POLITICAL DISCOURSE
Plunging Ratings Touch Off Debate on Why Public Is
Losing Interest (NYT)
Going Online is Fine, but GOP Sees E-mail as the Key (USA)
INTERNET
Web Site to Create Program for TV (USA)
American's are No. 1 in Online Time (WP)
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Online Agreement Near for Writers' Group (NYT)
PRIVACY
Justice Told To Expedite Reply on Net Wiretap (WP)
Toys 'R' Us Faces Lawsuit for Allegedly Giving Out
Online Customers' (WSJ)
DIVERSITY
The Blond, Blue-Eyed Face of Spanish TV (WP)
POLITICAL DISCOURSE
PLUNGING RATINGS TOUCH OFF DEBATE ON WHY PUBLIC IS LOSING INTEREST
Issue: Political Discourse
Are convention ratings dropping because people are less interested? Or are
people less interested because broadcast coverage of the conventions has
been scaled back so much? The chairmen of both parties confronted network
executives at a panel discussion in Philadelphia on Sunday accusing them of
shirking their civic duty by drastically curtailing the number of hours of
live coverage and argued that by de-emphasing coverage, they were sending
the message that the conventions were not newsworthy. Network executives and
journalists blame the parties for scripting the conventions and eliminating
any semblance of suspense or debate. NBC's Tom Brokaw says, "there's no
there there." CBS News President Andrew Heyward predicts that candidates'
acceptance speeches may be the only events covered by broadcast networks in
2004.
[SOURCE: New York Times (A23), AUTHOR: Bill Carter]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/080300gop-ratings.html)
See Also:
JOURNALISTS ARE MAKING VERY MUCH OF A LITTLE
[SOURCE: New York Times (A21), AUTHOR: Rick Lyman]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/080300gop-media.html)
GOING ONLINE IS FINE, BUT GOP SEES E-MAIL AS THE KEY
Issue: Political Discourse
Despite all of the convention hype about steaming media and live chats, the
real political potential of the Internet may lie in a less glitzy
application: e-mail. Both Democrats and Republicans are building databases
of names they can contact again and again for money, labor -- and votes.
"The single most important thing that can be achieved in online politics is
an e-mail relationship," says Michael Cornfield, research director for the
Democracy Online Project at George Washington University. "They can go back
to you time and time again." The GOP, which has budgeted nearly $5 million
this year for online campaigning, has already compiled a database of 250,000
email addresses. While also following Internet opportunities, the Democrats
have been a little slower to invest online. This may be because Internet
analysts say more Republicans have access to the Web at home or work than do
Democrats. A GOP survey this year showed that 62% of Republicans were
online, compared with 48% of Democrats.
[SOURCE: USAToday (7A), AUTHOR: Richard Wolf]
(http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000803/2516147s.htm)
See Also:
ONLINE COMPANIES PROWL FOR BUSINESS AT THE GOP CONVENTION IN PHILADELPHIA
Issue: Ecommerce
There's not much talk about technology from the podium at the Republican
convention, but there's plenty of information for Philadelphia visitors at
the PoliticalFest exhibit a few miles from the convention site. Exhibitors
include Voter.com, a site that carries election news and does online
public-relations work for hundreds of political campaigns including both
Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush. Election.com
(www.election.com) is promoting technology that allows voters to cast
ballots online. The New York-based company's first client was Arizona, which
in March became the first state to hold a primary online. RightCountry.com
funnels a portion of purchases made over the Internet to conservative causes.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jason Anders (jason.anders( at )wsj.com)]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB965264005349983325.htm)
INTERNET
WEB SITE TO CREATE PROGRAM FOR TV
Issue: Internet/ Cable
Icebox.com this week became the first entertainment Web start-up to sign a
deal to supply online content to an on-air network. Beginning next week,
Showtime will present the first of 13 episodes of the Web-based animated
comedy series Starship Regulars. Icebox's deal is a sign that so-called
streaming entertainment on the Internet is beginning to challenge big media
by bypassing traditional distribution networks. "The message is that you
don't have to spend an insane amount of money anymore to develop shows that
appear on television," says Icebox.com CEO Steve Stanford. "We can do it for
a tenth of the cost, and we can take a lot of the risk out of the equation.
. . by testing our product's popularity online."
[SOURCE: USAToday (1B), AUTHOR: Thor Valdmanis]
(http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000803/2516251s.htm)
AMERICAN'S ARE NO. 1 IN ONLINE TIME
Issue: Internet
Americans spent more time online than Internet users in Australia, Canada,
France, Germany, Japan and Britain, according to recent figures based on the
May measurement results of Media Metrix, which tracks about 100,000 Internet
and digital media users in these seven countries. American home users, who
spend an average of more than 13 hours per month online, were followed by
the Japanese, who averaged nearly nine hours. The French spent the least
time online, averaging about four hours a month.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E4), AUTHOR: Terence Chea]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27592-2000Aug3.html)
See Also:
LONG LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE PC MAY BE HOLDING BACK THE U.S.
Issue: InfoTech
Ever since the personal computer came on the scene in the 1970s, the U.S.
has dominated the digital world. But the tectonic plates are shifting under
the digital world. The PC, the linchpin of America's digital dominance, is
slowly giving way to a host of other digital devices able to do digital
tasks, giving foreign companies a real opening that could threaten American
leadership in the field. Most of the new technologies and applications
flowing from the PC are American inventions, and if invented by foreigners,
America has adopted the technology better. For example, a British scientist
invented the World Wide Web in Switzerland, yet it has been developed and
expanded mainly by Americans, and its inventor now works at MIT. But today,
Europe and Asia lead the U.S in non-PC-based digital gadgets that Americans
can't buy at home. They include wireless devices, including mobile phones
that can tap the Internet for communications, information and commerce
consumer electronics-type boxes that access the Internet, and can do some of
the things a PC does without all of a PC's hassles. Although some of this
advantage is culturally-historically based, much of it is due to a
tremendous blunder made by the U.S. government and phone industry, who
failed to adopt a single national standard for wireless phones, while Europe
and many other parts of the world settled on a standard called GSM.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (B1), AUTHOR: Walter S. Mossberg]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB965264295574893245.htm)
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
ONLINE AGREEMENT NEAR FOR WRITERS' GROUP
Issue: Intellectual Property
The National Writers' Union, representing freelance writers, and Steven
Brill's Contentville apparently have reached an agreement that will pay
writers for the resale of old articles. If a writer find that an article is
for sale on the Contentville.com site, could assert ownership of the
copyright and will receive payment through the Publication Rights
Clearinghouse, run by the writers' union. A federal appellate court decision
last September in a case brought by Mr. Tasini and the National Writers'
Union struck down the contention by several publishers -- including The New
York Times Company, Newsday and Time Inc. -- that electronic databases and
archives were analogous to "collected works." Had this view prevailed,
freelance writers -- of whom there are tens of thousands -- would have been
severely limited in claiming copyright infringement when their works were
included in electronic databases like Lexis-Nexis. That case will probably
be decided by the Supreme Court. Robin Bierstedt, the deputy general counsel
of Time, said that, as described, the Publication Rights Clearinghouse was
an untenable answer to future copyright claims. Under current law, she said:
"You need permission in advance before using material. A scheme by which
payment comes after a claim is made doesn't work, unless you've gotten
permission up front."
[SOURCE: New York Times (C6), AUTHOR: Felicity Barringer]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/080300online-freelance.html)
PRIVACY
JUSTICE TOLD TO EXPEDITE REPLY ON NET WIRETAP
Issue: Privacy
U.S. District Judge James Robertson has ordered the Justice Department to
promptly review a request from the Electronic Privacy Information Center
(EPIC) for information on the technologies and capabilities of the FBI's
Carnivore system. Carnivore is the FBI's controversial Internet wiretapping
system that has raised objections from members of Congress and privacy
advocates alike. Judge Robertson ordered Justice to provide him a formal
response by August 16. The FBI has touted Carnivore as an important new tool
to track suspected criminals and terrorists via the Internet. The system
sifts through email flowing over an ISP to find the senders and recipients
of suspect email. The technology is not as discerning as a traditional
wiretap which targets one particular line or suspect, Carnivore reads all
mail on an ISP - both the mail of the suspects and the e-mail of innocent
people using the ISP. Concerns about the system have arisen from privacy
groups and some members of Congress on two fronts: 1) the system's potential
for abuse and 2) the lack of precision in the Carnivore process. Last month,
EPIC and the ACLU filed requests for information on Carnivore. "The fact
that the court is going to supervise the processing of the material is very
good news," said David L. Sobel, an attorney for the nonprofit group. "If
left to their own devices, it's likely the FBI would tend to drag its feet
on this, and now I think that's less likely. . . . It's going to be very
difficult to have a meaningful debate about the legal issues Carnivore
raises if we don't really know what Carnivore is."
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E1), AUTHOR: Bill Miller]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25897-2000Aug2.html)
See Also:
JUDGE GIVES THE FBI UNTIL AUG. 16 TO DECIDE ON CARNIVORE DISCLOSURE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Ted Bridis (ted.bridis( at )wsj.com)]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB965261560756447378.htm)
EPIC FILES SUIT FOR CARNIVORE INFORMATION
On August 2, EPIC asked a federal judge to order the immediate public
disclosure of information concerning the Federal Bureau of Investigation's
controversial "Carnivore" surveillance system. In an application (PDF) filed
in U.S. District Court in Washington, EPIC charges that the Department of
Justice and the FBI have violated the law by failing to act on a request to
expedite the processing of a Freedom of Information Act request EPIC
submitted to the FBI on July 12.
[SOURCE: Electronic Privacy Information Center]
(http://www.epic.org/privacy/litigation/carnivore_release.html)
TOYS 'R' US FACES LAWSUIT FOR ALLEGEDLY GIVING OUT ONLINE CUSTOMERS' DATA
Issue: Privacy
Confidential information of consumers who made online purchases from Toys
'R' Us between the summer of 1998 and the present may have been disclosed
illegally, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Camden (NJ). The
lawsuit alleges that Toys "R" Us divulged the name, address and other
personally identifiable information about consumers without their consent to
a third party, thus violating electronic transmission laws. Last month, the
Federal Trade Commission filed suit against Toysmart, an online toy retailer
from selling its customer list, as part of a bankruptcy sale. The FTC is
advocating legislation that would require Internet companies to notify
online visitors how they plan to use the personal information provided to
the firms.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (Interactive), AUTHOR: Staff Reporter]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB965268390558774558.htm)
DIVERSITY
THE BLOND, BLUE EYED FACE OF SPANISH TV
Issue: Diversity/ Television
After taking on the four major U.S. networks last year to protest a lack of
Latino characters on their shows, Latino activists and actors have become
increasingly critical of what they call a kind of racial caste system that
gives Spanish-language television an almost exclusively Caucasian face. They
say that there are too few Afro-Latinos or indigenous people cast in
Spanish-language television shows, and that when they are cast they often
play demeaning roles."These shows stereotype the hell out of people," said
Juan A. Figueroa, president and general counsel of the Puerto Rican Legal
Defense and Education Fund. "If you looked at the soap operas without
knowing better, you would think they came from Scandinavia or somewhere like
that with all the blond, blue-eyed people you see. Meanwhile, the few people
of color are relegated to the subclasses." A recent survey of 4,000 Latino
members of the Screen Actors Guild by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute
found that Latino actors preferred the opportunities offered by
English-language productions to those offered in Spanish television, because
a majority of respondents felt that Spanish-language productions provided
greater opportunities for fair-skinned Latino actors than for darker-skinned
Latinos.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E1), AUTHOR: Michael Fletcher]
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19009-2000Aug1.html)
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