Huffington Post

[Commentary] Too often children in the United States are not exposed to print or digital materials that reflect themselves or their culture. This can have harmful effects on a child, as such an absence impacts self-esteem. Similarly damaging is a child's lack of exposure to other cultures, which fuels intolerance and cultural invisibility.

Although we know the diversity of our country continues to grow, the percentage of children's books released each year either by a person of color or with a multicultural theme has been virtually unchanged over the past 18 years. Every year since 1994, statistics gathered by the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that just over 8 percent of children's books published in the United States represented Nonwhites.

The most current data from CCBC shows that out of the more than 5,000 titles published in 2013 only 253 were about Nonwhites. Since there is a lack of diversity in children's books, as a parent how do you find high quality materials that highlight your culture and a host of others? How do you find print and digital resources, programs and events that will introduce your child to new cultures? The answer is simple - at your local public library.

Recently, the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), the world's largest organization dedicated to the support and enhancement of library service to children, released a white paper titled The Importance of Diversity in Library Programs and Material Collections for Children. Author Jamie Campbell Naidoo, PhD, states: “By including diversity in its programs and collections, the library has the potential for helping children make cross-cultural connections and develop the skills necessary to function in a culturally pluralistic society.”

[LaTronica is President, Association for Library Service to Children]

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler wants you to calm down.

In a blog post on the FCC website, he claimed that the many critics of his plan are "misinformed." Does that mean that it's time for network neutrality fans to put down their pitchforks? Hell, no. It's time to get even louder.

Try as he might to convince people that he's on the right course, Chairman Wheeler doesn't seem to grasp one basic problem: Encouraging online discrimination in the name of the open Internet is unacceptable. Yet that's exactly what his plan would do: allow Internet service providers to charge new fees to content companies for preferential treatment.

If the chairman truly wants to do right by the Internet and avoid losing another costly court battle, reclassifying broadband is the only viable option. If Chairman Wheeler doesn't reclassify and continues down the wrong path, either the rules will be struck down when the FCC acts or, more likely, they'll never be enforced. And under the convoluted approach he's proposed, future FCC chairs who think differently than Chairman Wheeler does will be under zero obligation to take action.

Reclassification is the approach on the strongest legal footing. Reclassifying broadband is also the only approach that puts the needs of Internet users first. Innovators need the certainty that comes with common carriage, not Chairman Wheeler's "just trust me" approach to stopping harmful behavior by AT&T, Comcast or Verizon.

[Aaron is President and CEO, Free Press]

[Commentary] It is no secret that Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others are targeting your personal data.

They use complex methods to gather, store, and reuse information that is important to you. They look at the things you post, the things you search for, the websites you visit, the things you like, and then adjust the ads you see. Cookies stored on your computer or device keep track of websites you've visited, especially the sites you frequent most. Many times, we seem surprised by how much these companies know about us.

But in reality, most people upload photos, make comments, "friend" others and "like" things without a second thought. Over time, it can be determined by our online activity when you are most likely to post something, when you are online, and for how long. It's easy to determine what you do for fun, your political stance, and your religious preference. Even more simple is to determine your family members and best friends.

[Warner is CEO of ContentWatch]

[Commentary] Network neutrality is in jeopardy -- just not in the way you might have heard.

In implementing network neutrality, some differentiation of traffic must be allowed on the Internet, even encouraged.

The real question is whether Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposed rule is so much worse than what came before. Under what we understand the FCC proposal to be, access providers can't block, can't degrade, can't arbitrarily favor certain applications, and can't favor their own traffic.

The major change in the new proposal concerns so-called paid prioritization agreements. In other words, the new rules appear to allow a broadband provider to offer content providers the option of faster or more reliable delivery for a supplemental fee.

Under the old rules, the FCC didn't prohibit such deals, but said it was skeptical they would meet its discrimination test. In the new proposal, the FCC appears to mandate that paid prioritization offerings be "commercially reasonable." Calling paid prioritization "discrimination" is a matter of semantics.

Indeed, the traditional "Title II common carrier" model (which some network neutrality advocates favor) has allowed different levels of service -- paid prioritization in other words -- as long as the prioritized service level was available to all comers. As for the FCC's apparent proposal, it does not encourage or require paid prioritization. At most, the proposal would allow some commercial offerings -- subject to negotiation between the two firms -- to allow for a higher level of service.

How to defend and implement network neutrality is not as simple as banning all forms of paid prioritization. What really matters is ensuring that the broadband environment continues to provide space for tomorrow's innovators to develop new, disruptive offerings. When the FCC releases the proposed rules for comment, we should all focus on that criterion to evaluate whether they are sufficient and effective.

[Werbach is Wharton Professor and founder of Supernova Group; Weiser is Dean and Thomson Professor at the University of Colorado Law School]

[Commentary] According to the Wall Street Journal, instead of preventing discrimination with real Network Neutrality rules, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler will propose a new set of rules in response to the January court decision which struck down open Internet protections.

These new rules would allow Internet Service Providers like Comcast or Verizon to charge content providers an extra fee for preferential treatment to fast track their content to end users like me and you. According to the proposed rules, big Internet companies would be able to decide whether or not to charge content providers a toll based on a subjective standard called "commercial reasonableness." Disguised as Network Neutrality, these proposed rules stand to create an Internet where the biggest producers of content like Netflix and MSNBC will pay more to push their product to wider audiences. Smaller content producers who can't afford to pay may be pushed onto a digital dirt road, unable to raise a powerful public voice online.

Unofficially, the Internet is already bursting at its digital seams with opposition to the proposed rules, calling them "fake net neutrality". Much of the debate seems predicated on which consumers will be most affected if content providers pass the buck on paying increased costs. So, let's talk about exactly which consumers stand to lose the most if content providers pass the buck on increased bills. About 100 million people in the United States live with little to no Internet access. Of those, the vast majority are Black, Latino, or households with annual incomes under $50K.

For communities of color and low income families that struggle to access the Internet in their homes, many turn to their cell phones as their primary means of Internet connection with the assistance of heavily scrutinized broadband subsidies.

Raising barriers to digital access for communities faced with these extraordinary challenges to Internet access in a digital age can mean the difference between employment and poverty, health care and sickness, democratic engagement or exclusion. For these Internet users, the cost of connection is already too high.

Yet the Federal Communications Commission insists that its priority as a regulatory agency is to ensure the rights of the largest telecommunications companies to profit where profit can be made. The FCC isn't proposing Network Neutrality, it's legalizing discrimination. As a nation struggling to close historic racial and economic gaps, I'd say we've had enough of that.

[Cyril Executive Director at the Center for Media Justice]

Russia's parliament approved measures to tighten control over bloggers, drawing accusations that lawmakers are stifling a final bastion of free speech in the country.

The Russian lower house passed a bill that requires all blogs with more than 3,000 daily visitors to register with Roskomnadzor, the state's agency for media oversight, semi-state-owned network RT reported. The new restrictions were approved as an amendment to an anti-terror bill and will obligate bloggers with a significant following to sign posts with their real name.

Blogs will face restrictions similar to those applying to mass media outlets, including bans on extremism, pornography, electoral propaganda, and even "obscene language." The measures will take effect in August and will also apply to social network sites and personal websites. The bill effectively bans anonymous blogging on popular sites.

In addition, bloggers will be held responsible for verifying the accuracy of all information posted on their sites, including comments posted by others, according to Reporters Without Borders. Blogging services and social networks will also be required to keep user data for six months, raising fears that authorities will use this information to track down Internet users.

[Commentary] Recent studies have shown that there has been an increase in depression among girls that is linked with both obesity and can be caused by social media.

As part of this "waterfall" effect, girls with obesity have been scientifically linked with having lower grades than girls who are not depressed or obese. In other words:

• Social media is prevalent in society today, and it has been scientifically linked with causing depression in young girls.
• Depression is linked with obesity in young girls.
• Obesity is also linked with lower grades in young girls.
• Ultimately, social media is affecting the health and education of young girls nationwide.

[Tran is a Junior at Marina High School]

[Commentary] When attending two disparate conferences that shunned hype and hyperbole (and despair), and provided a decidedly forward-looking and practical perspective: America East, addressing media and technology strategies, and Journalism Interactive, an event attended mostly by journalism educators, focused on inspiring and preparing the next generation of journalists, I noticed some common themes emerged from both events:

• Data will be at the core of everything media companies do going forward.
• The future is visual.
• Community engagement is critical to business and journalistic success.
• Embrace technology to solve problems -- for media organizations and their customers.
• Entrepreneurism needs to be the lifeblood of media organizations and the oxygen for journalists.
• The takeaways from both events are not about the relative health of media companies or the importance of journalism degrees. Rather, it's about tangible evidence that there are innovators in our midst who are passionately committed to changing the paradigm.

[Bennett is Director of Entrepreneurship and Partnerships, University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications]

SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein wrote that the Senate Press Galley has denied its application for a press pass and will not renew a previously granted credential to Lyle Denniston, a veteran Supreme Court reporter who writes for the site.

In a post on his site, Goldstein wrote that SCOTUSblog plans to appeal the decision, and if denied, will “litigate the issue.”

Despite winning major journalism awards and becoming a go-to source for comprehensive coverage of Supreme Court decisions, SCOTUSblog has struggled to obtain press credentials. The Supreme Court has never credentialed SCOTUSblog, although Denniston currently has a credential for his work with Boston public radio station WBUR.

For now, SCOTUSblog can request public seats for cases, but cannot send another reporter in Denniston's place. Denniston has covered the Supreme Court for over 50 years, and if he were to retire, SCOTUSBlog would be without anyone with a pass.

Here's an alarming fact for you: the number of working journalists in the United States dropped by nearly 20,000 in just six years, according to the Pew Research Center.

The decline of print media, as well as a host of other factors, has led to a tidal wave of job losses, Pew said. There were 55,000 journalists working in 2006; there were just 38,000 in 2012. That is a loss of 17,000 journalists.

Pew said that, along with the battering print has taken, the decline could be traced to the decisions by news organizations to devote more money and staff to digital advertising, social media and Web-friendly content.