MEDIA OWNERSHIP
TV Executive Says, 'No, Thanks' to More
INTERNET
Students Fill Grade Book On Teachers at Website
VeriSign Agrees To Shut Down Search Service
PRIVACY
Library Wants to Track Books with Computer Chips
DIGITAL DIVIDE
USDA Awards $53.7M for Rural Tech-based Economic Development
WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
Commentary: Information Technology Needs Fertile Ground
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MEDIA OWNERSHIP
TV EXECUTIVE SAYS, 'NO, THANKS' TO MORE
TV executive Jim Goodmon continues to lobby in Washington against media
consolidation. Goodmon is the CEO of Capitol Broadcasting, which owns a
radio station and five North Carolina television stations. He argued before
the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation that easing the
media ownership limits would shift the balance of power between the networks
and the local affiliates even further in the networks' favor. He pointed out
that, as a Fox network affiliate, Capitol's WRAZ chose not to air several
reality programs -- "Temptation Island," Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire"
and "Married by America" -- because they "demeaned marriage and family."
"Managers at stations owned by the Fox network could not have made those
decision," Goodmon stated in his testimony. "I am not saying we made a right
or wrong decision -- I am simply saying we made a local decision reflecting
our view of local community standards in Raleigh-Durham."
SOURCE: News & Observer; AUTHOR: David Ranii
http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/2920159p-2683807c.html
INTERNET
STUDENTS FILL GRADE BOOK ON TEACHERS AT WEBSITE
Teachers have been giving the grades for years; now students are grading
their teachers on the two-year-old website, ratemyteacher.com. The site lets
middle and high school students post comments and rank teachers from 1 to 5
for easiness, helpfulness and clarity. More than 400,000 teachers at more
than 23,000 schools have received ratings. The adults who established the
site say that good teaching is key to student achievement and should be
recognized. Great teaching is about the ability to make connections with
students, says Michael Hussey, a public relations consultant and co-founder
of the site. He says ratemyteachers.com gives students a voice in their own
education. Critics, including teachers and principals, say the site's
ratings are unscientific, not to mention hurtful. As a result, many school
have blocked access to ratemyteachers.com from school computers. They fear
that instead of helping teaching, the rating could push already stressed
teachers out of the profession. The site gets more positive comments than
the negative, says Hussey. He also says that 1,600 students volunteers
screen postings for potentially libelous, sexually explicit, profane, or
non-relevant comments.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49058-2003Oct5.html
VERISIGN AGREES TO SHUT DOWN SEARCH SERVICE
VeriSign Inc., the firm that oversees Internet addresses ending in ".com"
and ".net", finally agreed to suspend its new service that steers surfers to
its online search directory when they mistype the name of a website
destination into their browser. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers (ICANN) demanded that VeriSign suspend Site Finder because they
feared it interferes with Internet stability. VeriSign initially rejected
ICANN's request to suspend the site, but changed its position because if the
site was in fact harming Internet stability, ICANN could impose fines up to
$100,000 or strip the company of its authority over the addressing system.
"There is no data to indicate the core operation of the Domain Name System
or the stability of the Internet has been adversely affected," says Tom
Galvin, VeriSign's spokesman. "ICANN is using anecdotal and isolated issues
in an attempt to assert a dubious right to regulate non-registry services."
Because 1.5 million users per day were sent to SiteFinder, advertisement
alone would have easily generated $100 million in annual revenue. This new
VeriSign site has sparked debates over who controls the Internet on national
and international levels.
SOURCE: Washington Post; AUTHOR: David McGuire
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42107-2003Oct3.html
PRIVACY
LIBRARY WANTS TO TRACK BOOKS WITH COMPUTER CHIPS
Library officials in San Francisco approved a plan to install radio
frequency identification chips (RFIDs) into the system's collection of
roughly 2 million books, CDs and audiovisual materials by 2005. The benefits
of the RFID system would be to help locate books in branches and speed up
the checkout process. The chips would be deactivated as materials are taken
from the library, preventing any stealth tracking of books (or library
patrons) off premises. Nevertheless, the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(EFF) is concerned that the system is a threat to privacy, as information
may remain accessible and trackable, whether by hackers or law enforcement
subpoena. "We're talking about the imbedding of location trafficking devices
into the social fabric," said Lee Tien, staff lawyer for EFF. San
Francisco's city librarian, Susan Hildreth, said the city is preparing for
the future. "Industry trends show that [chips are] going to replace the bar
code very shortly," she explained. Seattle and Santa Clara are already
installing RFID tracking systems.
SOURCE: USA Today; AUTHOR: Ron Harris, AP
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/internetprivacy/2003-10-03-sf-library-...
_x.htm
DIGITAL DIVIDE
USDA AWARDS $53.7M FOR RURAL TECH-BASED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Last week, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced 128 awards
totaling $53.7 million for rural tech-based economic development
initiatives. The 84 Distance Learning and Telemedicine grants, which total
$32.4 million, are aimed to provide greater educational opportunities and
medical service to rural citizens in 41 states. The education projects will
help 556 schools provide students with better educational tools, and rural
residents will have access to better, faster and more modern health care
through 190 medical service facilities. In addition, 34 broadband community
grants were awarded in 20 states, totaling $11.3 million. Communities
selected do not have access to broadband connectivity for the essential
services of police and fire protection, hospitals, libraries and schools.
Ten million dollars was awarded for the establishment of agricultural
innovation centers in 10 states. "Information technology is critical to
rural Americans. It significantly improves the quality of their health care
and their ability to receive access to educational programs that prepare
them for a competitive future," said Agriculture Under Secretary for Rural
Development Thomas C. Dorr.
SOURCE: USDA; CONTACT: Alisa Harrison
http://www.usda.gov/news/releases/2003/09/0333.htm
WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY NEEDS FERTILE GROUND
[Commentary] Although the North has been assigned responsibility to help
bridge the digital divide in the South, equally as important, individuals
need to be able to fully exploit the potential of information technologies.
As delegates prepare for the forthcoming World Summit on Information Society
(WSIS), some will become aware of the tenuous link between development
potential and the reality of implementation. Some economists question
whether heavy capital investment in IT has greater value than building new
classrooms or hospitals. The WSIS challenge will be to convince politicians
that investment in both is necessary. Additionally, the international
community needs to develop a regulatory framework and devise new strategies
for producing information and communication technologies (ICTs) tailored to
specific development needs. New technical fixes as well as comparable social
experimentation and research is needed to explore the most effective ways of
linking ICTs to human ingenuity. With structure, access, and training,
individuals will be able take hold of this global information revolution and
learn to benefit from it, argues SciDevNet's David Dickson. He writes that
an international commitment to significantly increase research on ICTs for
the poor would be a significant outcome of the WSIS.
SOURCE: Science and Development Network; AUTHOR: David Dickson
http://www.scidev.net/Editorials/index.cfm?fuseaction=readEditorials&ite...
90&language=1
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