MEDIA OWNERSHIP
Indie Producers Speak Out
Working to Tame the Giants
DIGITAL DIVIDE
NetAid and UNV Honor Outstanding Online Volunteers
INTERNET
Virginia Threatens Spammers with Jail Time
Justices Decline to Take Healthgrades.com Case
'New' Rating Confirms Google's Crown
MEDIA OWNERSHIP
INDIE PRODUCERS SPEAK OUT
Independent TV producers took part in a forum on media ownership this week
with the FCC's two Democrat commissioners and US Congressman Xavier Becerra
(D-CA). "We may be on the verge of creating a new Citizen Kane for the 21st
century, or maybe a handful of them," FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein
said at the forum, which was held at the University of Southern California.
Rep. Becerra said that FCC Chairman Michael Powell's plan to push through
the new rules by early June "seems like a runaway train." Writer-producer
William Blinn, known for his work on the landmark TV miniseries Roots, added
that placing product control in the hands of too few media industry voices
"tends to homogenize what is put out because it homogenizes the creators."
Alex Wallau, president of Disney's ABC Television Network, retorted that
Disney owns a diversity of channels, such as ABC, ESPN and SoapNet. "To say
there is a homogenization is ludicrous," he said. "These are very diverse
voices."
[SOURCE: Newsday; AUTHOR: wire reports]
http://www.newsday.com/business/printedition/ny-bzfcc303260514apr30,0,19...
4.story?coll=ny-business-print
WORKING TO TAME THE GIANTS
[Commentary] Columnist Mark Jurkowitz profiles four activists who are
leading the policy battle against the FCC's proposals to deregulate media
ownership rules. Jenny Toomey, executive director of the Future of Music
Coalition, is a musician and a former independent record label exec. Her
organization published a major report on media consolidation in the radio
industry, and is fighting to make sure that musicians have a seat at the
table during this important debate. Gene Kimmelman, director of the
Consumers Union's Washington office, is passionate about the issue. "For
local information, more than 70 percent of consumers live in communities
with one newspaper," he explains. "Take this major source and put it
together with a broadcaster, [and] other broadcast stations won't even try
to compete.... They'll go to entertainment. They'll go to sports. They won't
compete on news." The Center for Digital Democracy's Jeff Chester is a
"committed gadfly" who's not known for mincing words. "I think the most
important thing is Michael Powell's intellectual dishonesty," he says of the
FCC chairman. "The vision these companies have for the media, at the end of
the day, is a system for promoting advertising. I call it the 'brandwashing
of America.'" Andrew Schwartzman runs the Media Access Project, a nonprofit
media law firm in DC. "I sometimes say our clients are the IRA and we are
the Sinn Fein," says Schwartzman. "They throw the stink bombs, and we
explain it in polite language."
[SOURCE: Boston Globe; AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/120/living/Working_to_tame_the_giants+...
ml
DIGITAL DIVIDE
NETAID AND U.N.V. HONOR OUTSTANDING ONLINE VOLUNTEERS
Earlier today, NetAid and the United Nations Volunteers program (UNV)
announced the names of 10 online volunteers of the year for 2003. The 10
volunteers were singled out as "having performed outstanding work for
international development organizations around the world." Congratulating
the winners, UNV Executive Coordinator Sharon Capeling-Alakija said, "It is
of great importance to recognize the contributions of people who make their
time, skills, expertise and creativity available to others via the Internet.
It is equally important to highlight that online volunteering generates many
new opportunities for people to volunteer." Winners represented Serbia,
Cameroon, France, Kenya, Canada, the US and Turkey, volunteering over the
Internet for organizations in Nigeria, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Uganda, Kenya, the
US and Armenia. "Whether they were Web designers, researchers, writers or
marketers, these online volunteers have made tremendous contributions to
their host organizations," explained NetAid's Bea Bezmalinovic. "We hope
that the recognition of these individuals will highlight their contributions
and motivate more organizations to work with online volunteers and benefit
from their services."
[SOURCES: NetAid, UNV]
http://www.unvolunteers.org/infobase/news_releases/2003/03_04_30DEU_neta...
tm
INTERNET
VIRGINIA THREATENS SPAMMERS WITH JAIL TIME
While many states have adopted some kind of anti-spam legislation, no state
has matched the stiff penalties signed into law yesterday in the
commonwealth of Virginia. At a bill signing event yesterday at AOL's Dulles
headquarters, Virginia Governor Mark Warner signed the bill, which would
impose up to five years in prison and allow authorities to seize assets
obtain as a result of the unsolicited email activity. The law has
applicability even to senders outside the state, since much of the country's
email traffic passes through Virginia. The law prohibits automated spamming
tools and the forging of headers to disguise the origin of the message.
[SOURCE: CNN; AUTHOR: Associated Press]
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/04/30/fighting.spam.ap/index.html
JUSTICES DELINE TO TAKE HEALTHGRADES.COM CASE
Maintaining its reluctance to resolve Internet jurisdictional issues, the
Supreme Court yesterday refused to hear an appeal in the Healthgrades.com
case over the choice of venue. Healthgrades.com, a Colorado-based company
that provides scores for healthcare providers, was sued in the state of
Washington when a provider there claimed that a lower-than-expected rating
amounted to defamation. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the
company had established minimum contacts in Washington by rating a
Washington-based provider and by obtaining information for the rating from
state records in
Washington.
[SOURCE: The Washington Post; AUTHOR: Associated Press]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48029-2003Apr28.html
"NEW" RATING CONFIRMS GOOGLE'S CROWN
Few were surprised when Google's name appeared at the top of another search
engine ratings list, but some controversy has risen nonetheless. ComScore
Networks' qSearch ratings were released yesterday amid claims that the
scores were more accurate than previous methods for assessing search engine
usage. The qSearch method purports to be more direct by counting individual
unique searches as opposed to unique visitors to an engine -- only 64
percent visitors to a portal or search site actually perform searches there
in any given month, according to some statistics. Critics contend that other
services, such as Nielsen-NetRatings, have drilled down beyond the visitor
level for several years and that qSearch offers little new to the
literature, including results.
[SORUCE: CNET News; AUTHOR: Paul Festa]
http://news.com.com/2100-1024-998845.html?tag=fd_top
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