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Benton media news digest – June 2009

Benton headlines

OBAMA: GET YOUR DTV BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE
[SOURCE: The White House]
President Barack Obama released a statement on the digital television transition. "On June 12 ­ one week from tomorrow ­ the nation's full-power television stations will switch to all-digital programming. The transition to digital will free up airwaves for broadband and enhanced emergency communications for our police officers, firefighters, and other first responders. In February, I worked with Congress to postpone the deadline television broadcasters had to end their analog signals, because it was clear that millions of Americans would have been left in the dark if the conversion had gone on as planned.  I directed key members of my Administration to reach out and help Americans, especially those in our most vulnerable communities, to make the switch to digital television. In the months since then, we have worked hand in hand with state and local officials, broadcasters, and community groups to educate and assist millions of Americans with the transition. The number of households unprepared for digital television has been cut in half.  Still, some people are not ready.  I want to be clear: there will not be another delay.  I urge everyone who is not yet prepared to act today, so you don't lose important news and emergency information on June 12.   And I encourage all Americans who are prepared, to talk to their friends, family, and neighbors to make sure they get ready before it's too late."
http://benton.org/node/25726

COURT ASKS FOR NEW ARGUMENTS IN JANET JACKSON CASE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting & Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
In an order released Thursday, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals asked for new briefs in the Janet Jackson/broadcast indecency case. The call for input comes a month after the Supreme Court's May 4 decision to vacate the Third Circuit's ruling  that the fine was arbitrary and capricious, (the Court remanded the case back to that circuit for reconsideration in light of the Supreme Court's earlier decision in FCC vs. Fox ). The Third Circuit had thrown out the FCC fine, concluding that its defense of pursuing fleeting nudity had been arbitrary and capricious. With the Supreme Court's Fox decision for guidance, the court has been asked to rethink that. The court set deadlines of 60 days from the release of the order for appellant briefs, 40 days after those briefs are filed for responses by the other side, and replies to those responses 14 days after that.
http://benton.org/node/25715

PICK YOUR POISON, ER, PUBLISHER
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Michael Kinsley]
[Commentary] In the burgeoning field of fretting about the future of newspapers, some think the solution is to recruit a new set of wealthy and civic-minded individuals or families. Others think a better answer is for newspapers to become officially what they are becoming in reality: nonprofit. Even as newspapers have sunk, there has been a rising tide of rich, media-oriented foundations. The grandee solution and the nonprofit-foundation solution have emerged as favorites because both offer a plausible answer to the question of how newspapers can survive without making money. Their answer is: Don't worry about it. But which of these "models" (to use the modish term) is best?
http://benton.org/node/25731

US GRAPPLES WITH HOW TO RETALIATE IN CYBER ATTACKS
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Lolita Baldor]
In the murky world of computer espionage, the US faces hard choices on how to retaliate when government or privately owned networks come under cyber attack, senior military and intelligence officials said Tuesday. As the administration grapples with how best to defend its computer networks, debate is raging over how far the U.S. can go in pursuit of cyber criminals, and even what constitutes a digital act of war. The most immediate challenge is identifying the hacker, terrorist or enemy nation that launched the attack in vast and anonymous cyberspace, officials said. That hurdle is complicated by privacy debates over how deeply the government can wade into privately owned systems to investigate threats, and how it should handle attacks against a company, as opposed to a federal agency.
http://benton.org/node/25683

SECURING NEW INFRASTRUCTURE WILL REQUIRE WATCHFUL EYE
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Douglas Streeks]
Balancing privacy and security will require a delicate approach as the Internet becomes more pervasive in the lives of everyday Americans, said a panel of national security policy experts on the first day of the Computers Freedom & Privacy conference at George Washington University. The curtain is the most privacy enhancing technology in the world, said panel moderator Ryan Singel, but it also allow citizens to do what they want without being watched, and this decreases security, "but there's no law against curtains."  This is a balance between individual privacy rights and the government's rights to come into your house, he said. There is "a lot more transparency" between today's government and the people when it comes to privacy in today's political environment, said BT chief security technology officer Bruce Schneier. But increased transparency does not always come with a fair exchange, he warned. While increased access to government data can promote liberty, Schneier added that voluntary disclosure of information can allow more government control ­ requiring a delicate balancing of both parties' interests.  "Security is liberty plus privacy," he said.
http://benton.org/node/25682

TECH TITANS' TIES TO WASHINGTON GROW CLOSER -- AND MORE COMPLICATED
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
A look at the latest moves in an image war among tech's biggest companies, with Google at the center. At stake are policy decisions that could affect many billions of dollars. Microsoft learned through its own costly antitrust battle in the late 1990s about the importance of perception. The company, accused of bundling its Web browser with its Windows operating system -- the dominant software for personal computers -- suffered for years from the image of being a monopolist. "Part of the anxiety about Google stems from how broad Google's reach has become," said Rebecca Arbogast, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. "Everything they do will be scrutinized, and they will be as careful as a teenager on probation not to do anything foolish."
http://benton.org/node/25701

ARE BROADBAND CAPS INEVITABLE?
[SOURCE: MarketWatch, AUTHOR: David Wilkerson]
Craig Moffett, cable and telecom analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., says Time Warner Cable's setback with capping broadband usage is only temporary: "Look, there's a real argument for some form of consumption-based billing, and it's going to happen. Time Warner got the pricing wrong, it got the PR wrong, but this is not some kind of stealth price increase. They've been clear -- they don't want to discourage the use of the [broadband] product, but they have be able to manage the increased use of bandwidth that goes with Web-based video." Karl Bode responds:  "Keep in mind  that Moffett also thinks network upgrades are unnecessary, has declared the wire-
less industry is collapsing, and enjoys slamming Verizon's investment in fiber whenever possible. There's no real debate that metered billing would be great for investors and carriers, but the fact remains these new pricing models may not be good for consumers -- a contingent Moffett and other investors could care less about."
Market 'still sorting out' cable's future, analyst says
http://benton.org/node/25681

INTERNET USE TRIPLES '97 TO '07
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Leslie Cauley]
According to a new report by the Census Bureau, Internet use tripled from 1997 to 2007. Sixty-two percent of U.S. households used the Internet from home; 18% did that in 1997. Among those using the Internet in 2007, 82% did so using a high-speed connection. Just 17% used dial-up. The rapid rise of broadband shows how quickly a ubiquitous technology like dial-up, which ruled the online world in the 1990s, can become outmoded, says Morton O'Kelly, chairman of Ohio State University's department of geography. Internet usage still varies by race; 69 percent of whites lived in households with Internet use, while the same was true for 51 percent of blacks, 73 percent of Asians and 48 percent of Hispanics
http://benton.org/node/25700

COURT RULES INTERNET A "UTILITY"
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Nate Anderson]
Monticello, Minnesota hoped to set state precedent by building its own fiber-to-the-home link for every resident in town. The phone company sued, but after a year in litigation, the state Court of Appeals has ruled that Internet is indeed a "utility" that can be provided by local communities and funded by city bonds.
http://benton.org/node/25699

WHAT A NON-NEUTRAL 'NET LOOKS LIKE, UK-STYLE
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Nate Anderson]
One UK Internet service provider throttles P2P traffic, uses bandwidth caps, throttles streaming online video, and throttles "heavy users" of the network. The BBC is upset about the effect this has on its iPlayer streaming video service, but really, there are no surprises here. This is what a non-neutral network is allowed to look like.
http://benton.org/node/25678

BROADBAND WILL BE NEW TOOL IN DIPLOMACY ARSENAL
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Tina Nguyen]
Increasing broadband penetration will allow the U.S. to increase engagement abroad and will be an essential element of the Obama administration's diplomatic strategy, said Alec Ross, a senior adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "Twenty-first century statecraft" has the potential to "expand and enhance" the way by which the government engages the rest of the world, Ross said. In particular, Ross suggested America's position as a "driver of innovation" will give America an edge when practicing diplomacy. New media technologies are already allowing the president, vice president and secretary of state to push their messages directly to the people of foreign nations. And in some cases, Ross said people in those countries have responded by demanding that same openness of their own governments.
http://benton.org/node/25677

ONLINE VIDEO USAGE DRAMATICALLY OVERSTATED
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Joe Mandese]
The amount of time Americans spend watching online video is vastly overstated, according to the findings of some highly regarded research made public Tuesday. The disclosure, which is likely one of the more controversial findings being mined from an ambitious piece of academic research that actually observed how people spend their time consuming media, was made during one of a series of so-called "collaborative alliance" meetings hosted by Havas media shop MPG for the advertising and media industry in New York. "This may be the first study to document the dramatic overstatement of online video and mobile video," said Jim Spaeth, one of the founders of Sequent Partners, which collaborated with Ball State University's Center for Media Design on the Video Consumer Mapping Study on behalf of the Nielsen-funded Council for Research Excellence. The project, which cost $3.5 million to field, directly observed how people spent their day using media, found that while growing rapidly, online video and mobile video still account for a small fraction of the amount of time Americans spend watching all forms of video content, including live TV programming, time-shifted television, DVDs, video games, etc.
http://benton.org/node/25673

OPTING OUT OF TARGETED ADS TOO HARD, PRIVACY ADVOCATES SAY
[SOURCE: IDG News Service, AUTHOR: Grant Gross]
The online advertising industry and U.S. policy makers need to give online users more control over the collection of personal data and surfing habits beyond the traditional opt-out approach, some privacy advocates said Wednesday. Dozens of online ad networks allow users to opt out of being tracked as a way to deliver behavioral advertising, and in most cases, the opt-out is stored in a cookie that goes away every time the users clear their browser cookies, privacy advocates said during a discussion of online advertising at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference. Privacy advocate Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, called on the FTC and Congress to take action to protect U.S. consumers. Online ad companies are now researching neuroscience as a way to target users' on a subconscious level, he said.
http://benton.org/node/25696

MEDIA TO BLAME FOR NOT INFORMING US ABOUT IMPENDING RECESSION?
[SOURCE: Nielsen Business Media, AUTHOR: Kenneth Hein]
As the global economy appears to at least be bottoming out, questions still remain as to why so many people worldwide were blindsided by the severity of the crisis. Part of blame, it seems, may rest with the media. According to a recent 52-nation online survey conducted by The Nielsen Company, the general consensus among consumers across much of the world is that the media did a poor job informing the public about the issues leading up to the current financial crisis. In every region except Latin America, the percent of people who agreed or strongly agreed that media coverage was inadequate outnumbered those who disagreed by 2-to-1.
http://benton.org/node/25671

MEDIA INDUSTRY FEELS PAIN OF GM BANKRUPTCY  [SOURCE: TheDeal.com, AUTHOR: Gerald Magpily] 
Advertising agencies, newspapers and magazines, television and radio stations, and Web sites will lose hundreds of millions in GM advertising dollars from the fallen American industrial icon. Those losses will likely translate into more corporate restructuring in the form of possible layoffs or divestments to protect the bottom lines of these media companies. In fact, GM's largest unsecured creditor claiming trade debt is not an auto parts maker, but an advertising company. Chicago-based diversified advertising group Starcom MediaVest Group Inc. is listed as the sixth-largest unsecured creditor with a claim of $121.5 million. Starcom's claim exceeds bankrupt auto parts maker Delphi Corp's claim of $110 million. Meanwhile, Starcom is not the only advertising company making the top 50 list of unsecured creditors. Paris-based advertising agency Publicis Group SA is owed $25.2 million of unsecured debt, followed by $15.9 million to Interpublic Group of Companies and $4.6 million to McCann Erickson of Calgary, Alberta. While the bankruptcy documents list advertising agencies, it doesn't elucidate the impact on the media companies.
The advertising agencies are the intermediaries who deal with the media companies. In order to understand the impact on media companies, you must look at the crumbs left in news stories and SEC filings. Look for media stocks with heavy newspaper investments such as Gannett Co., EW Scripps & Co. and New York Times Co. to also feel more pain from a loss of GM auto advertising dollars in their already slowing ad revenues. In the first quarter, classified ad revenue fell 39% at Gannett, 42% at New York Times and 43% at EW Scripps. The GM bankruptcy is possibly going to force a shakeout in the industry with some smaller companies that relied on auto-related revenue to seek a merger to survive and bigger players to become more creative to fill the GM loss.
 http://benton.org/node/25629

WHY WON'T TRADITIONAL MEDIA OUTLETS INNOVATE?  [SOURCE: Forbes.com, AUTHOR: Scott Donaton]  [Commentary] The old ways of doing business in traditional media no longer apply. Media companies that resist change are doomed to fail. Legacy models have been overturned by digital technology. But traditional media companies are clinging ever more desperately to what they know. Just when they should be taking advantage of a chaotic marketplace to justify aggressive restructuring aimed at opening ancillary revenue streams, many are going the other way. They are huddled in the corner, trying to preserve old business models and protect their paychecks.
 http://benton.org/node/25625

TIME WARNER CHANGES TO TERMS OF SERVICE COULD ALLOW METERING, TIERS  [SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Andrew Feinberg]  Consumer advocacy groups are gearing up for another fight with Time Warner Cable after the Internet provider quietly updated its terms of service with language that critics have pounced on as a harbinger of future metering and usage caps. Time Warner subscribers received an updated copy of the terms of service on their most recent bills - which contained the changes. But the offending provisions came to light Monday after circulating through the blogosphere over the weekend. The new changes come only months after Time Warner scrapped plans to institute bandwidth caps on customers, reportedly after pressure from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). In addition to representing the company's home state, Sen Schumer sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission should investigate Time Warner's practices, Public Knowledge Founder Gigi Sohn said in a statement. Inquiries would determine "the extent to which [the policies] hamper the free flow of information online, and to which they are anticompetitive," she said.
 http://benton.org/node/25636

CABLE COMPANIES WANT CASH FROM TIERED SERVICE, REMOTE DVRs  [SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Chris Foresman]  Cable companies are still worried about drops in revenue that may come as the economic pinch encourages subscribers to cut out premium TV services. That may be why, despite consumer backlash, they've made recent moves to adopt bandwidth caps and metered usage plans. But they may be getting another revenue option, as the Obama administration is backing Cablevision's attempts to sell a networked DVR service to its customers.
 http://benton.org/node/25627

ON THE STREET AND ON FACEBOOK: THE HOMELESS STAY WIRED  [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Phred Dvorak]  In America today, even people without street addresses feel compelled to have Internet addresses. New York City has put 42 computers in five of the nine shelters it operates and plans to wire the other four this year. Roughly half of another 190 shelters in the city offer computer access. The executive director of a San Francisco nonprofit group, Central City Hospitality House, estimates that half the visitors to its new eight-computer drop-in center are homeless; demand for computer time is so great that users are limited to 30 minutes.
Shelter attendants say the number of laptop-toting overnight visitors, while small, is growing. SF Homeless, a two-year-old Internet forum, has 140 members.
It posts schedules for public-housing meetings and news from similar groups in New Mexico, Arizona and Connecticut. And it has a blog with online polls about shelter life. Cheap computers and free Internet access fuel the phenomenon. So does an increasingly computer-savvy population. Many job and housing applications must be submitted online. Some homeless advocates say the economic downturn is pushing more of the wired middle class on to the streets.
 http://benton.org/node/25624

NEW SOFTWARE, SERVICES HELP YOU MANAGE PASSWORDS, PROTECT IDENTITY ONLINE  [SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Brandon Bailey]  Most people who use the Internet know the difficulty of remembering all the passwords they need to check e-mail, chat online, download music and transfer funds. Experts advise against using the same password for multiple accounts, in case it falls into the wrong hands. But all those different sign-ons are hard to keep straight and, even with password-manager software to help, they can be hard to keep secure. Software makers have come up with several alternatives that you're likely to hear more about in coming months. Already, you can sign on to several sites with a single "OpenID" that you've registered with one provider.
You can use your mobile phone to generate a digital "key" that you don't need to remember. You can even click on an encrypted "information card" that might one day replace your passwords altogether. The technology behind these alternatives has been around for a while. But security experts, programmers and industry groups have struggled to make them both convenient for consumers and secure enough to win acceptance from major banks, retailers and other Internet services.
 http://benton.org/node/25631

CHINA BLOCKS TWITTER SERVICE AHEAD OF ANNIVERSARY  [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Lucy Hornby]  Access to the popular social networking service Twitter and email service Hotmail was blocked across mainland China late on Tuesday afternoon, two days before the twentieth anniversary of a bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square.
Indignant users filled chatrooms with protest, after access to Twitter was denied. Thursday is the twentieth anniversary of June 4, 1989, when tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square before dawn to quell weeks of protest by students and workers. China has never released a death toll from the crackdown on what it classes as a "counter-revolutionary" conspiracy.
 http://benton.org/node/25635

US MILITARY TURNS TO TWITTER FOR AFGHAN HARD NEWS  [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Paul Tait]  "What are you doing?" For the US military in Afghanistan, the answer to the latest social networking craze seems to be: "Killing Taliban." US commanders launched their "social networking strategy" for Afghanistan Tuesday, using the hugely popular website Twitter to release information about some of their operations. The decision to use the latest Internet fad was meant to "engage non-traditional audiences directly with news, videos, pictures and other information from Operation Enduring Freedom," the US military said, and to "preempt extremist propaganda." The military said it did not think using a site more commonly devoted to people talking about their social lives would trivialize the gravity of its operations in Afghanistan.
http://benton.org/node/25634

TELEVISION A REAL CONVERSATION STOPPER FOR TOTS, PARENTS  [SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Liz Szabo]  A study released Monday adds to the debate over whether television impairs children's language development. The study finds that parents and children virtually stop talking to each other when the TV is on, even if they're in the same room. For every hour in front of the TV, parents spoke 770 fewer words to children, according to a study of 329 children, ages 2 months to 4 years, in the June issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Adults usually speak about 941 words an hour. Children vocalized less, too, says author Dimitri Christakis of the Seattle Children's Research Institute. In some cases, parents may have spoken less because they sat a child in front of a TV and left the room, he says. In others, parents simply zoned out themselves while watching TV with a child. Researchers didn't note the content of the TV shows. Parents may not realize how little they interact with children when a TV is on, Christakis says. A mother may think she's engaged with a baby because they're both on the floor playing blocks. But if a TV is on in the background, the two of them talk much less, he says. That may help explain earlier studies finding that babies who watch a lot of TV know fewer words, although they catch up to their peers by 16 months, Christakis says. "Babies learn language from hearing it spoken," he says.
 http://benton.org/node/25633

TECH COMPANY HELPS SOUTH KOREAN STUDENTS ACE ENTRANCE TESTS  [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Choe Sang-Hun]  In 1999, while watching a home-shopping channel on television, Son Joo-eun came up with the idea for an online test preparatory school. As South Koreans were embracing broadband Internet, he thought: why not bring classes into the home, too? He turned to the Web to provide "an honest, inexpensive education available to everyone," and South Korea's multibillion-dollar test preparation industry has never been the same. Megastudy.net, the online tutoring service Mr Son started in 2000, may be the perfect convergence of South Koreans' dual obsessions with educational credentials and the Internet. In this country, where people's status and income at 60 are largely determined by which college they entered at 18, South Korean parents' all-consuming task is to ensure that their children enter an elite university. And that requires a high score on the college entrance exam. By tapping into those anxieties, which deepen during recessions, Megastudy has become South Korea's fastest-growing technology company, with sales expected to grow 22.5 percent this year, to 245 billion won ($195 million), even as the country's economy is projected to contract.
 http://benton.org/node/25632

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(c) Benton Foundation 2003. Redistribution of this email publication -- both internally and externally -- is encouraged if it includes this message:
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:
Digital Divide Network (www.digitaldividenetwork.org)
Digital Opportunity Channel (www.digitalopportunity.org)
OneWorld US (www.oneworld.net/us)
Sound Partners for Community Health (www.soundpartners.org

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