Recent postings on media issues from Benton.org

January 2005

US STUDENTS SAY PRESS FREEDOMS GO TOO FAR: One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey to be released today by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The survey “confirms what a lot of people who are interested in this area have known for a long time,” he says: Kids aren't learning enough about the First Amendment in history, civics or English classes. It also tracks closely with recent findings of adults' attitudes. [SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Greg Toppo] http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20050131/bl_bottomstrip31.art0.htm

INTERNET EVOLUTION: A decade after browsers came into popular use, the Internet has reached into¼and, in some cases, reshaped¼just about every important realm of modern life. It has changed the way we inform ourselves, amuse ourselves, care for ourselves, educate ourselves, work, shop, bank, pray and stay in touch. On a typical day at the end of 2004, some 70 million American adults logged onto the Internet to use email, get news, access government information, check out health and medical information, participate in auctions, book travel reservations, research their genealogy, gamble, seek out romantic partners, and engage in countless other activities. That represents a 37 percent increase from the 51 million Americans who were online on an average day in 2000 when the Pew Internet & American Life Project began its study of online life. The Web has become the “new normal” in the American way of life; those who don't go online constitute an ever-shrinking minority. And as the online population has grown rapidly, its composition has changed rapidly. At the infant stage, the Internet's user population was dominated by young, white men who had high incomes and plenty of education. As it passed into its childhood years in 1999 and 2000, the population went mainstream; women reached parity and then overtook men online, lots more minority families joined the party, and more people with modest levels of income and education came online. [SOURCE: Pew Internet & American Life Project] http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/148/report_display.asp http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/Internet_Status_2005.pdf

UNDER-USED POWER OF THE NEWS: While some stories gets lots of coverage, too many remain under-covered. Doctors Without Borders released its 7th annual list of the year's Top 10 Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories. In a host of African countries, North Korea, Colombia, Chechnya and elsewhere, lives are being cruelly cut short by a staggering array of woes, but we remain largely ill-informed about them. Last year, the Big Three nightly newscasts didn't air significant reports on any of these regions, save Chechnya and North Korea-and the latter drew attention because of its nuclear threat, not its humanitarian crisis. But they did devote plenty of attention to Martha Stewart and Janet Jackson. [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: J. Max Robins] http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA498463.html?display=News&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers) See also -- Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0124/p09s02-coop.html

OSAMA WHO? WHEN NO NEWS IS 'BAD NEWS': A look at the business of news and how business news limits the information delivered to us on television newscasts. Former-CBS foreign correspondent Tom Fenton, in his forthcoming book "Bad News," castigates network news for failing to adequately cover the rest of the world. The book is a stinging indictment that gains force from his quarter-century of service in CBS's London bureau. Fenton blames "corporate greed," saying he was "beaten down by the corporate bean counters" and had "so many of my stories rejected" in the decade before 9/11. CBS's London bureau, he writes, "doesn't do much reporting any more. What it does is called packaging," assembling video and facts gathered by outside organizations. [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31306-2005Jan23.html (requires registration)

CHURCHES SPAR WITH MEDIA OVER ADVERTISING: As religion moves more overtly into public life, its reception in the major media has not always been warm. Churches and religious publishers reaching out to the "unchurched" - those who may be spiritually inclined but institutionally alienated - are finding that some media are rejecting their advertising dollars. The United Church of Christ (UCC) and the United Methodist Church (UMC) have been told "no," as has Zondervan, the leading Bible publisher. Media outlets have the right to decide what they publish or broadcast, but religious groups say the media are practicing a form of censorship that is keeping them out of the marketplace of ideas. This is not fair, they say, nor does it fulfill the media's responsibility to the public. [SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Jane Lampman] http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0124/p11s01-lire.html

WHEN BLOGGERS MAKE NEWS: At Harvard University this weekend, a small group of journalists, bloggers and media thinkers are gathering in a conference, "Blogging, Journalism & Credibility" to kick around the idea of a blogging code of ethics. Should bloggers disclose their sources of income? Do journalists who also blog face conflicting standards? some are asking: what are the rules of the road? There is no exam to pass or society to join to become a blogger -- anybody can set up a "Web log" to publish his or her ideas. Some bloggers don't want to be limited to the traditional notions of journalism. "Bloggers should reject the traditional idea of objectivity," says Mickey Kaus, a former New Republic and Newsweek writer whose blog Kausfiles appears on Slate.com. "One of the virtues of blogging is that it's not subject to the professional and bureaucratic restrictions of big media." Mr. Kaus says a formal code isn't needed -- just honesty. He adds: "The point of blogging is to say what you actually think -- opinion, not the traditional ideal of journalism." Indeed, many bloggers see the blogosphere -- a term some find ridiculous, by the way -- as a vast, open forum in which many perspectives can coexist to create an overall picture that's more accurate than the mainstream media. [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jessica Mintz jessica.mintz@wsj.com] http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110626272888531958,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace (requires subscription) Learn more about the conference at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/webcred/

MAYBE MURDOCH DOESN'T WATCH TV ON SUNDAY NIGHTS [Commentary]: Is Rupert Murdoch watching his own network? Why is he allowing an artistically compelling ratings sinkhole to subvert his political agenda on a weekly basis? Chait tells why "Arrested Development" is the funniest show on TV and wonders if... "Maybe Murdoch isn't as grand or as evil as liberals believe. Maybe he likes lowbrow fare and noxious right-wing populism but he doesn't insist that it permeate every corner of his empire. Maybe he doesn't want to be Citizen Kane after all." [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jonathan Chait] http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-chait21jan21,1,1923830.column?coll=la-news-comment (requires registration)
HOW SENIORS USE THE INTERNET FOR HEALTH: A national Kaiser Family Foundation survey of older Americans found that as the Internet becomes an increasingly important resource for informing decisions about health and health care options, less than a third (31%) of seniors (age 65 and older) have ever gone online, but that more than two-thirds (70%) of the next generation of seniors (50-64 year-olds) have done so. The differences among seniors and 50-64 year-olds are striking and indicate that online resources for health information may soon play a much larger role among older Americans. Twenty-one percent of seniors have gone online to look for health information compared to 53% of 50-64 year-olds; 8% of seniors get "a lot" of health information online compared to 24% of 50-64 year-olds; the Internet is 5th on a list of media sources of health information for seniors compared to first among 50-64 year-olds; and 26% of seniors trust the Internet “a lot” or “some” to provide accurate health information, compared to 58% of 50-64 year-olds. The survey is a nationally representative, random digit dial telephone survey of 1,450 adults age 50 and older, including 583 respondents age 65 and older. [SOURCE: Kaiser Family Foundation] http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia011205pkg.cfm
STAKES HIGHER IN BATTLE OVER TV INDECENCY: FCC Chairman Michael Powell says the Commission will make a priority of enforcing indecency rules. The issue has gained a special appeal to politicians, who know it is an important issue for some voters. And the complaints keep rolling in. Commission statistics show that radio and broadcast and cable TV complaints have escalated astronomically, from 111 in 2000 to 1,068,802 in 2004. With the exception of the half-million Super Bowl protests, 99.9 percent of them have come from the Parents Television Council, which says it has more than one million members. The council hires people to watch everything that's broadcast in prime time, and a lot of cable programming, too, taking note of what they consider offensive occurrences. Higher-ups determine whether the incidents are worth a fuss, and then the call goes out to the membership, which protests not only to the FCC but also to advertisers. Advertisers are leery, but few have shifted strategies in a culture that frequently rewards the edgy show while it is being vilified. Producers seem most insulated, basically going about their business, while the networks that buy their shows fret. Station owners may be the most nervous, after an apparently precedent-setting decision in which the FCC fined all Fox stations that aired a network showed deemed indecent. [SOURCE: Knight Ridder, AUTHOR: Jonathan Storm] http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/living/10664978.htm See the Center for Creative Voices blog for some of the effects of the FCC's stepped-up enforcement: http://creativevoices.typepad.com/blog/

IS COMMUNICATIONS CONSOLIDATION HURTING DEMOCRACY? WRAPPING UP 2004 [Commentary]: There are a few things we can say with some confidence regarding communications policy in 2004. Both the evangelical right and the pro-business right held major sway over the federal agencies that were formed to oversee communications activity on behalf of the entire public. The trend toward consolidation continued in both the sector that produces content and the sector that distributes content. While the communications industries spent millions influencing policy, they also made billions in return for that investment. While a few stockholders benefited from this state of affairs, most consumers did not. Democracy, and the enlightened citizen so necessary to make it function, most certainly did not benefit from the state of communications policy in 2004. [SOURCE: Center for American Progress, AUTHOR: Mark Lloyd] http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=290397

ADVERTISERS ON GOOGLE ARE TOLD TO KEEP IT PROPER: Google's AdWords division, which is responsible for the contextual ads that appear alongside search results, insists on standard English and punctilious punctuation saying that unorthodox usage and punctuation and slang create a less straightforward searching experience. David Fischer, director for AdWords, said: "We really focus on creating ads that at the most basic level have proper spelling and grammar so that they're clear to users. We really encourage clear, effective, to-the-point communication to searchers." [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Sarah Lefton] http://tech.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/technology/circuits/13goog.html (requires registration)

FTC WINS ORDER TO SHUT DOWN SPAM FROM ADULT WEB SITES: The Federal Trade Commission filed civil charges against six companies and five individuals in U.S. District Court in Nevada, accusing the defendants of sending out sexually explicit e-mail solicitations without clear warning labels, "unsubscribe" links and other information required by the 2003 Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, commonly referred to as CAN-SPAM. Defendants can face fines of as much as $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for an organization. The case also is notable because it targets "affiliate marketing," a common practice among online adult-entertainment and mortgage companies where independent spammers are hired to drive traffic to Web sites. "The message of this case is that you are strictly liable for the practices of third parties who do your marketing for you," said Eileen Harrington, director of the FTC's Marketing Practices Division. [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Christopher Conkey christopher.conkey@wsj.com] http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110546792517722953,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal (requires subscription) See also -- USAToday http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20050112/1b_spam12.art.htm

SNEAK PEAK 2005 – MEDIA & TELECOM: Forbes editors and writers take a look ahead in the media business. 1) Peter Newcomb On Media: The end of "reality TV" is in sight; illegal downloading is an overblown problem; Disney will buy Pixar. 2) Brett Pulley On Radio: The industry is both healthier than people think, but underestimating the potential impact of satellite radio. 3) Peter Kafka On The Music Industry: The music business may have an answer to its digital woes: subscription services. Consumers pay a monthly fee to rent all the digital music they desire, but can still buy tracks if they wish. 4) David Ewalt On Telecommunications: Expect to see continued consolidation and more heated competition in the telecommunications industry. The regional phone companies will scramble to snatch up long-distance businesses. Strong subscriber gains and the popularity of new digital services will give cable operators a shot in the arm, exploding earnings. 5) Ed Lin On Telecommunications: Consumers will continue their march to cable and multiple-services operators for their telecommunications needs. Telecoms will see their fixed-line businesses go the way of long-distance carriers and the candlestick telephone. Increasing the depth of mobile services will provide the only refuge for telecom companies as voice-over-Internet Protocol wins more acceptance. 6) Susan E. Stegemann On Telecommunications: FCC Chairman Michael Powell is expected to step down early in the year. He has been hands-off when it comes to regulating the Internet. Will his replacement be the same? 7) Scott Woolley On Telecommunications: No major mergers of telecom carriers will be announced in 2005. [SOURCE: Forbes] http://www.forbes.com/business/2004/12/14/sp05_14_x_media.html http://www.forbes.com/business/2004/12/14/sp05_17_x_telecom.html

THE RISE OF A NEW NEWS NETWORK: The 1990s proved to be the decade when cable news networks replaced network television as the primary source of breaking news for many Americans, just as the 1960s saw newspapers supplanted. In the new millennium, a broadband-enabled, always-on Internet threatens to usurp those cable news networks. The recent tsunami disaster, perhaps, marked the first time Americans turned to blogs for breaking news. Already 32 million Americans are reading weblogs. That's a large enough number to make even the biggest skeptic believe that this is a real revolution. How much of an impact will this have on the media giants? It's too early to tell. But one thing's for sure: This trend is too big to ignore. [SOURCE: Business 2.0, AUTHOR: Om Malik] http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,1013980,00.html More on blogging and traditional media -- * Newspaper 2.0: The Blog Revolution [SOURCE: Editor & Publisher, AUTHOR: Jesse Oxfeld ] http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/newspaper_2point0_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000745992 * One Story Line About News Blogs: They Lag Far Behind Mainstream [SOURCE: Investors Business Daily, AUTHOR: Brian Deagon] http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1471&ncid=1471&e=1&u=/ibd/20050104/bs_ibd_ibd/200513tech

RESEARCHERS SEE GIGABIT DATA OVER POWER LINES: In a research paper released Wednesday, engineers at Penn State University said they had found a way for power lines to transmit data to homes at rates far faster than high-speed Internet connections from cable and telephone companies. Pouyan Amirshahi and Mohsen Kavehrad estimate that their system could deliver data at close to one gigabit per second over medium-voltage electrical lines in ideal conditions, with speeds of hundreds of megabits per second available to home users. Their system would uses repeaters placed every one kilometer, (0.62 miles) and requires power lines to have been modified to reduce interference with the data signals. The engineers said their estimates were based on computer models, and that the data speeds available in a real-world version would depend on how many repeaters a power company used. The Penn State study was funded with a grant from AT&T, which has taken part in prior trials of power-line broadband. [SOURCE: Reuters] http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=NCMCQDS0K5NBICRBAEOCFFA?type=technologyNews&storyID=7247854

LAWSUIT CLAIMS APPLE VIOLATES LAW WITH iTUNES: An unhappy iTunes online music store customer is suing Apple Computer, alleging the company broke antitrust laws by allowing iTunes to work only with its own music player, the iPod, freezing out competitors. [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: ] http://news.com.com/Lawsuit+claims+Apple+violates+law+with+iTunes/2100-1027_3-5514244.html?tag=nefd.top

DIGITAL DEMOCRACY'S FUTURE TURNS ON WIRELESS DEBATE: Are Wi-Fi networks the future of digital democracy? By providing inexpensive, high-speed access to the Internet, these networks defy spatial boundaries and historical precedent. What makes wireless networks so attractive is their openness, which blasts conventional concepts of Internet access, mobility and cost. Wi-Fi spans uncharted territory in networking, enabling people to send and receive information, often free of charge, from anywhere within range of a Wi-Fi base connection -- a coffeeshop, park, a house or street corner. On the ground, countless nonprofit organizations, government agencies and corporations large and small are racing to establish networks using wireless technology. In the realm of policy, meanwhile, advocates are pushing to expand the unlicensed electromagnetic spectrum for community use. In both arenas, groups advocating for free public networks face resistance from corporate players that have long dominated the nation's telecommunications landscape. [SOURCE: MediaChannel.org, AUTHOR: Michelle Chen] http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/affalert305.shtml

MEDIA: NEW GENERATIONS STEAL THE SHOW: By all indications, 2005 will be a year in which just about every traditional media company gives up market share to some next-generation rival. Cable-TV operators will continue to lose subscribers to satellite, and perhaps even to telephone companies. Networks will see even more eyeballs defect to cable. And despite lawsuits and legal download sites, the music industry will still confront more illegal downloads. The challenges come in all shapes and sizes. Broadcast networks will look on as they're zapped by a rising army of remote-wielding couch potatoes with digital video recorders (DVRS). Film studios will see more movie-loving teens forgo the neighborhood cineplex for video games and DVDs -- some of which will play on new hardware platforms such as the Sony PlayStation Portable, hitting the U.S. this spring. One immediate result of the turmoil: consolidation. [SOURCE: BusinessWeek, AUTHOR: Ronald Grover] http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_02/b3915441.htm

NEWSPAPER DOMINO EFFECT?: Is consolidation of local newspaper ownership on the way? Is your hometown newspaper subject to the same Darwinian economics that play out with other industries, or does it provide a unique public service that merits special treatment? "Newspapers are not just any other kind of business. They're about manufacturing journalism and democracy, not just computer chips or steel," said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "They're living, breathing institutions that are of critical importance to the democratic process, and the consolidation of newspapers is just an American tragedy." The net effect when bigger chains gobble smaller ones is that readers get less local coverage and fewer independent voices from their papers, Chester said. "The thing about companies like Pulitzer is they're newspaper-oriented companies, companies that don't have major television interests or other media interests," he said. "In essence, what these companies are doing by selling to these big chains is throwing good newspapers to the ravenous wolves like Gannett." [SOURCE: Arizona Daily Star, AUTHOR: Thomas Stauffer tstauffer@azstarnet.com] http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/allheadlines/54932.php

A YEAR AFTER LEGISLATION, SPAM STILL WIDESPREAD: The Can-Spam Act, the nation's first law aimed at curtailing junk e-mail, produced mixed results after a year on the books, inspiring some Internet service providers to take legal action against spammers but failing to stop the overall proliferation of the unwanted online messages. Spam levels rose in 2004, by most accounts. At the beginning of 2003, spam accounted for about 50 percent of all e-mail, according to Postini, a Redwood City, Calif.-based anti-spam firm that scans about 400 million e-mail messages a day for its clients. By the time Can-Spam passed at the end of 2003, that figure had grown to roughly 75 percent. Throughout 2004, spam accounted for 75 to 80 percent of all e-mail, said Chris Smith, Postini's senior director of product marketing. As a result, most of the e-mail industry has turned its attention toward technology, rather than litigation, as the primary means for combating spam. [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: David McGuire] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46037-2005Jan3.html (requires registration)

CELLPHONES BECOME 'SWISS ARMY KNIVES' AS TECHNOLOGY BLURS: Cellphones have a decisive advantage over many other electronics devices: People typically carry them wherever they go, unlike laptop computers, MP3 players or digital cameras. As a result, cellphones have become products on which all sorts of industries want to attach their wares and services. Several factors are making such these attachments possible and attractive. For one thing, cellphone network coverage has improved, even in rural areas, to the extent that building cellphone headsets into ski jackets and motorcycle helmets has become attractive. The second factor is new technology such as a short-distance wireless system called Bluetooth, which enables cellphone users to don headphones that connect to their phones without cords. Third, better digital networks and improvements in the software inside cellphones have made the phones much more powerful and capable of handling an assortment of accessories. And finally, prices are coming down, turning the latest high-end features into mass-market offerings within months [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Christopher Rhoads christopher.rhoads@wsj.com] http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110479366994115788,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace (requires subscription)

THE STATE OF BLOGGING: By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a key part of online culture. Two surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November established new contours for the blogosphere and its popularity: 1) 7% of the 120 million U.S. adults who use the Internet say they have created a blog or web-based diary. That represents more than 8 million people. 2) 27% of Internet users (32 million Americans) say they read blogs, a 58% jump from February 2004. 3) 5% of Internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online. 4) The interactive features of many blogs are also catching on: 12% of Internet users have posted comments or other material on blogs. 5) At the same time, for all the excitement about blogs and the media coverage of them, blogs have not yet become recognized by a majority of Internet users. Only 38% of all Internet users know what a blog is. The rest are not sure what the term "blog" means. [SOURCE: Pew Internet & American Life Project] http://www.pewinternet.org/

THE USA ADVERTISING OUTLOOK FOR 2005: In 2004, advertisers spent $46 billion on broadcast TV and $15.6 billion on cable. They are projected to spend $46.7 billion on broadcast and $16.7 billion on cable in 2005. The slight rise for TV advertising highlights TV's changing role. Once the undisputed king of media buys, television may surrender to a new, broader communications mandate, say industry sources. "If last year was about branded entertainment, this year will be about total communications planning," predicts Steve Moynihan, executive vice president/managing director of MPG, Boston, the media-buying agency of Havas. Communication planning targets all communication channels, such as PR, the Internet and place-based media, not just TV, radio, magazines and newspapers. Media buyers, planners and ad insiders predict renewed efforts to regulate at least two top commercial categories: prescription drugs and food aimed at kids. [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Joe Mandese] http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA490658.html?display=Advertising&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers)

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Communications-Related Headlines are compiled, summarized and edited by Rachel Anderson (rachel@benton.org), Andy Carvin (andy@benton.org) and Charles Meisch (charlie@benton.org) of the Benton Foundation -- we welcome your feedback. Based in Washington DC, the Benton Foundation's mission is to articulate a public interest vision for the digital age and demonstrate the value of communications for solving social problems. Other projects at Benton include:
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