITICS
Ted Turner Attacks Big Media
Consolidation Equated with Apartheid
Krugman: A Day of Reckoning for the Media Machine
POLICY & POLITICS
KERRY PLEDGES DIVERSITY-MINDED FCC
At the Unity conference (http://www.atunity.org/2004/thursday/index.html)
in Washington, DC, Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry has pledged
to "appoint people to the FCC and pursue a policy that tries to have as
diverse and broad an ownership as possible." Sen Kerry (MA) said ownership
diversity was "critical to our Democracy." Sen Kerry also reiterated his
opposition to deregulation and bashed the broadcast networks for abridged
convention coverage. He cited the scathing anti-Fox doc, Outfoxed, when
talking about news coverage decisions. "I don't know how many of you have
seen Outfoxed or some of the other things that are going around. You can
make your own judgments about" a lot of what is decided with respect to
news coverage
National Journal's Technology Daily reports that Sen Kerry's pledge could
mean if the Democrat wins the election, current FCC Commissioner Michael
Copps could be named Chairman of the Commission. But there's a number of
other rumored candidates including: Greg Rothschild, chief telecom aide to
Rep. John Dingell (D-MI); former commissioner Susan Ness; Blair Levin,
former chief of staff to former Chairman Reed Hundt; Antoinette Cook Bush
and Ivan Schlager, former aides to Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC); cellular
industry executive Gerry Salemme; Kathy Brown, former chief of staff to
former Chairman William Kennard and now a Verizon executive; Larry Irving,
former head of the National Telecommunications and Information
Administration; and David Krone, executive vice president at the National
Cable and Telecommunications Association.
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA442718?display=Breaking+News
(requires subscription)
[SOURCE: National Journal's Technology Daily, AUTHOR: Drew Clark]
http://nationaljournal.com/pubs/techdaily/pmedition/tp040805.htm
(requires subscription)
Additional coverage:
* TVWeek
http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=6047
* Multichannel News
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA442669?display=Breaking+News
KERRY SUGGESTS MERGING TECHNOLOGY ADMINISTRATION, NTIA
Although not a new idea, Sen John Kerry (D-MA) is proposing to combine the
Commerce Department's Technology Administration and the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration to "promote a more
efficient and effective operation, while ensuring that we move forward to
bridge the digital divide." In February 2003 Commerce Secretary Don Evans
proposed merging the departments with the e-commerce policy function of the
International Trade Administration. Congress rejected Secretary Evans'
proposal during the fiscal 2004 appropriations process. Sen. Earnest
Hollings (D-S.C.), the ranking member of the Commerce, Justice, State
appropriations subcommittee, led the effort to reauthorize NTIA through
2008, but the bill never was passed by the full Senate.
See Sen Kerry's plan at http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/pr_2004_0803.pdf
[SOURCE: Government Computer News, AUTHOR: Jason Miller]
http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/26842-1.html
AT THE FCC
COPPS VOWS MORE OWNERSHIP HEARINGS
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps appeared on C-span Thursday morning and said
he and fellow Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein will hold public hearings on
the FCC ownership rules now being rewritten under orders from a
Philadelphia appeals court. He also once again urged his Republican
colleagues on the Commission to join him and Commissioner Adelstein in
soliciting more public input on the rules. In an op-ed piece in the New
York Sun just prior to the Democratic National Convention, former FCC
commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth labeled Commissioner Copps the driving
force behind derailing the ownership rules, saying he had "helped organize
the largest grassroots e-mail campaign in world history to pressure
Washington politicians to help defeat the rules."
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA442594?display=Breaking+News
(requires subscription)
COPPS CRITICIZES FCC'S WORK SO FAR ON HOMELAND SECURITY
In what might be the beginning of a series of comments on communications
and Homeland Security, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said the recent
report by the 9/11 Commission "lays out in chilling detail a communications
unreadiness that seriously inhibited our country's ability to respond" that
day. And "meetings, NOIs and draft best
practices can only take us so far," he said. Commissioner Copps sees a
disconnect between Commission rhetoric and action. Commissioner Copps
mentioned the failure of the FCC to integrate hospitals, first responders
and Centers for Disease Control communications. He said he had made several
visits to medical facilities. "I don't see that many hospitals, especially
in rural America, have a reliable 2-way communications system that allows
them to communicate with local and federal law enforcement and emergency
personnel in a crisis... When they do have dedicated systems, they are
seldom redundant, and most are based on the public network, which is
unreliable in emergencies, as 9/11 and the more recent East Coast blackout
proved."
[SOURCE: Communications Daily, AUTHOR: Howard Buskirk]
(Not available online)
MEASURES TO SAFEGUARD THE E-RATE PROGRAM
On Wednesday, the FCC adopted measures that resolve a number of issues that
have arisen from audit activities conducted as part of ongoing oversight of
the schools and libraries support mechanism (also known as the "E-rate"
program), and address programmatic concerns raised by its Office of
Inspector General. The schools and libraries program enables qualified
applicants to receive discounts on eligible telecommunications services,
Internet access, and internal connections. Since the program's inception
in 1997, schools and libraries across the United States have received over
$11 billion in funding commitments. Today, in large part due to this
program, 99% of public schools and 92% of public school classrooms are
connected to the Internet. The Order does the following: 1) sets forth a
framework regarding what amounts should be recovered by the Universal
Service Administrative Company (USAC) and the Commission when funds have
been disbursed in violation of specific statutory provisions and Commission
rules; 2) announces that USAC and the Commission will conduct audits or
other investigations relating to use of E-rate funds within five years of
receipt of supported services; 3) eliminates the current option to offset
amounts disbursed in violation of the statute or a rule against other
funding commitments; 4) extends the red light rule previously adopted
pursuant to the Debt Collection Improvement Act (DCIA) to bar beneficiaries
or service providers from receiving additional benefits under the schools
and libraries program if they have failed to satisfy any outstanding
obligation to repay monies into the fund; 5) requires beneficiaries and
service providers to maintain all documents necessary to demonstrate
compliance with program requirements for five years, which will enhance the
Commission's ability to conduct all necessary oversight and provide a
stronger enforcement tool for detecting statutory and rule violations; 6)
requires applicants to develop a technology plan consistent with the U.S.
Department of Education and USAC guidelines for technology plan content; 7)
amends and strengthens the Commission's certification requirements for
E-rate applicants and service providers to enhance oversight and
enforcement activities; 8) directs USAC to submit a plan for timely audit
resolution; and 8) directs USAC to submit, annually, a list of its
administrative procedures for potential codification to enhance the
Commission's ability to limit waste, fraud and abuse.
Wireline Competition Bureau Staff Contact: Greg Lipscomb at 202-418-8200
[SOURCE: FCC]
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-250540A1.doc
BIG MEDIA'S BIG CRITICS
TED TURNER ATTACKS BIG MEDIA
Ted Turner founded Turner Broadcasting System in 1970, eventually launching
several successful cable networks including TBS, Cartoon Network and CNN.
In 1996 he sold the company to Time Warner, becoming the media
conglomerate's largest shareholder and joining its board of directors. Now,
Time Warner has $40 billion in annual sales. It owns the second biggest
collection of cable systems in the U.S., one of the biggest film studios,
the biggest magazine publisher as well as several leading cable-TV
networks. But Mr. Turner is now suggesting that media companies are too big
and should be broken up by the government. "We've done this before: to
railroad trusts in the first part of the 20th century, to Ma Bell more
recently," Mr. Turner writes in the current Washington Monthly magazine.
"Politically, big media may be on the wrong side of history." In May,
Turner published an opinion piece in the Washington Post protesting an FCC
proposal to raise the limit on the number of TV stations in a single market
that can be owned by a corporation. In the article, he was careful to say
he was "speaking only for myself, not for AOL Time Warner." He goes much
further in the Washington Monthly piece. Media consolidation, he argues, is
contributing to lower-quality products, hastening a decline in local news
and suppressing divergent views. "In the current climate of consolidation,
independent broadcasters simply don't survive for long," he writes. "At
this late stage, media companies have grown so large and powerful, and
their dominance has become so detrimental to the survival of small,
emerging companies, that there remains only one alternative: bust up the
big conglomerates."
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Julia Angwin julia.angwin( at )wsj.com]
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109175404288784675,00.html?mod=todays...
(requires subscription)
See Turner's article:
"My Beef With Big Media How government protects big media--and shuts
out upstarts like me"
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0407.turner.html
CONSOLIDATION EQUATED WITH APARTHEID
Speaking at the Unity conference
(http://www.atunity.org/2004/thursday/index.html) in Washington, DC, Juan
Gonzalez, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists,
equated growing media consolidation with moving toward a "de facto
apartheid media system." He said that government policy should be
addressing diversity of ownership, not just counting the number of media
outlets, because that diversity is "critical to insuring debate." Defending
consolidation was Tom Leech of Tribune, who argued that as an admitted
consolidator, his company had started up news operations or expanded them
on the stations it had bought. He also said that newspapers needed video
for their websites to remain competitive with new media. Teaming with TV in
a market helps that effort, he said. MIT Visiting Professor and former
broadcaster Mark Lloyd told the audience that the choice for President was
also a choice for more or less media consolidation: Republican FCC
Commissioners voted to loosen media ownership rules with Democrats fought
the change.
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA443290?display=Breaking+News
(requires subscription)
KRUGMAN: A DAY OF RECKONING FOR THE MEDIA MACHINE
Why does NY Times columnist Paul Krugman make big media nervous? Very few
critics of the media system command such attention. Now Krugman is pointing
his pen at the media's part in the machine "that is imposing right-wing
radicalism on the United States."
[SOURCE: Media Channel, AUTHOR: Rory O'Connor)]
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/affalert242.shtml
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Thanks for reading.... have a great weekend.
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Communications-related Headlines is a free online news summary service
provided by the Benton Foundation (www.benton.org). Posted Monday through
Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments,
policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are
factually accurate, their often informal tone does not always represent the
tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang
(headlines( at )benton.org) -- we welcome your comments.
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