BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, JULY 27, 2010
Today's busy agenda http://bit.ly/ag6D8l
WIRELESS
New Library of Congress rules allow unapproved iPhone apps
FCC, FDA unveil partnership to promote wireless medical technology
Industry Group to Study How a Mobile Nation Uses Media
AT&T Begins Fix for Glitch That Slowed Some IPhones
Private and Public Stakeholders to Collaborate on Better Informing Consumers About Accessible Apps
The Internet of Things: What It Is, Why It Matters
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Genachowski says US broadband numbers "unacceptable"
Cybersecurity, Innovation and the Internet Economy
Vermont broadband Internet access: Where is it?
Telework bill could be near tipping point
ACCESSIBILITY
On landmark law's 20th anniversary, House passes bill to make Internet more accessible for disabled
OWNERSHIP
ACA Chairman: Comcast/NBCU Would Have More Power Than Any Company Deserves
Tribune urges earlier hearing on examiner's report
See: Tribune Faces New Hurdle in Report
TELEVISION AND RADIO
Univision Radio Pays $1 Million to Resolve "Pay-For-Play" Investigation
Second Circuit Seeks More Input on Fleeting Nudity
Cable shows with the wealthiest viewers
KIDS AND MEDIA
Are computers for every student a wise investment?
Screen Time Screeds -- Why Parents and Journalists Need to "Speak Research"
JOURNALISM
Media, Race and Obama's First Year
Obama finds that the Internet bites back
The new journalism
Economy Tops the Agenda
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
Obama Assails Republicans on Campaign Finance
Let the Spending Begin
STORIES FROM ABROAD
China Mobile Charges Into Broadband
UK Government to tackle airbrushed ads
Town and country digital divide could widen in the UK
Daily Paper for Children Defies the Craze for Digital
Honduras Faces Criticism Over Journalist Killings After a Coup
Move to Limit Cantonese on Chinese TV Is Assailed
MORE ONLINE
President Obama and Vice President Biden's Daily Public Schedules Now Online
Lessons of the Census
Expletives Fly at Raucous Labor Union Convention Over Telecom 'Czar'
Why thousands of Verizon customers in New York lost service
Recent Comments on:
Journalists, Provocateurs, Maybe Both
WIRELESS
JAILBREAKING THE IPHONE
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Joelle Tessler]
Owners of the iPhone will be able to legally unlock their devices so they can run software applications that haven't been approved by Apple Inc., according to new government rules announced July 26. The decision to allow the practice commonly known as "jailbreaking" is one of a handful of new exemptions from a 1998 federal law that prohibits people from bypassing technical measures that companies put on their products to prevent unauthorized use of copyright-protected material. The Library of Congress, which oversees the Copyright Office, reviews and authorizes exemptions every three years to ensure that the law does not prevent certain non-infringing uses of copyright-protected works. For iPhone jailbreakers, the new rules effectively legitimize a practice that has been operating in a legal gray area by exempting it from liability. Apple claims that jailbreaking is an unauthorized modification of its software. In addition to jailbreaking, other exemptions would:
allow owners of used cell phones to break access controls on their phones in order to switch wireless carriers.
allow people to break technical protections on video games to investigate or correct security flaws.
allow college professors, film students, documentary filmmakers and producers of noncommercial videos to break copy-protection measures on DVDs so they can embed clips for educational purposes, criticism or commentary.
allow computer owners to bypass the need for external security devices called dongles if the dongle no longer works and cannot be replaced.
allow blind people to break locks on electronic books so that they can use them with read-aloud software and similar aides.
benton.org/node/39899 | Associated Press | www.bloomberg.com | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Recommend this Headline
back to top
FCC, FDA PARTNERSHIP
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Sara Jerome]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a partnership on July 26 designed to promote wireless medical technology, a field they say will cut medical costs and improve care. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg signed a memorandum of understanding and released a joint statement of principles at the beginning of a two-day conference on wireless medical technology.Calling the partnership "unprecedented," Chairman Genachowski said that "all Americans stand to benefit from wireless-enabled health solutions." The FCC's National Broadband Plan, released in March, called on the government to streamline processes to promote wireless medical technology. The joint statement says that the FDA and the FCC should encourage investment in wireless medical technology, ensure that all devices operate safely, and streamline regulatory processes, including by clarifying the agencies' jurisdiction over wireless devices. [more at the URL below]
benton.org/node/39898 | Hill, The | press release | Joint Statement on Wireless Medical Devices | Memorandum of Understanding | FCC Chairman Genachowski
Recommend this Headline
back to top
HOW A MOBILE NATION USES MEDIA
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Suzanne Vranica]
Some of the nation's biggest media companies and advertisers, seeking to develop new ways of measuring audiences, could make Apple's iPhone the vehicle for a study of how Americans consume media on a range of devices -- from TV sets to mobile phones to computers. The study would be one of the first major initiatives of the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement, a high-profile collaboration between the media and ad industries begun last summer with much fanfare. The group is in talks to hire Media Behavior Institute LLC, a New York media-research firm, to conduct a study in which participating consumers would get an iPhone in exchange for agreeing to report their media use several times a day. The effort could get off the ground in the fall, if approved by the group's board members. The iPhones would come with a specially designed app that study participants would log on to every half hour to answer questions, such as what media they were watching or listening to, who they were doing it with and whether they were using more than one device at a time. In a media world that has grown increasingly fragmented, advertisers are eager to figure out how best to allocate their ad budgets. At the same time, media companies, which have seen TV audiences splinter over the years, are eager to find a way to prove that people are watching their shows on devices beyond the traditional TV set. They also are more frequently trying to sell ad packages across their different properties, such as a mix of broadcast and cable channels.
benton.org/node/39897 | Wall Street Journal
Recommend this Headline
back to top
AT&T WORKING ON GLITCH
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Greg Bensinger]
AT&T said it began a fix for a glitch in software supplied by Alcatel-Lucent SA that was causing slower speeds in some areas of the U.S. for customers using Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4 and other devices. Mark Siegel, an AT&T spokesman, said in an e-mail the Dallas-based carrier expected the issue to be resolved within two to three weeks. AT&T said earlier this month that fewer than 2 percent of its wireless customers were affected. Customers were experiencing slow responses when sending data such as photos or e-mail from their devices, Alcatel-Lucent said earlier this month.
benton.org/node/39894 | Bloomberg
Recommend this Headline
back to top
ACCESSIBLE APPS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Karen Peltz Strauss]
What industry can do to ensure that consumers are aware of the great number of accessibility apps that are available now and may become available in the future? CTIA - the Wireless Association has volunteered to work with consumers and the Federal Communications Commission to figure out the best way to make this information available to consumers. Among other things, this may include updating and expanding the wireless association's accessibility website, so that it would be a first stop for consumers searching for information about accessible wireless devices, services, and apps. CTIA's acceptance of this challenge was conditioned on the agreement of consumers, the FCC, and other stakeholders to collaborate with industry representatives on this project. We and all of the consumer groups in attendance at the event readily agreed to work together and committed to moving the project forward in a coordinated effort with CTIA.
benton.org/node/39893 | Federal Communications Commission | FCC
Recommend this Headline
back to top
INTERNET OF THINGS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Laurie Lamberth]
The "Internet of Things" (IoT) -- a diverse collection of technologies and devices designed to connect everyday objects to the Cloud — will likely be one of the most important technological advances of this century. Connected "things" includes any number of items, from a front door lock, a wireless vital signs monitor or a motion sensor that detect earthquakes. New "things" introduced during the past year include trackers for cars, kids and pets, cellular and Wi-Fi photo frames, health and fitness monitors and products for remote medical care. The emergence of Cloud computing, meanwhile, has created the application and device management backbone needed to scale to and support billions of connected objects. Consumer, governmental and business trends are also pushing us toward the IoT. And despite inhibitors to growth, such as privacy issues and the challenge of creating sustainable business models, we will see, over the next decade, increasing benefits in our personal and community lives as the IoT takes hold.
benton.org/node/39888 | GigaOm
Recommend this Headline
back to top
INTERNET/BROADBAND
CYBERSECURITY, INNOVATION AND THE INTERNET
[SOURCE: Department of Commerce]
The Department of Commerce's Internet Policy Task Force is conducting a comprehensive review of the nexus between cybersecurity challenges in the commercial sector and innovation in the Internet economy. The Department seeks comments from all stakeholders, including the commercial, academic and civil society sectors, on measures to improve cybersecurity while sustaining innovation. Preserving innovation, as well as private sector and consumer confidence in the security of the Internet economy, are important for promoting economic prosperity and social well-being overall. In particular, the Department seeks to develop an up-to-date understanding of the current public policy and operational challenges affecting cybersecurity, as those challenges may shape the future direction of the Internet and its commercial use, both domestically and globally. After analyzing comments on this Notice, the Department intends to issue a report that will contribute to the Administration's domestic and international policies and activities in advancing both cybersecurity and the Internet economy.
benton.org/node/39890 | Department of Commerce
Recommend this Headline
back to top
VERMONT BROADBAND MAP
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Dave Gram]
Vermont is in the heat of a gubernatorial campaign, and the candidates are making a new round of promises about broadband and fixing Vermont's spotty cellular phone coverage. Experts say Vermont's mountains and hills block wireless signals. Its sparse population of about 622,000 makes stringing cables to widely scattered rural homes and businesses too expensive to be profitable in many areas. The upshot is that Vermont has struggled to keep up with the information age. "In most rural areas you have a very challenging business proposition for broadband," said Christopher Campbell, executive director of the Vermont Telecommunications Authority. That state agency, created in 2007, is promoting Vermont's efforts to expand both broadband and cellular phone service statewide. "That doesn't mean it can't be done," Campbell added. "It has been done. It's been done in Vermont. It's even possible that if we waited long enough somebody would figure out how to do it all without any help. The problem is we can't afford to wait." It's difficult to quantify exactly how much broadband and cell phone coverage there is in the state. On broadband, estimates range up to 90 percent.
benton.org/node/39896 | Associated Press
Recommend this Headline
back to top
TELEWORK BILL
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Elizabeth Newell]
Now that legislation to expand telework in the federal government has passed both chambers of Congress, sponsors are working to reconcile the two bills and get a final product to President Obama's desk. The Senate and House versions of the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act are similar, according to a House staffer. They are designed to expand telecommuting opportunities governmentwide by making employees presumptively eligible and requiring agencies to take a number of actions to expand their telework programs.
benton.org/node/39885 | nextgov
Recommend this Headline
back to top
ACCESSIBILITY
HOUSE PASSES ACCESSIBILITY BILL
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
The House passed a bill that aimed at making the Internet and mobile phones more accessible to the disabled through video captions for the hearing impaired and better descriptions of smartphone screens for the blind. The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, which was sponsored by Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), cleared the House on a vote of 348 to 23. Its approval came on the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and as a similar bill works its way through the Senate.
benton.org/node/39921 | Washington Post
Recommend this Headline
back to top
OWNERSHIP
ACA: COMCAST WOULD HAVE TOO MUCH POWER
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Talking to a roomful of small and medium-sized cable operators, American Cable Association Chairman Steve Friedman said it was time for the discrimination against smaller operators to stop, including arguing that a Comcast/NBCU merger has more clout "than any one company deserves." In a speech at a Washington policy update session at the Independent Show in Baltimore, Friedman said that whether the issue is network neutrality, retransmission consent reform, broadband reclassification or the Comcast-NBCU merger, the problem boils down to big vs. small.
benton.org/node/39895 | Broadcasting&Cable
Recommend this Headline
back to top
TRIBUNE BANKRUPTCY
[SOURCE: Crain's Chicago Business, AUTHOR: Lynne Marek]
Tribune Co. told U.S. Bankruptcy Court that speeding up the release of a special examiner's report and related documents to parties involved in the case is "critical" to keeping the company on track for hearings on its proposed reorganization plan at the end of this month. The Chicago-based media company asked the court in Delaware in a filing July 26 to move up a hearing on releasing the report to Wednesday from the Aug. 9 date suggested by the examiner. The earlier hearing would allow Tribune time to prepare for confirmation hearings on the reorganization plan, slated to start Aug. 30. "It is critical that the parties be provided with the report, the exhibits and the transcripts at the earliest possible opportunity once filed with the court," the Tribune said in the filing. "Any delay in this regard -- particularly to as late as Aug. 9, 2010 -- could be highly disruptive to the plan confirmation schedule." Tribune, which owns the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, other newspapers and 23 local TV stations, must win approval of the plan from creditors and the court before it's permitted to exit bankruptcy.
benton.org/node/39884 | Crain's Chicago Business | Los Angeles Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top
TELEVISION AND RADIO
UNIVISION SETTLEMENT
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: ]
The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau released a Consent Decree entered into with Univision Radio to resolve allegations that Univision radio stations or their employees secretly accepted payment from a record label in exchange for the radio stations giving more frequent airplay to the label's artists, without making the disclosures to listeners required by section 507 of the Communications Act. In a companion criminal action, a federal district court has accepted the plea of Univision Services to charges filed by the U.S. Department of Justice ("DOJ"), based on the same facts. The FCC and the DOJ coordinated their respective investigations and enforcement actions. As part of the FCC settlement and the DOJ action, the Univision companies will pay $1 million to the U.S. Treasury. The FCC-Univision Consent Decree also obligates Univision to implement certain business reforms and compliance measures designed to ensure future compliance with the Commission's rules. Key provisions of the settlement include:
General prohibition on Univision stations and employees exchanging airplay for cash or other items of value, except under specified conditions, and provided that such exchanges comply with sponsorship identification laws;
Limits on the size of gifts, concert tickets, and other valuable items that Univision stations and employees can accept from record labels;
Appointment of a Compliance Officer and regional Compliance Contacts responsible for monitoring and reporting company performance under the settlement; and
Regular training of programming personnel on payola restrictions.
benton.org/node/39892 | Federal Communications Commission | read the decree and order
Recommend this Headline
back to top
FLEETING NUDITY
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
According to one of the parties in the case, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has asked both sides for supplemental briefs in the NYPD Blue indecency case, wanting to know what effect a recent ruling by a three-judge panel of that same court has on the Federal Communications Commission's fleeting nudity enforcement policy under challenge in the NYPD Blue case. That case is the one in which the FCC proposed fining ABC affiliates more than a million dollars over a 2003 episode of the acclaimed police drama that featured seven seconds worth of the backside of a character (played by actress Charlotte Ross) accidently displayed to a child who happens into the bathroom while she is preparing to shower. The Second Circuit wants to know what impact its recent decision in the Fox case that the FCC's fleeting profanity policy is unconstitutionally vague and chilling has on the case against the FCC's fleeting nudity policy challenge in Blue. There is a deadline of Aug. 23 for briefs of no more than 15 pages
benton.org/node/39912 | Broadcasting&Cable
Recommend this Headline
back to top
CABLE SHOWS WITH WEALTHIEST VIEWERS
[SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter, AUTHOR: Georg Szalai]
Two-time drama series Emmy winner "Mad Men" returned to AMC on July 25 after a whirlwind of previews and promotions in print, broadcast and online. Despite all the attention and the show's affluent viewership, "Mad Men" has averaged far fewer viewers than other summer cable dramas like USA's "Burn Notice," and ad rates also are lower. An average 30-second spot on first-run episodes of "Mad Men" fetches about $20,000-$25,000, according to a recent trade media report -- not much, but it is a multiple of AMC's primetime movies. Plus, AMC bets that marquee shows boost its visibility, image and value.
benton.org/node/39886 | Hollywood Reporter, The
Recommend this Headline
back to top
KIDS AND MEDIA
ED TECH INVESTMENT
[SOURCE: eSchool News, AUTHOR: Dennis Pierce]
Daily technology use in core subject-area classes, frequent technology use in intervention courses, and a low student-to-computer ratio can play a critical role in reducing dropout rates, new research suggests -- and the study's authors argue that a federal investment in mobile computers for every child would pay huge dividends in terms of national productivity. "Technology is an investment, not an expense," says Project RED (Reinventing Education), the group behind the research. The project's researchers surveyed nearly a thousand schools with diverse student populations and varying levels of ed-tech integration. The researchers found that 45 percent of all schools said their dropout rates are going down -- but for schools that have implemented one-to-one computing programs, that figure is 58 percent. And for schools that are implementing 1-to-1 programs effectively, employing strategies such as regular formative assessment and frequent teacher collaboration, that figure jumps to 81 percent. Based on these findings, Project RED says policy makers should consider the economic impact a federal investment in 1-to-1 computing and education technology could have on the nation's future.
benton.org/node/39889 | eSchool News
Recommend this Headline
back to top
SPEAKING RESEARCH
[SOURCE: The Huffington Post, AUTHOR: David Kleeman]
[Commentary] In recent weeks, papers worldwide have punched parents' guilt buttons yet again by hyping a study that claims screen time harms children. Editors seemingly competed to give the Iowa State University research the most extreme headline. Given the steady flow of research that says everything you've done is wrong, it's a wonder parents aren't paralyzed! They'd be greatly helped if they, and the journalists who cover such studies, had the research literacy to weigh strengths and weaknesses. Was the sample size large or small? Was the study based on an observed behavior or someone's recollections? Did the study find "correlation" or "causation"? Did the study take content into account? Did the research weigh environmental elements like socio-economic status, parental education, parental co-viewing and overall involvement with the child? Did the study look at children's broader habits and activities? When confronted with definitive or bombastic headlines, parents should remember that research is a process and not a destination. No single study is definitive (consider the shifting advice on red wine or chocolate) and, because people's lives are complex, it's almost impossible to attribute cause in areas like media use and development. [David Kleeman is President of the American Center for Children and Media, an industry-led creative professional development and resource center.]
benton.org/node/39887 | Huffington Post, The
Recommend this Headline
back to top
JOURNALISM
MEDIA, RACE AND OBAMA'S FIRST YEAR
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
As a group, African Americans attracted relatively little attention in the U.S. mainstream news media during the first year of Barack Obama's presidency -- and what coverage there was tended to focus more on specific episodes than on examining how broader issues and trends affected the lives of blacks generally, according to a year-long study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and its Social and Demographic Trends Project. From early 2009 through early 2010, the biggest news story related to African Americans was the controversy triggered by the arrest last summer of a prominent black Harvard University professor by a white Cambridge, Massachusetts police officer. It accounted for nearly four times more African American-related coverage than did either of two biggest national "issue" stories covered by the mainstream media during the same period - the economy and health care. The study finds that 9% of the coverage of the nation's first black president and his administration during Obama's first year in office had some race angle to it. Here, too, this coverage was largely tied to specific incidents or controversies rather than to broader issues and themes.
benton.org/node/39883 | Project for Excellence in Journalism
Recommend this Headline
back to top
INTERNET BITES BACK
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Dana Milbank]
[commentary] For a man who came to power by harnessing the potential of the Internet, President Obama has been oddly out of sorts in recent days as the medium turned against him. During and after Obama's 2008 campaign, his advisers crowed about how they had found their way around what campaign manager David Plouffe called "the snarky media filter." In a typical iteration, Plouffe bragged, "We reach more people when we send an e-mail than on most nights watch 'NBC Nightly News' and all the cable news channels combined, including Fox." After helping to undermine the position of the media, Obama and his aides are now feeling the consequences of the decline.
benton.org/node/39914 | Washington Post
Recommend this Headline
back to top
THE NEW JOURNALISM
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jonah Goldberg]
[Commentary] The house Cronkite built did many fine things. It also locked out competing points of view, buried inconvenient bodies, spun the news and racked up a formidable list of Shirley Sherrods all its own. The New York Times whitewashed Stalin's genocide. Cronkite misreported the significance of the Tet offensive to say the Vietnam War was unwinnable. Dan Rather, Cronkite's replacement, began his career falsely reporting that Dallas schoolchildren cheered JFK's murder and ended it falsely reporting on forged National Guard memos. The Rodney King video was misleadingly edited; Janet Cooke made up her stories for the Washington Post. The media environment today is so dizzying because of two revolutions. On one front we have the upheaval of the Internet, of which the WikiLeaks story -- the leaking of 92,000 government documents about the war in Afghanistan -- is Exhibit A. (The leaks weren't just private; they were official secrets! But who cares!) On the other front there's the consumer backlash -- largely conservative, with Fox News as Exhibit A -- against the old ideological media monopoly. This pincer movement can be scary. But it's progress over the Cronkite era.
benton.org/node/39913 | Los Angeles Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
DISCLOSE ACT VOTE IN SENATE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jackie Calmes, Carl Hulse]
President Barack Obama sought political advantage from the expected defeat of a campaign finance measure that he has championed by pre-emptively attacking its Republican opponents for "nothing less than a vote to allow corporate and special-interest takeovers of our elections." His statement to reporters at the White House was added to his daily schedule after it became clear that the Senate would vote today on whether to take up a bill that would require corporations, unions and other special interests to disclose the donors that bankroll their political advertisements. The legislation would also ban campaign spending by foreign-controlled corporations. The House has passed the measure, which Democrats initiated after the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 to allow unlimited independent expenditures by corporations in elections, saying the federal limits violated First Amendment rights. But in the Senate, with a solid wall of Republican opposition, the measure is expected to fall short of the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster. That would probably kill the initiative for this election year, handing President Obama a big loss in a fight against not only Congressional Republicans but also the dominant conservative faction on the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
benton.org/node/39920 | New York Times | read the President's remarks | Associated Press | The Hill | Broadcasting&Cable | Washington Post editorial | Los Angeles Times editorial | San Jose Mercury News
Recommend this Headline
back to top
LET THE SPENDING BEGIN
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The starter's gun went off last week in the squalid new race for unlimited campaign cash. The Federal Election Commission approved the creation of two "independent" campaign committees, one each from the left and right, expressly designed to take advantage of the new world of no rules. One committee is being set up by the Club for Growth, the conservative advocate for low taxes and less government. The other will be run by a new group with close ties to the Democrats called Commonsense Ten, which says it will raise money from individuals, corporations and unions. Because both are obviously completely independent and would never dream of coordinating their efforts with those of any political party, they will be able to spend unlimited amounts, thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision earlier this year.
benton.org/node/39919 | New York Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top