MEDIA & SOCIETY
Panel to Protect Children Online Decides Against Requiring Filters
(WSJ)
Advertising Harms Children, Coalition Tells Candidates (CME)
Information Everywhere, But Not The Time To Think (USA)
New Media Meets Old Media in the Phone Book (NYT)
POLITICAL DISCOURSE
Number of Debate Viewers Rises From the First but Remains Low (NYT)
Debates Leave Instant Analysts Hedging Their Bets (NYT)
Candidates Accept Fox's Offer of Free Time (NYT)
ADVERTISING
Advertising: Rupert Murdoch Lends His Voice (NYT)
Actors Take P&G Product Boycott To Web, E-Mail (USA)
DIGITAL DIVIDE
Geeks, Proud of the Name, Start a Volunteer Corps (NYT)
MERGERS
Time Warner-AOL Merger Nears Regulatory Finish,
Chairman Says (WSJ)
RADIO/MUSIC
Drive-Time Radio On 100 Channels (NYT)
MP3.com Could Be Playing Their Songs After Publishers Agree
to Tentative Deal (WSJ)
INTERNATIONAL
Detariffing International Long Distance (FCC)
MEDIA & SOCIETY
PANEL TO PROTECT CHILDREN ONLINE DECIDES AGAINST REQUIRING FILTERS
Issue: Media & Society
A commission created by Congress to study ways to protect children online
will advise against requiring public schools and libraries to use filtering
software. In a report expected to be released Friday, the 18-member panel,
set up under the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, recommends that
government should encourage the use of filtering technology to protect
children from the Internet's seedier neighborhoods. It also will call on
industry to improve filtering software. But the commission declined to
recommend the mandatory use of antipornography filters, saying no particular
technology yet offers an ideal solution. That puts the panel directly at
odds with a Republican-sponsored amendment to the annual spending bill for
the Department of Education and some other agencies, which would require
schools and libraries to install software filters if they buy technology
with certain types of federal subsidies. "I don't believe they're good
enough," said Donald Telage of software filters. Mr. Telage is chairman of
the commission and an executive at Network Solutions.. "They're hopelessly
outgunned. A legislative, quick solution may not be the right answer." Some
commission members clearly sympathized with the filtering proposal. Donna
Rice Hughes, vice president of Enough Is Enough, said she supports it: "If
you use federal money for the Internet, we want you to take appropriate
steps to make sure that kids are safe when they're online using our money."
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (Interactive). AUTHOR: Ted Bridis]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB971914780616708314.htm)
(Requires subscription)
ADVERTISING HARMS CHILDREN, COALITION TELLS CANDIDATES
Issue: Advertising/Political Discourse
From Press Release: Kathryn Montgomery, president of the Center for Media
Education (CME) has joined a prestigious coalition of more than fifty
scholars, educators, health care providers and child advocates that sent a
letter to presidential candidates Al Gore, George W. Bush, Ralph Nader and
Pat Buchanan, urging the next administration to take a leadership role to
drastically reduce the amount of marketing aimed at children. Led by
Harvard Medical School faculty, Susan Linn and Alvin F. Poussaint of the
Media Center of Judge Baker Children's Center, the letter is signed by some
of the nation's foremost scholars and leaders in pediatric health care,
education and child advocacy, including Marian Wright Edelman, founder and
president of the Children's Defense Fund; T. Berry Brazelton, author and
pediatrician; Roald Hoffman, Nobel laureate; Howard Gardner, psychologist,
education innovator and recipient of a MacArthur fellowship; and Peggy
Charren, founder of Action for Children's Television.
[SOURCE: Center For Media Education]
(http://www.cme.org/)
INFORMATION EVERYWHERE, BUT NOT THE TIME TO THINK
Issue: Lifestyles
A study out today from the University of California, Berkeley, confirms what
most of us already know: We're awash in a sea of information, and the tide
is rising. The report, published at www.sims.berkeley.edu/how-much-info,
looks at the amount of data generated worldwide that appears in print, is
sent via radio or television, or is stored optically (such as on CDs and
DVDs) or magnetically (on hard drives and tapes). Interestingly, it is
individuals, and not publishers and other public sources, that are
responsible for most of the data generated each year, in forms such as
office documents, photographs and home videos. "Today, individuals are
creating and distributing huge amounts of information. It's a huge
revolution and a true democratic movement," says Peter Lyman, a professor at
Berkeley's School of Information Management and Systems and co-author of the
study with the school's dean, Hal Varian. While most information used to
come from authoritative sources -- governments, publishing houses,
newspapers and magazines -- now office workers are responsible for writing
more than 80 percent of all original paper documents.
[SOURCE: USAToday (1D), AUTHOR: Elizabeth Weise]
(http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20001019/2763342s.htm)
NEW MEDIA MEETS OLD MEDIA IN THE PHONE BOOK
Issue: Email
Phone books to be distributed next year by Verizon Communications will
include individual's e-mail addresses and personal Web page addresses, along
with their home telephone listings, for an annual fee of $36 for each
additional item. The change will be seen first in the New York area. The
idea has been under consideration for several years. "This is the first time
we've finally decided to go with it," said MaryBeth Masterson, product
manager of white pages for Verizon. Other phone companies have offered the
service but with limited response. Verizon's research showed that people
wanted to be located easily. "It's a great way to give people the
opportunity to contact you in ways other than by telephone," Ms. Masterson
said. Dr. James Katz, a communication professor at Rutgers University, notes
the convergence of old and new media: "We are having this jumbling of
communication tools," he said. People can find "old-style information" like
phone numbers online, he said, even as they find e-mail addresses in a
low-tech print directory. "A lot of people are not very Internet-savvy," Dr.
Katz said, "so for them, being able to use a familiar technology to look up
an e-mail address is great." Verizon is promoting the new feature as part of
its "personalized-listing options." Qwest began offering the service in
January 1997 but does not advertise it; fewer than 400 residential customers
have signed up. Bell Canada has offered the service since November 1996.
[SOURCE: New York Times (D1), AUTHOR: Joyce Cohen]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/19/technology/19LIST.html)
(requires registration)
POLITICAL DISCOURSE
NUMBER OF DEBATE VIEWERS RISES FROM THE FIRST BUT REMAINS LOW
Issue: Political Discourse
About 40.8 million watched Tuesday's presidential debate on the major
broadcast networks and cable channels. The audience was slightly bigger
than that for the second debate, but still much smaller than the first
debate's (Oct 3) audience. Fox again decided to air entertainment
programming seen by 13 million people and many NBC viewers saw a baseball
playoff game. But ABC's and CBS's audiences actually grew as the debate
worn on.
[SOURCE: New York Times (A22), AUTHOR: Jim Rutenberg]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/19/politics/19RATI.html)
(requires registration)
See Also:
BUOYANT GORE CAMP WANTS TO RERUN DEBATE ON CABLE
Believing the vice president's performance at the last debate has revived
his candidacy, the Gore campaign is looking into buying 90 minutes of cable
network time to rerun the program.
[SOURCE: New York Times (A24), AUTHOR: Katharine Seelye]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/19/politics/19GORE.html)
(requires registration)
DEBATES LEAVE INSTANT ANALYSTS HEDGING THEIR BETS
Issue: Political Discourse
Why have debates diminished as television events? Perhaps with 24-hour
cable news and candidates popping up on AM news shows, daytime talkshows
and late night TV, their appearances just aren't that big a deal anymore.
Debates are just part of the process now and are accompanied by snap polls
and focus groups, clips and interviews on morning shows the next day and
pundits dissecting each camp's spin for days. One new trend arose, though:
focus groups of undecided viewers replacing "experts" in deciding who won.
The pundits have realized that the way they see a debate may not match the
polls days after.
[SOURCE: New York Times (A23), AUTHOR: Caryn James]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/19/politics/19CRIT.html)
(requires registration)
CANDIDATES ACCEPT FOX'S OFFER OF FREE TIME
Issue: Political Discourse
Vice President Gore and Gov Bush will each receive a half hour of "free
time" to address Fox's viewing audience in primetime on October 27. Fox
executives will attend the taping of the candidates' addresses which cannot
be edited or enhanced. The political videos will replace the regularly
scheduled "Police Videos."
[SOURCE: New York Times (A23)]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/19/politics/19FOX.html)
(requires registration)
ADVERTISING
ADVERTISING: RUPERT MURDOCH LENDS HIS VOICE
Issue: Advertising
After a good run in recent years, the television advertising market is
cooling down. News Corp's Rupert Murdoch recently told shareholders, "There
are signs of weakness in the next couple of months," and he openly
attributed that to a falloff in spending by Internet businesses. Jack
Myers, the chief economist for The Myers Report, an industry newsletter,
noted that, "up to 50 to 70 percent of the money put up by venture
capitalists to start up these new- media companies got passed through in
spending on traditional media." He added, "That's over now." Tom Wolzien, a
media analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein, said any pullback in advertising
commitments would most likely not be felt first at the network level. "This
stuff usually cracks up from the bottom," he said. "I would expect local
stations and small cable networks to be hit first."
[SOURCE: New York Times (C8), AUTHOR: Bill Carter]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/19/business/19ADCO.html)
(requires registration)
ACTORS TAKE P&G PRODUCT BOYCOTT TO WEB, E-MAIL
Issue: Advertising
As the strike by the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of
Television and Radio Artists against the ad industry has evolved to a fight
over actor compensation on the Web, actors have begun to use the Internet to
gain support for their cause. The Unions have teamed with the AFL-CIO to
mount an Internet and phone blitz with star-studded e-mail, banner ads and
voice messages. Next week they will send e-mail to 2.3 million consumers,
which contain a video of actors such as Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and
Julianna Margulies endorsing the boycott. The goal is to persuade consumers
to boycott Procter & Gamble's Tide, Ivory and Crest products. Talks to
settle the 6-month-old strike resume today.
[SOURCE: USAToday (3B), AUTHOR: Michael McCarthy]
(http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20001019/2763491s.htm)
DIGITAL DIVIDE
GEEKS, PROUD OF THE NAME, START A VOLUNTEER CORPS
Issue: Digital Divide
Meet Geekcorps, the high-tech humanitarian aid version of the Peace Corps.
Instead of teaching math, as technologically adept Peace Corps workers often
do, GeekCorps members teach software companies in Ghana, for example, the
Java and Unix programming languages. The Geekcorps idea is the brainchild
Ethan Zuckerman, who started Tripod and Elisa Korentayer, an investment
banker and a poverty relief worker. The idea for Geekcorps came when Mr.
Zuckerman was in Ghana in 1993 on a Fulbright fellowship to study African
music. He spent a lot of time in the library and noticed that it did not
have many books published later than 1957, when Ghana became independent
from Britain. "I thought, If there was just an Internet connection," he
said, "you could more than double this library." While Geekcorps is not
unique, it is indicative of the expanding definition of the "digital divide"
While the term was once used primarily to describe the gulf between Internet
haves and have-nots within Western countries, it now refers more and more
frequently to the huge disparity in access between the world's economic
giants and its fledgling economies. Geekcorps and similar U.N.-sponsored
programs reflect the idea that the Internet can provide medical information,
economic opportunities and online courses that will enable developing
countries to leapfrog ahead. In the future Mr. Zuckerman hopes to persuade
"venture philanthropists" like the Noaber Foundation, which gave Geekcorps a
grant, to provide capital for Geekcorps's Ghanaian clients.
[SOURCE: New York Times (D7), AUTHOR: Shaila Dewan]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/19/technology/19VOLU.html)
(requires registration)
MERGERS
TIME WARNER-AOL MERGER NEARS REGULATORY FINISH, CHAIRMAN SAYS
Issue: Mergers
America Online and Time Warner are in the "homestretch" of the regulatory
process for their merger, Time Warner Chairman Gerald Levin said, adding
that he is "highly confident" of completing the merger this fall, in spite
of recent reports of tense negotiations between the companies and the
government. Mr. Levin called such reports "off-base." Mr. Levin also
insisted that worries about the advertising climate were "spurious,"
responding to concerns that have hit media and Internet stocks in recent
days. In a meeting yesterday, Time Warner executives argued that they
agreed with the Federal Trade Commission's desire to open up Time Warner's
cable systems to rival Internet-service providers, noting it would be good
for business. Terms of the "open access" plan have been among the most hotly
negotiated with the government, however.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (B12). AUTHOR: Martin Peers]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB971872700334797087.htm)
See Also
AOL TELLS WALL STREET IT'S READY FOR MERGER
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E01), AUTHOR: Alec Klein]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35413-2000Oct18.html)
RADIO/MUSIC
DRIVE-TIME RADIO ON 100 CHANNELS
Issue: Radio
Next year, Sirius and XM will start offering satellite radio services --
digital programming that will be available by subscription for car and home
receivers. Unlike local AM and FM channels, these new 100-channel packages
will be able to be heard continuously from one end of the country to the
other, with a CD-quality signal. If the businesses succeed, it could mean a
major shift for radio. Narrow-format digital shows, mostly free of
commercials, will go head to head with the advertiser-laden talk and
pop-music channels on AM and FM radio. And that's just to start. "Cable
started out as a television service, and now, with pay-per-view and
high-speed modems, it's a pipe into the home," said Hugh Panero, president
of XM. "We want digital radio to be that pipe into the car." Sirius and XM
expect their audio services to be only the first step in a plan to offer,
for additional fees, in-car services like e-mail and e-commerce access, and
data delivery.
[SOURCE: New York Times (D1), AUTHOR: Eric Taub]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/19/technology/19RADI.html)
(requires registration)
MP3.COM COULD BE PLAYING THEIR SONGS AFTER PUBLISHERS AGREE TO TENTATIVE
DEAL
Issue: Intellectual Property
MP3.com struck a tentative deal with music publishers to settle a copyright
suit and license songs for use in its My.MP3.com service. The three-year
deal, which still must be approved by the group's members, would potentially
restore many major record label tracks to My.MP3.com, which allows users to
listen to songs online if they already own them on compact disks. But
MP3.com still faces considerable legal hurdles, including a judgment that
could amount to as much as $250 million in a separate copyright suit filed
by Seagram Co.'s Universal Music Group. In addition, the company faces other
suits, from Zomba Recording Corp. and from shareholders. My.MP3.com service
was largely shut down in May after a judge found the service infringed
copyrights. The service could start being restored within a few weeks.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (B20). AUTHOR: Anna Wilde Mathews]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB971879248663820328.htm)
(Requires subscription)
INTERNATIONAL
DETARIFFING INTERNATIONAL LONG DISTANCE
Issue: International/Long Distance
From Press Release: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took
action to promote further deregulation of international long distance
services. In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), the Commission adopted
pro-consumer proposals to reduce further, as part of its Biennial
Regulatory Review under Section 11 of the Communications Act, the
regulatory burdens imposed on non-dominant carriers' provision of
international interexchange services.
Comments are due November 17, 2000. Reply comments are due December 4, 2000.
International Bureau Contact: Lisa Choi, (202) 418-1460.
[SOURCE: FCC]
(http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/International/News_Releases/2000/nrin0017.html)
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