Research

On the whole, the news offerings of US public broadcasters have been marked by relative financial stability and, in the past year, audience growth. The top 20 NPR-affiliated public radio stations (by listenership) had on average a total weekly listenership of about 10 million in 2016, up from about 9 million in 2015. (This includes listeners for NPR programming as well as original or other syndicated content aired on these stations.)

NPR’s digital platforms continue to be an important part of its reach. Both the NPR News app, which offers livestreams from individual stations and digital content, and the newer NPR One app, which offers a stream of individual shows and podcasts, have shown steady growth across devices in the average number of total completed sessions each month. The financial picture for news outlets in public broadcasting appears to be strong both locally and nationally, even showing some improvement year over year. At the national level, NPR increased its total operating revenue in 2016 to $213 million, up 9% from 2015 levels. PRI saw gains as well, rising 26% to about $22 million in total revenue for 2016. APM’s total revenue, on the other hand, went down 6% year over year, accounting for $126 million in 2016. At the local public radio level, an analysis of the public filings provided by the 125 largest news-oriented licensees (organizations that operate local public radio stations) shows overall steady revenue. Between 2014 and 2015 – the last year for which reliable data are available – total revenue for this group remained relatively flat at $807 million.

Many black-oriented newspapers – some more than a century old – have seen a slow decline in circulation in recent years, mirroring the overall decline in newspaper circulation. Both print and television Hispanic media, on the other hand, have enjoyed relative strength over the last decade, but that growth has now slowed. As the two largest Spanish-language television networks in the US, Univision and Telemundo are key providers of news for Spanish speakers. While viewership for some shows on these networks was roughly flat or even increased in 16, viewership for each network’s largest news program decreased at least slightly.

Black-oriented newspapers are a long-standing minority news sector in the US. The black press trade association (National Newspaper Publishers Association) currently lists around 150 members on its website, but few of these papers have regularly audited circulation figures, making it difficult to acquire audience figures for the sector as a whole. There are, however, some black-oriented newspapers – most of which are weekly or semiweekly – with recent circulation data available through the main audit bureaus that can serve as indicators. Among these, the data show that African American newspapers with a substantial amount of paid circulation either lost circulation or held steady from 2015 to 2016. For a number of mostly free-distribution newspapers, circulation results were more mixed.

The Economist is the most trusted news source in America, while President Donald Trump, Yahoo and BuzzFeed rank near the bottom, according to a new survey from the University of Missouri’s Reynolds Journalism Institute. The weekly magazine published in the UK is more trusted than a variety of American mainstream news organizations, according to the Trusting News Project survey. Public television, Reuters, BBC and NPR round out the top five most-trusted sources. Another British news organization, The Guardian, ranks sixth, proving that many American’s don’t trust news from their own country. In fact, Donald Trump himself is among the least-trusted sources, with only Occupy Democrats, BuzzFeed, Breitbart and social media ranking lower than the president.

Recently, Civis Analytics released a competition poll that shows broad, bipartisan opposition to the proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner. The poll found that “[t]he proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner is opposed by 64 percent of Americans, including 65 percent of Democrats, 64 percent of Republicans, and 63 percent of Independents.” The poll further revealed that “[a] large majority (83 percent) of Americans also believe that ‘mergers among media companies or internet service providers will raise costs for consumers.’”

The following can be attributed to John Bergmayer, Senior Counsel at Public Knowledge: “We believe that a consolidated media landscape threatens to reduce the diversity of viewpoints Americans have access to, and consolidation tends to drive up prices for consumers. The public appears to agree. As the government continues to review the proposed AT&T merger with Time Warner, and Sinclair’s proposed purchase of Tribune, it is critical that the antitrust principles and communications policies explicitly designed to prevent price gouging and designed to promote diversity of viewpoints are strictly enforced.”

[Commentary] In a new project, we have been working to track and understand incivility by examining the extent to which users post offensive comments on Reddit. Reddit has received a great deal of attention from political analysts in recent years due to the fact that it has a robust offering of political discussion boards. In fact, Reddit has become an important enough player in online political discussions that President Obama and a host of 2016 presidential candidates took to the forum to engage with its users. Findings:
Posts became more offensive during the general election campaign
Offensive posts are more popular

What’s most telling is that our research shows that the tone of discussions on Reddit seems to respond to how our politicians are behaving.

[Rishab Nithyanand is a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Information and Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Brian Schaffner is a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts. Phillipa Gill is an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.]

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) collects and maintains personal data on millions of individuals, including data related to security clearance investigations. In 2015, OPM reported significant breaches of personal information that affected 21.5 million individuals. The Senate report accompanying the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2016 included a provision for GAO to review information security at OPM. GAO evaluated OPM's (1) actions since the 2015 reported data breaches to prevent, mitigate, and respond to data breaches involving sensitive personnel records and information; (2) information security policies and practices for implementing selected government-wide initiatives and requirements; and (3) procedures for overseeing the security of OPM information maintained by contractors providing IT services. To do so, GAO examined policies, plans, and procedures and other documents; tested controls for selected systems; and interviewed officials. This is a public version of a sensitive report being issued concurrently. GAO omitted certain specific examples due to the sensitive nature of the information.

GAO is making five recommendations to improve OPM's security. OPM concurred with four of these and partially concurred with the one on validating its corrective actions. GAO continues to believe that implementation of this recommendation is warranted. In GAO's limited distribution report, GAO made nine additional recommendations.

The Federal Communications Commission is exploring ways to improve the quality, accuracy, and usefulness of the data it collects on fixed and mobile voice and broadband service. At the same time, the FCC is examining how it can reduce burdens on industry by eliminating unnecessary or onerous data filing requirements. A Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeks comment on proposals to accomplish both these goals as part of the FCC’s ongoing efforts to improve the value of the data it collects.

Lack of access to fast internet is typically thought of as a rural problem, but many of the country’s urban areas make a poor showing in the share of adults with access to fast home internet.

The Bronx has only 35.3 percent access, and Manhattan fares only slightly better with 35.6 percent access; Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas, has 39.1 percent access. While rural residents’ access might be hindered by their remote location, city residents who don’t have broadband often lack it because of income disparity and a dearth of basic knowledge about the internet and computers. Many urban residents, particularly older ones, haven’t been exposed to the internet or computers much in their lifetime. And without that knowledge and exposure, a person is likely to be further marginalized in economic and educational opportunities, caught in a cycle of literal and metaphorical disconnection.

Unlimited data plans are slowing down mobile speeds for Verizon and AT&T customers, according to data released by mobile network measurement company OpenSignal.

Verizon and AT&T reinstated their unlimited plans in February to compete with T-Mobile and Sprint, which have long offered unlimited data plans, and have since seen a deluge of demand. Greater data demand — either more data usage or more customers — means slower speeds. Think of it as increased traffic on a highway. Verizon and AT&T also have nearly double the subscribers of T-Mobile and Sprint, so changes in their offerings hit their networks harder. Carriers have long supported greater leeway to manage their networks as part of the US government’s fierce debate over net neutrality. T-Mobile’s unlimited plan often limits video streaming quality in a bid to ease the burden on its network; others like Verizon recently have tested similar tools to improve speeds. To staunch advocates of open internet rules, however, these techniques violate the spirit of federal safeguards meant to ensure all web traffic is treated equally. Both Verizon and AT&T saw a notable decline in speeds after introducing unlimited plans.

“” explores nuances of rurality, details challenges rural libraries face in maximizing their community impacts and describes how existing collaborative regional and statewide efforts help rural libraries and their communities. Authors Brian Real and Norman Rose combine data from the final Digital Inclusion Survey with Public Libraries Survey data from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to find:

• Rural library broadband capacity falls short of benchmarks set for US home access, which is 25 Mbps download and 4 Mbps upload speeds. By contrast, rural fringe libraries average 13/8.6 Mbps, rural distant is 7.7/2.2 Mbps and rural remote is 6.7/1 Mbps.
• Overall, one in 10 rural libraries report their internet speeds rarely meet patron needs.
• Rural libraries are on par with colleagues in larger communities in terms of public Wi-Fi access and providing patrons’ assistance with basic computer and internet training, but more specialized training and resources can lag.
• More than half of all rural libraries offer programs that help local residents apply for jobs and use job opportunity resources (e.g., online job listings, resume software), and rural libraries are comparable to their peers in providing work space for mobile workers.

The authors consider the roles of state and regional cooperation in adding capacity and resources for rural libraries, looking at examples from Maryland and Iowa.