Reporting

Is privacy a relic of the past given the array of governments and corporations determined to hoover up information about all of us as fully as technology permits it? Julia Angwin doesn’t think so.

The Pro Publica journalist argues that those fighting to better protect privacy aren’t wasting their time, even as the Information Age accelerates. Consider the Industrial Revolution, she urged.vLike advances in information technology, industrialization made societies more efficient, more productive, and wealthier––but those gains came at a heavy cost, for those who lived through the period of rapid industrialization made due with dangerous factories and horrific pollution, among other ills. At the time, those ills struck many as permanent features too entrenched or perhaps even too inevitable to counter. But others fought for industrial reforms, pushing society toward measures that better protected the environment and workers. Indeed, the conditions that prevailed in the early years of the Industrial Revolution would be unthinkable in the U.S. today. Why shouldn’t the Information Age prove as malleable to reformers?

President Donald Trump attacked Amazon June 28, claiming incorrectly that it owns The Washington Post in a scheme to dodge “internet taxes.” In fact, Amazon doesn’t own the newspaper. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos bought it himself. And while there isn’t a federal “internet tax,” as President Trump contends, Amazon has worked out arrangements with states to collect sales taxes on consumers’ online purchases — all the while seeking a national solution that many Republicans long have opposed.

President Trump, however, still took aim at Amazon in a tweet that sought to decry the Post’s political coverage as “fake news” — his latest in a series of attacks on both the tech company and the newspaper dating back to the 2016 presidential campaign. "The #AmazonWashingtonPost, sometimes referred to as the guardian of Amazon not paying internet taxes (which they should) is FAKE NEWS!" the President tweeted.

The "Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017" confirms that the screens-of-preference for younger audiences are mobile and dynamic. But identifying the platform does not necessarily tell you the source of the news. Consumers may look at an online or social media site to find reporting from established journalism sources (e.g. CNN, The New York Times, Fox) or just as easily from ersatz self-proclaimed bloggers or alt news sources.

The 136-page report delves more deeply into the distinction between the reception platforms and the actual content of the news. The Reuters Institute, which conducted the global research (30 countries on five continents) with the University of Oxford, acknowledges that the findings are "a reminder that the digital revolution is full of contradictions and exceptions." The results are also a roadmap toward future news consumption patterns, quantifying current usage patterns and offering eye-opening ideas for media providers about where to focus for future news packaging. The findings raise questions, such as whether today's 18-to-24 year-olds (only 24% of whom now consider TV as a primary news source) will migrate to TV sets by the time they are 55+ years old.

Snap-happy tourists have long posed next to the billboard-sized “Like” sign outside Facebook’s headquarters, in awe of seeing the real-life company behind the app. But it has taken until 2017 — and a political situation the tech industry sees as a crisis — to get Silicon Valley truly interested in the real lives of its users.

So...what apps did people describe as their friend? Amazon, Uber and — a big surprise — the Bible. The Bible app allows users to choose their preferred version, bookmark key passages and sign up for daily quotes. An instant-access Bible may be the only on-demand app that Silicon Valley failed to dream up. It was created by religious organisation Life.Church, which has locations all over the south and is now on 250 million devices worldwide.

In recent months, both CNN and Fox have retracted stories on their websites regarding particularly high-profile topics on the left and right, respectively. Both sites issued similar excuses: A breakdown in normal editorial standards that led to something being published that shouldn’t have been. Yet in most other ways, the two cases are a study in opposites.

CNN, on one hand, retracted its story within a day and issued an apology. The network immediately carried out an internal investigation. Three employees resigned. Those that remained were told that any future stories on the topic would need to be vetted by two top executives before publishing. Fox, on the other hand, took a week to retract the story, though it was debunked by other news outlets within hours. Little news of an investigation within the network emerged. No on-air apology was issued, despite a week of speculative coverage on the cable network. No employees resigned. And one of the network’s stars — Sean Hannity — continues to promote the conspiracy theory to this day.

In CNN’s newsroom, it is called the Triad: a three-pronged internal system designed to ensure that sensitive reporting by the network’s journalists is unimpeachable before it runs. Recently, the Triad fell short — and by June 27, the consequences were being felt across the news industry and in the hallways of the White House. CNN was forced to apologize after retracting a story on its website that a Russian bank linked to a close ally of President Donald Trump was under Senate investigation. Three high-ranking journalists at the network resigned.

But the mea culpa did not stop President Trump and his supporters from seizing on the mistake, condemning CNN and claiming it as evidence that other major news organizations were conspiring against the administration. On Twitter, President Trump wrote that “they caught Fake News CNN cold” and asked, “What about all the other phony stories they do?” News organizations regularly issue corrections and, in rarer instances, retract a story. Other journalists praised CNN for taking responsibility after a painful black eye. But the ferocious response on Tuesday was a reminder of CNN’s unique role as a nemesis for President Trump, who says the network has unfairly tried to tie him to Russian interference in last year’s election — and underlined the heightened tensions between the news media and an administration that has curtailed access and labeled the news media an “opposition party.”

At the Smart Cities Connect Conference held June 25-28 at the Austin Convention Center, US Ignite and the National Science Foundation announced five new cities that have joined the Smart Gigabit Communities (SGC) program, which "accelerates the development of advanced gigabit applications that cannot run on current networks as the bedrock of smart communities by identifying new economic and social opportunities created by those applications," according to the SGC website. Each "gigabit" city receives support from the National Science Foundation to use its physical and wireless network infrastructure as an enabler of smart applications to solve specific community problems. Cities joining the program this year include: Washington (DC), Albuquerque (NM), Phoenix (AZ), San Diego (CA) and Jackson Energy Authority (TN).

Verizon has asked the Federal Communications Commission to get rid of the so-called de facto retirements from its copper retirement definition, arguing that it could create uncertainty in the process of shutting down legacy facilities. In the FCC’s 2015 Technology Transitions Order, the FCC defined “copper retirement” as the “removal or disabling of copper loops, subloops, or the feeder portion of such loops or subloops, or the replacement of such loops with fiber-to-the-home loops or fiber-to-the curb loops.” However, the company said that the current process might hold up the process of migrating what it calls “chronic” copper customers, or those that have had multiple service visits to resolve issues.

"The 'de facto' concept should be removed because it introduces significant uncertainty to the copper retirement process,” Verizon said in a FCC filing. “Among other practical problems, the vague de facto retirement concept could result in unmanageable loop-by-loop retirement requirements or complicate a provider’s ability to move customers to fiber when that is the best and most efficient way to resolve troubles they are experiencing with copper facilities.”

The proposed $13.7 billion merger of Amazon and Whole Foods is primed to set off a massive lobbying effort in Washington. Amazon has been moving into new markets and seeking ways to deliver products faster to customers, including a drone fleet for local deliveries, making the Whole Foods deal just the latest example of its growing ambitions. Some industry analysts say the deal should face a relatively smooth path to federal approval because Whole Foods only represents a 1.2 percent share of the $800 billion grocery market, while Amazon only has a 0.2 percent share. Under antitrust law, regulators examine whether a deal would eliminate competition and whether consumers, through price changes and other factors, would be harmed. Amazon, which serves as both a traditional retail outlet and a platform for other sellers, has metrics more complex than just any other store.

Sen Susan Collins (R-ME) told the Department of Justice that she wants closer scrutiny of AT&T’s merger with Time Warner. In a letter to acting Assistant Attorney General Andrew Finch, Collins expressed concern with a consolidation of power that could lead to “reduced programming choices and higher prices for consumers.” “The risk is real that the acquisition of such a prominent content producer by a distributor of AT&T’s size could allow it to dramatically reduce consumer choice in favor of its new in-house brand,” Sen Collins wrote, noting that no other premium network like Showtime or Starz is also owned by distributors. “I’m also concerned that this merger could encourage and enable AT&T and DirecTV to raise content costs to harm pay-TV competitors,” she continued.