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Benton media news digest – February 2009

Benton headlines

WHAT SELLS ONLINE? UNSEXY NEWSLETTERS
 [SOURCE: BusinessWeek, AUTHOR: Sarah Lacy]
 Nobody know this like Headlines readers: unsexy, e-mail newsletters are all that. They're not the newest fad, but daily digests sent via e-mail can generate some much needed ad revenue when there's not much of it to go around. It may sound odd that space on a low-tech newsletter could be so desirable in an age of mass-market blogs, when young people increasingly rely on instant messaging, texts, and such sites as Twitter and Facebook instead of e-mail. But remember that signing up for and opening an e-mail newsletter is a much bigger commitment than passively clicking on a link that takes you to a blog post. Publishers can see how many people open an e-mail, how long they read it, and how many friends they forward it to. Advertisers eat up that kind of engagement, because it's different, tangible, and more likely to result in an action such as making a purchase. [Headlines -- bringing you unsexy since 1996.]
 http://benton.org/node/22620

TWITTER'S RAPID GROWTH RAISES REGULATION ISSUES
 [SOURCE: New Media Age, AUTHOR: Luan Goldie]
 The hugely popular micro-blogging site Twitter is a child safety and privacy disaster waiting to happen, according to online safety experts. The site - which has had a yearly 974% jump in UK traffic alone and attracts between 4m and 6m people -- is open to abuse if it fails to effectively self-moderate. Twitter's terms state users must be 13 or over, but it doesn't offer a 'report abuse' button or explicit ways to flag offensive material or monitor sexually explicit and racist behavior and links to adult sites.
 http://benton.org/node/22619

NEWSDAY TO CHARGE FOR WEBSITE, ONLINE CABLE SERVICE
 [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Yinka Adegoke]
 Cablevision Systems plans to charge online readers of its Newsday newspaper, a move that would make it one of the first large US papers to reverse a trend toward free Web readership. The paper said in a statement late on Thursday that it is in the process of transforming the site into a locally focused cable service. Newsday, which covers the New York suburb of Long Island, was bought by Cablevision in a $650 million deal last May that was widely criticized on Wall Street as a puzzling move into a troubled newspaper market.
 http://benton.org/node/22613

SCRIPPS TO SHUT ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
 [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Keith Coffman, Robert Boczkiewicz]
 Media conglomerate EW Scripps lure qualified buyers. The 150-year-old Denver newspaper will run its final edition on Friday, but employees will remain on the Scripps payroll through April 28. Scripps Chief Executive Rich Boehne said the newspaper had "only one potential buyer" who had ultimately "backed away." The Rocky lost $16 million in 2008, and Boehne told workers that Scripps chose to close it to preserve the health of its other newspapers. The closure leaves a city that witnessed a colorful, century-long newspaper war with just one major daily -- MediaNews Group's Denver Post. Eight years ago, the two papers consolidated business, printing and advertising operations in a joint operating agreement to preserve both editorial voices. But the economy and a changing business model made it impossible for the city to support two newspapers, MediaNews Publisher Dean Singleton said.
 http://benton.org/node/22614

NEWSPAPERS FACE A CHALLENGING CALCULUS
 [SOURCE: Pew Research Center, AUTHOR: ]
 The trend is unmistakable: Fewer Americans are reading print newspapers as more turn to the Internet for their news. And while the percentage of people who read newspapers online is growing rapidly, especially among younger generations, that growth has not offset the decline in print readership. In the Pew Research Center's 2008 news media consumption survey, 39% said they read a newspaper yesterday -- either print or online -- down from 43% in 2006. The proportion reporting that they read just the print version of a newspaper fell by roughly a quarter, from 34% to 25% over the two-year period. Overall newspaper readership declined in spite of an increase in the number of people reading online newspapers: 14% of Americans said they read a newspaper online yesterday, up from 9% in 2006. This includes those who said they read only a newspaper online (9% in 2008), as well as those who said they read both print and Web versions of a newspaper (5%). These numbers may not include the number of people who read content produced by newspapers, but accessed through aggregation sites or portals.
 http://benton.org/node/22615

SOUTH KOREANS WANT THEIR SUB-TV
 [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: John Glionna]
 Reeling from declining ad revenue and mounting debt from providing the expensive service at no additional cost to subscribers, South Korean cellular operators may soon cancel subway TV coverage that has yet to turn a profit. Losing underground TV reception may not seem like much to consumers in the U.S., where many are still struggling with cellular dead zones and where a switch to full above-ground digital TV service may leave millions staring at useless analog sets. But for many South Koreans, subway TV has become a familiar part of their daily routines. Phone companies in this digitally crazed nation in 2005 were the first to launch mobile TV that could be tuned in on phones just about anywhere -- even in the subway tunnels deep beneath Seoul and other cities. Today, nearly 10 million cellular users are watching soap operas, sports and sitcoms on a special frequency dedicated to portable viewing -- enjoying it all on larger digital-quality screens and high-tech handsets to improve reception.
 http://benton.org/node/22634

CAN GOOGLE SAVE LOCAL MEDIA?
 [SOURCE: The Big Money, AUTHOR: Chris Thompson]
 Google has played no small role in redefining how people read the news, and last week, one of its most prominent executives launched a side project to see if he can save local reporting from the lethal dynamics that threaten papers. When Tim Armstrong isn't busy running Google's North and South American advertising arm, he's behind the Polar Capital Group, which has just funded Patch, a new company dedicated to providing online local reporting in small towns that newspapers can no longer afford to cover. So far, the company has set up one reporter in each of three New Jersey suburbs: South Orange, Maplewood, and Milburn. Patch is based out of New York, where former Time Out New York Editor in Chief Brian Farnham will try out the new model.
 http://benton.org/node/22562

NORWAY GETS NETWORK NEUTRALITY -- VOLUNTARY, BUT BROADLY SUPPORTED
 [SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Nate Anderson]
 Several ISPs, the Norwegian Post and Telecommunications Authority, the Norwegian Cable TV Association, and consumer groups have all signed on today to a new document outlining Network Neutrality principles. The new rules lay out three guidelines. First, Internet users must be given complete and accurate information about the service they are buying, including capacity and quality. Second, users are allowed to send and receive content of their choice, use services and applications of their choice. and connect any hardware and software that doesn't harm the network. Finally, the connection cannot be discriminated against based on application, service, content, sender, or receiver. Within those guidelines, though, ISPs still retain tremendous freedom to act as they choose. The second principle, for instance sounds more than a bit like the FCC's current Internet policy statement, and it should—it was adapted from the FCC principles. Like the FCC principles, the right to freely use a connection is limited to legal uses, so it does not preclude ISPs from blocking access some P2P file-sharing or all child pornography. In the US, this has already lead ISPs to suggest that even intrusive deep packet inspection of user traffic would be acceptable, so long as the goal was rooting out such illegal uses. Principle three prohibits traffic discrimination in general, but does allow "traffic management efforts on an operator's own network to block activities that harm the network, comply with orders from the authorities, ensure the quality of service for specific applications that require this, deal with special situations of temporary network overload or prioritize traffic on an individual user's connection according to the user's wishes."
 http://benton.org/node/22578

'LIBERAL BIAS?' IU PROFESSORS FIND NETWORK TV ELECTION COVERAGE FAVORS REPUBLICANS
 [SOURCE: Indiana University, AUTHOR: Press release]
 A visual analysis of television presidential campaign coverage from 1992 to 2004 suggests that the three television broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS and NBC -- favored Republicans in each election, according to two Indiana University professors in a new book. Their research runs counter to the popular conventional notion of a liberal bias in the media in favor of Democrats and against Republican candidates. Maria Elizabeth Grabe and Erik Bucy, both associate professors in the Department of Telecommunications of IU's College of Arts and Sciences, report their findings in their book, Image Bite Politics: News and the Visual Framing of Elections. "We don't think this is journalists conspiring to favor Republicans. We think they're just so beat up and tired of being accused of a liberal bias that they unknowingly give Republicans the benefit in coverage," said Grabe, who also is a research associate in political science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. "It's self-censorship that journalists might be imposing on themselves."
 http://benton.org/node/22502

GOOGLE JOINS EU ANTITRUST CASE AGAINST MICROSOFT
 [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Alexei Oreskovic, David Lawsky]
 Google has added its voice to the case against Microsoft Corp as the European Commission probes antitrust charges related to the software giant's Internet Explorer browser. "Google believes that the browser market is still largely uncompetitive, which holds back innovation for users," Sundar Pichai, Google vice president product manager, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. Google introduced the Chrome browser last year, which has taken little market share. The Internet company joins the Mozilla foundation, producer of the Firefox Web browser, and Norway's Opera, a privately held company. Google adds the voice of a significant and well-financed player in the case against Microsoft.
 http://benton.org/node/22506

HOW TWITTER COULD BE THREAT TO GOOGLE
 [SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Chris O'Brien]
 [Commentary] Google's search engine is so dominant that it's hard to imagine how anyone could knock the Mountain View company from its pedestal. And yet if history is any guide, such reigns never last. IBM gave way to Microsoft, which now has been usurped by Google. It could be a shift in technology. It could be a more nimble, innovative rival. But something always comes along and turns things upside-down, often emerging from a direction so surprising that the incumbent never sees it coming until it's too late. In this case, it's hard to imagine a company that might post a more surprising threat to Google than Twitter. But just this scenario is suddenly generating some heated discussions around the Web.
 http://benton.org/node/22524

HEARST THREATENS TO CLOSE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
 [SOURCE: Editor&Publisher, AUTHOR: Mark Fitzgerald]
 The San Francisco Chronicle will be sold or closed unless major cost-cutting measures -- including an unspecified "significant reduction in the number of unionized and non-union employees" -- can be realized within weeks, parent company Hearst Corp. said Tuesday evening. "If these savings cannot be accomplished within weeks ... the company will be forced to sell or close the newspaper," Hearst said in a statement. The company claims the Chronicle lost more than $50 million last year, "and that this year's losses to date are worse." The paper has had "major losses" each year since 2001, the company added. "Because of the sea change newspapers everywhere are undergoing and these dire economic times, it is essential that our management and the local union leadership work together to implement the changes necessary to bring the cost of producing the Chronicle into line with available revenue," said a joint prepared statement by Frank A. Bennack Jr., vice chairman and chief executive officer of Hearst Corp. and Steven R. Swartz, president of Hearst Newspapers. Hearst said it cannot wait long to implement the cuts at the 144-year-old paper.
 http://benton.org/node/22508

MUSICIANS SEEK ROYALTIES FROM BROADCAST RADIO
 [SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR:]
 Sheryl Crow, will.i.am, Herbie Hancock and other entertainers on Tuesday urged Congress to force radio stations to pay performers when their music is broadcast. Satellite radio, Internet radio and cable TV music channels already pay fees to performers and musicians, along with songwriter royalties. AM and FM radio stations pay royalties just to songwriters. People deserve to be paid when somebody else uses their property," jazz pianist Hancock said. He and the other musicians, including singers Dionne Warwick and Patti LaBelle, appeared at a news conference on Capitol Hill on behalf of the musicFIRST Coalition. The group is pushing legislation that would require radio stations to pay musicians royalties similar to those paid to songwriters. The National Association of Broadcasters, which opposes the measure, said a fee would put thousands of radio jobs at risk. The association contends that stations drive listeners to buy music and concert tickets.
 http://benton.org/node/22527

CABLE OPERATORS SEEK PLATFORM TO PUT SHOWS ONLINE
 [SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR:]
 HBO on your PC? It could happen sooner than you think. Wary of the growing number of consumers watching TV shows online for free -- and yet reluctant to upset viewers by yanking shows from the Internet -- the nation's largest cable operators are in talks with media conglomerates to take back control. They would create a platform to release cable TV shows online, but exclusively for paying subscribers. Potentially at stake is the business model of cable TV operators. They pay networks a per-subscriber fee each month for the right to carry channels. But the cable companies have groused that they are paying for content that programmers are giving away for free on the Web.
 http://benton.org/node/22529

TELEVISION'S QUIET GRAY REVOLUTION
 [SOURCE: Variety, AUTHOR: Brian Lowry]
 For years the all-consuming emphasis on reaching adults under 50 has imposed dictatorial constraints on TV casting, prompting a "Logan's Run"-like effect that expunged older performers. Look closely, though, and you'll notice a new wave of dramas is producing what amounts to a mini grey revolution, virtually waged on the sly. [more at the URL below]
 http://benton.org/node/22520

NIELSEN: AMERICANS STILL LOVE THEIR TV, EMBRACING DVRs
 [SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: David Chartier]
 Americans watched an all-time high of 151 hours of TV per month last quarter, according to a new Nielsen study. Our TV habits are on the rise across the "three screens"—TV, Internet, and mobile devices—but the most growth is coming from DVRs, Internet video, and mobile phones. In the fourth quarter of 2008, 285 million Americans watched TV in their living rooms each month, which was up 1.1 percent from the previous quarter. Internet video users were up just 2.3 percent in the same period to 123 million per month, though, while DVRs (8.5 percent) and mobile phones (8.4 percent) took the lion's share of user growth, respectively rising to 74 million and 11 million users per month. Unsurprisingly, Nielsen's study found that the majority of DVR usage comes from a slightly older audience in the 25-64 year-old range, while 12-17 year-olds are watching the most video on mobile phones. Internet video is most popular among 25-54 year-olds. Growth is quite different, however, in terms of the amount of time that users watch video on each of these devices.
 http://benton.org/node/22398

PUBLISHER SPECULATES ABOUT AMAZON/GOOGLE E-BOOK "DUOPOLY"
 [SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Timothy Lee]
 Richard Sarnoff, chairman of the Association of American Publishers, speculated last week that the landmark Google Book Search settlement could create a duopoly in the electronic books market. Speaking at Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy, Sarnoff noted that Amazon currently dominates the market for downloadable e-books. He said that the settlement "forces Google to become a provider of electronic books with a different business model" in direct competition with Amazon. And he said that some aspects of the massive settlement would be "difficult to replicate" for Google's competitors. Sarnoff said the publishers he represents didn't set out to create a monopoly in the markets for book search engines or online book sales. But he didn't deny that the settlement could have that effect. After all, he noted, "copyright itself is a monopoly."
 http://benton.org/node/22400

EVERYONE LOVES GOOGLE, UNTIL IT'S TOO BIG
 [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Randall Stross]
 [Commentary] The popularity of Google's search engine in the United States just grows and grows. In the past three years, its market share gains have even been accelerating, making some people wonder whether the company will eventually obliterate what remains of its competition in search. Consider this: As recently as July 2005, Google was ahead of Yahoo in market share by just six percentage points, at 36.5 percent to 30.5 percent, according to comScore, the market research company. Today, however, that advantage is much wider, at 63 percent to 21 percent. Many Web site owners who track where their visitors come from report that Google's search engine now refers 80 to 90 percent of their visitors. "You almost feel sorry for Google," said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land. "They're doing a good job and people are turning to them. But when they pass 70 percent share, people are going to be uncomfortable about Google becoming a monopoly." [Randall Stross is an author based in Silicon Valley and a professor of business at San Jose State University.]
 http://benton.org/node/22406

ANTITRUST PICK VARNEY SAW GOOGLE AS NEXT MICROSOFT
 [SOURCE: Bloomberg news, AUTHOR: James Rowley]
 Christine A. Varney, nominated by President Barack Obama to be the U.S.'s next antitrust chief, has described Google Inc. as a monopolist that will dominate online computing services the way Microsoft Corp. ruled software. "For me, Microsoft is so last century. They are not the problem," Varney said at a June 19 panel discussion sponsored by the American Antitrust Institute. The U.S. economy will "continually see a problem -- potentially with Google" because it already "has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising," she said. While the remarks were made months before Obama picked her to head the Justice Department's antitrust division, the comments signal her approach to the job if confirmed by the Senate. The Microsoft case, brought in 1998 by the Clinton administration, could have led to the breakup of the software giant and was a landmark in antitrust law.
 http://benton.org/node/22407

HALF OF ALL INSTRUCTION WILL TAKE PLACE ONLINE WITHIN THE NEXT 10 YEARS
 [SOURCE: eSchool News, AUTHOR: Dennis Pierce]
 If Harvard Business School's Clayton Christensen is right, half of all instruction will take place online within the next 10 years--and schools had better get into the online-learning market or risk losing their students to other providers. Disruptive innovation is the business idea that, every so often, a new innovation comes along that completely changes the marketplace, knocking the old market leaders from their perch and giving rise to new ones. Disruptive innovations transform products or services into something so simple that anyone can use them, creating what Christensen called "asymmetric competition." Because they take advantage of these radical innovations, new entrants to the marketplace are essentially competing against "non-consumption" -- that is, they're getting customers who didn't exist in that market before -- while the innovation continues to improve.
 http://benton.org/node/22412

MOBILE INTERNET NECESSITY, NOT LUXURY
 [SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Aaron Baar]
 Like the cell phones that preceded them, mobile data services--in particular, mobile Internet--are becoming less a luxury and more a necessity among US consumers. And the expanded use of those services (also including mobile email, multimedia messaging and photo uploading) could explode in the next two years. According to a survey by Nielsen Company on behalf of Tellabs, 71% of U.S. consumers plan to use some sort of mobile data service daily (the company did not have current daily usage information). Among current mobile Internet users, 55% planned to increase their usage of mobile data services in the next two years, and 48% planned to increase their use over the next year. Among non-users, 29% planned to start during that same period. "The mobile platform is becoming more and more a part of people's lives," said Jeff Herrmann, vice president of mobile media for Nielsen. "The primary use of these services is communication and convenience."
 http://benton.org/node/22413

RURAL BROADBAND: NO JOB CREATION MACHINE
 [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Saul Hansell]
 Economists say the ability of broadband to spur economic development in rural areas is difficult to quantify. "Everyone talks about the jobs that are going to be created by this," said Scott Wallsten, a senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute. "There is no way to measure that." One problem, he said, is there's no way to tell which of these jobs would have been created even without the stimulus bill. Raul Katz, a Columbia Business School professor, admitted the difficulty in counting jobs, but he nonetheless presented a paper that tried to quantify the effect of the broadband stimulus program on employment. "We know construction will generate jobs," Mr. Katz said. By his count, the stimulus bill will create 128, 000 jobs designing, building and administering the broadband networks. That figure also includes a multiplier effect that assumes that every 10 people directly hired by these projects will spend enough money to create 8 more jobs in other sectors. Beyond the construction, things get more than a little fuzzy. There is some research that shows that spending on networks will create new applications — be it "telemedicine" or e-commerce — that will spur more employment. Over the next four years, Mr. Katz allocates 378,000 jobs to these sources. But he also has his doubts.
 http://benton.org/node/22417

ASIA'S HIGH FIBER DIET
 [SOURCE: Light Reading, AUTHOR: Michael Hopkins]
 Even in a soft economy, a look at the fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) infrastructure scene suggests that Asia's countries will continue to reach the most people with the fastest networks in the years to come. In December, Pyramid Research predicted that FTTB/FTTH operators would pass around 212 million homes by the end of 2013, which is only about 12 percent of all households globally. But Asia stands out because of how aggressively its countries are passing homes with fiber. South Korea's KT Corp. plans to cover 90 percent of its access lines with FTTH by next year. Meanwhile, Japanese regulator Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts, and Telecommunications plans to have 90 percent of all homes covered by fiber networks by the end of next year, too. Pyramid Research estimates that the Asia/Pacific region had more than 68 million homes passed by fiber infrastructure at the end of 2008. Nearly 25 million households throughout Asia/Pacific subscribe to a fiber-based service. So Asia/Pac countries represent about 78 percent of all residential FTTH connections across the planet. South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan have the highest proportion of households connected to fiber networks globally.
 http://benton.org/node/22421

SURPRISE: AMERICA IS NO 1 IN BROADBAND
 [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Saul Hansell]
 According to the "Connectivity Scorecard," the US tops the 25 developed countries on economically productive use of communication technology by consumers, businesses and government. [My gosh this Obama guy is good -- he's solved the problem in, like, 30 days!] The biggest reason is that business in the United States has made extensive use of computers and the Internet and it has a technically skilled work force. Also, as dusty as your local motor vehicle office may seem, government use of communications technology is as good in the United States as anywhere in the world. After the United States, the ranking found that Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway rounded out the five most productive users of connectivity. Japan ranked 10, and Korea, 18. And while wired and wireless broadband networks used by consumers lagged other countries, the United States ranked No. 1 in the world for technology use and skills by consumers.
 http://benton.org/node/22422

THE INTENSIFYING BATTLE OVER INTERNET FREEDOM
 [SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Joanne Leedom-Ackerman]
 [Commentary] The Internet is both the vehicle and the battleground for freedom of expression around the world. The struggle between writers and governments over this free flow of information has escalated this past year and promises to intensify. Those supporting open frontiers for ideas and information need to be on high alert and take steps necessary to protect those silenced and to keep the Internet unencumbered. Last year became the first time that more Web journalists were jailed than those working in any other medium, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. China, Burma, Vietnam, Iran, Syria, and Zimbabwe have led the clampdown. They have arrested writers, blocked websites and Internet access, set strict rules on cyber cafes, and tracked writers' work. In response, some writers have used proxy search engines, encryption, and other methods to try to get around censorship and detection.
 http://benton.org/node/22427

ECONOMY DRIVES NEWS NARRATIVE
 [SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
 month into the Obama administration, the economic crisis appears to shifting from Job One to the worsening mega story of 2009. There were shifting elements in that crisis narrative last week. But the underlying message may be the frightening breadth and depth of the problem. From February 16-22, coverage of the growing financial turmoil accounted for 40% of the newshole as measured by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism—the fourth week in a row it has reached or exceeded 40%. That represents a modest drop from 47% the week of Feb. 9-15. But those numbers don't tell the whole story.
 http://benton.org/node/22423

WANTED: ONLINE PAYMENT PLAN FOR PRINT
 [SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Michael Learmonth]
 Every publication now must compete with every other around the globe, many of which are willing to offer their content for free. They also face competition from thousands of aggregators, who take journalists' content, monetize it for their own profit, and, in many cases, give little or nothing back to its originators. That's been true for years now, but the election is over, and we're still staring into an economic abyss that offers little hope that publications -- not to mention TV and radio -- will have time to manage decline while they figure out what's next. What to do? The media grandees weighing in had plenty of solutions (micropayments! Pay walls! ISP taxes! Nonprofit status!), but they can be distilled into two distinct camps: those who believe that consumers can be made to pay -- even a penny -- for content and those who don't.
 http://benton.org/node/22401

IT'S NOT NEWSPAPERS IN PERIL; IT'S THEIR OWNERS
 [SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Nat Ives]
 For all the apocalyptic news about newspapers, there's a distinction worth making: Newspaper owners are far more endangered than the medium itself. Even as they take blow after blow from recession and digital media, newspapers themselves still earn decent profits. They do even better outside big cities, which tend to get all the attention. Not a lot of papers are operating at a loss," said John Morton, the veteran industry analyst. "There are roughly 1,400 daily newspapers. We only hear about the top markets. That leaves at least 1,300 papers out there." Publicly owned newspapers averaged an operating profit of 10.8% in the first three quarters of last year, Mr. Morton said. That's not the margin enjoyed by newspapers when they were monopolies, but it's not nothing either. The owners, on the other hand, are variously posting huge losses, at least on paper. Some owners even borrowed that money to double down on newspapers, which aren't engines of growth even when their balance sheets are healthy.
 http://benton.org/node/22402

EXPLORING A 'DEEP WEB' THAT GOOGLE CAN'T GRASP
 [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Alex Wright]
 One day last summer, Google's search engine trundled quietly past a milestone. It added the one trillionth address to the list of Web pages it knows about. But as impossibly big as that number may seem, it represents only a fraction of the entire Web. Beyond those trillion pages lies an even vaster Web of hidden data: financial information, shopping catalogs, flight schedules, medical research and all kinds of other material stored in databases that remain largely invisible to search engines. The challenges that the major search engines face in penetrating this so-called Deep Web go a long way toward explaining why they still can't provide satisfying answers to questions like "What's the best fare from New York to London next Thursday?" The answers are readily available — if only the search engines knew how to find them. Now a new breed of technologies is taking shape that will extend the reach of search engines into the Web's hidden corners. When that happens, it will do more than just improve the quality of search results — it may ultimately reshape the way many companies do business online.
 http://benton.org/node/22375

SOCIAL NETWORKS ARE TELCOS' NEW BEST FRIEND
 [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Georgina Prodhan]
 From the world's biggest phone maker, Nokia, to tiny Irish semiconductor start-up Movidia, delegates to the wireless industry's biggest annual gathering couldn't stop talking about Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. The majority of visits to such online communities are still made by people sitting at a computer telling their friends where they are and how they are feeling, exchanging opinions on their favorite movies and music or uploading videos. But the spontaneous and personal nature of much of that communication lends itself perfectly to the mobile phone.
 http://benton.org/node/22327

THE MEDIA BARON AND HIS SOFT SPOT
 [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Tim Arango, Richard Perez-Pena]
 Rupert Murdoch, as much old-fashioned press baron as 21st century multimedia mogul, faces a depressing reality: his lifelong fondness for newspapers has become a significant drag on the fortunes of his company, the News Corporation. In more vibrant economic times, investors and Wall Street analysts were more willing to look past Mr. Murdoch's attachment to newspapers — the newspaper segment is now the company's biggest single source of revenue, about 19 percent in the most recent quarter. But they find that a tougher chore these days, as other media struggle and newspapers suffer through their worst slump since the Depression.
 http://benton.org/node/22376

INFORMATION WANT TO BE EXPENSIVE
 [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: L Gordon Crovitz]
 [Commentary] With newspapers in cities across the country on the brink, an old idea is being resurrected in the hope of saving them: They should charge for access to their journalism on the Internet. This is a great idea, but about 10 years late. People are happy to pay for news and information however it's delivered, but only if it has real, differentiated value. Traders must have their Bloomberg or Thomson Reuters terminal. Lawyers wouldn't go to court without accessing the Lexis or West online service. Yet few city newspapers try to generate revenues directly from readers online, a huge problem now that advertising is so weak in print and online. Something needs to change if these newspapers and their large news staffs are to survive. It's past time for news companies to regain the courage to ask readers whether what they produce is worth paying for online. If it's not, less news will be produced, and news companies and their journalists will have only themselves to blame.
 http://benton.org/node/22377

MORE NEWSPAPERS FILE FOR CHAPTER 11
 [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Shira Ovide]
 The weekend bankruptcy filings of Philadelphia's two major newspapers and Journal Register Co., publisher of the New Haven Register and 19 other dailies, marks the latest in a wave of companies crushed by corporate debt and is likely a sign of more pain to come. The operating arm of Philadelphia Media Holdings, publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, sought bankruptcy protection Sunday, following on the heels of a Saturday filing by the Journal Register. Both companies were victims of debt taken on for acquisitions, which became a noose as advertising revenue shrivels across the newspaper industry. Publishers are proving especially vulnerable in a global economic downturn that has forced firms from telecommunications to the car-parts industry to tip into Chapter 11. Four newspaper owners have filed for bankruptcy protection since December, and there is a queue of others whose debt ratings are considered risky: MediaNews Group, publisher of the Denver Post and San Jose Mercury News; Orange County Register publisher Freedom Communications Inc.; and small-town newspaper publisher Morris Publishing Group. More are scrambling to rework their debt terms.
 http://benton.org/node/22378

SIX WAYS TO MAKE WEB 2.O WORK
 [SOURCE: McKinsey Quarterly, AUTHOR: Michael Chui, Andy Miller, Roger Roberts]
 Technologies known collectively as Web 2.0 have spread widely among consumers over the past five years. Social-networking Web sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, now attract more than 100 million visitors a month. As the popularity of Web 2.0 has grown, companies have noted the intense consumer engagement and creativity surrounding these technologies. Many organizations, keen to harness Web 2.0 internally, are experimenting with the tools or deploying them on a trial basis. Over the past two years, McKinsey has studied more than 50 early adopters to garner insights into successful efforts to use Web 2.0 as a way of unlocking participation. The six critical factors that determine the outcome of efforts to implement these technologies: 1) The transformation to a bottom-up culture needs help from the top. 2) The best uses come from users—but they require help to scale. 3) What's in the workflow is what gets used. 4) Appeal to the participants' egos and needs—not just their wallets. 5) The right solution comes from the right participants. 6) Balance the top-down and self-management of risk.
 http://benton.org/node/22260

ASIA'S SHOPPERS GO ONLINE AS INTERNET BARRIERS FALL
 [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Dhara Ranasinghe, Lee Chyen Yee]
 Consumers in Asia are taking to Internet shopping like never before as the region becomes one of the world's fastest growing e-commerce markets. Internet retailing is increasingly making its presence felt in Asia because telecommunications infrastructure has improved, and payment modes, a major obstacle to online shopping, are now more secure. As more people in Asian countries such as China and India get hooked up to the Internet, online sales are expected to rise by an average of 20 percent a year. In some markets, such as Japan, they are expected to increase by as much as 40 percent annually.
 http://benton.org/node/22266

HOLLYWOOD STRUGGLES TO FIND WEALTH ON THE WEB
 [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Alex Dobuzinskis]
 After more than a decade of hype about the Internet being the next great stage for mass entertainment, it remains dominated by amateurs with most Hollywood stars watching from the wings. Even as talent agencies like William Morris and television networks such as NBC push for more celebrities on websites and better quality programs, many actors and producers balk at Internet projects, saying they have meager revenue potential compared with TV and movies. The future of Web entertainment is front and center in fractious labor contract talks between the Screen Actors Guild and Hollywood's major studios that, after a nearly eight-month stalemate, begin again on Tuesday. Among major sticking points is a demand by SAG, the largest U.S. actors union representing some 120,000 actors, for payments when members' work goes online. But the studios argue they are making too little money on the Web now, and its future as an entertainment medium is uncertain. Still, they are pushing ahead because they see an audience of teens and young adults -- consumers of the future -- who are more often online than in front of the TV.
 http://benton.org/node/22305

FACEBOOK WITHDRAWS CHANGES IN DATA USE
 [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Alan Cowell]
 After a wave of protests from its users, the Facebook social networking site said Wednesday that it would withdraw changes to its so-called terms of service concerning the data supplied by the tens of millions of people who use it. The about-face was made known to many users in a message posted on the Facebook home page saying : "Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised." The posting invited users to click on a link to get more details.
 http://benton.org/node/22274

WHERE THE KIDS ARE
 [SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Brian Steinberg]
 Beaming an ad for the latest toy, gadget or tasty treat at a young person between the ages of, oh, 6 and 14 was once an easy task: Put it up on any broadcast network during Saturday-morning cartoons. As cable outlets such as Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network gained traction, advertisers had even more opportunity, as those venues broadcast kid-focused programming during even more hours of the day and days of the week. Now that digital media has emerged from its infancy, reaching kids has gotten harder. About 48% of consumers between the ages of 8 and 12 spend two hours online every day, according to eMarketer, while 24% of teens between 13 and 17 spend more than 15 hours online each week. That doesn't mean they aren't watching TV, but it certainly signifies that there are ways to reach them that don't necessarily involve buying the same old pipelines.
 http://benton.org/node/22215

THE INTERNET OF THINGS
 [SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Scott Duke Harris]
 ZeroG Wireless is introducing a new chip that provides a tiny bit of Wi-Fi connectivity to literally billions of electronic devices that today are unconnected. Companies may use the chips to collect usage data on all kinds of electronic appliances. With three patents approved and several more in the works, ZeroG is rolling out a Wi-Fi chip and module that already has Federal Communications Commission approval and can be easily integrated into micro-controller units made by companies such as Microchip Technology, Freescale Semiconductor and Atmel. It announced a new "early access" partnership with Microchip on Monday that will enable electronics manufacturers to test the chips for commercial use.
 http://benton.org/node/22252

SCIENCE JOURNALISM GROWING OVERSEAS
 [SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Cristine Russell]
 The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has long been a mecca for journalists searching for stories of all shapes and sizes—from basic brain research to broad environmental policy issues involving land, oceans, and the atmosphere. Particularly remarkable was the increasingly international focus of the 175th meeting, which attracted about 6,800 participants, including roughly 800 members of the science media. The number of science reporters and journalists-in-training from far-flung parts of the world—the Middle East, Africa, Asia and South America, as well as Canada, the U.K., Germany, Sweden and other parts of Europe—has expanded at AAAS. At the same time, the presence of working American science reporters from major newspapers and magazines has declined over time, their ranks often replaced by a diverse group of freelancers and digital journalists who write, blog, and Twitter for a variety of startup and established news and information Web sites.
 http://benton.org/node/22211

SHAPIRO BLASTS MEDIA FOR BAILOUT COVERAGE
 [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
 Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro says the media were complicit in "our national conspiracy to ignore financial reality," and said that "while the First Amendment is alive legally, it is an unnoticed, underused and often forgotten tool whose spirit has shifted from traditional media to YouTube and blogs." According to a copy of a speech to be given at The Media Institute in Washington Tuesday Shapiro said the press has "failed" the country by underreporting, and perhaps more importantly, insufficiently analyzing some big stories. "It has been mostly reactive, favoring the politics and the battles between the political parties rather than independently reviewing the big issues," he said, most recently the bailout packages for Wall Street, and more recently Main Street. "Has the media been so decimated by the economy and new media that thoughtful analysis of these immense proposals is off the table?" he asked.
 http://benton.org/node/22212

FORGET UNIVERSAL BROADBAND
 [SOURCE: TelephonyOnline, AUTHOR: Ed Gubbins]
 [Commentary] Are companies really shunning the U.S. market because there's not enough broadband here? After all, the gap between our penetration numbers and Japan's is in rural America. Is that really the segment of the market that stands between us and the forefront of global technology innovation? Of the roughly 12% of American homes without broadband today, a third say they wouldn't buy broadband if they could. And of the 25% of Americans who don't use the Internet at all, at any speed, only 12% say it's due to lack of access. If weak demand is the problem, maybe we should be pushing broadband's benefits to rural Americans harder than we push the actual networks — maybe then rural America would do more of the pulling itself. We need to get them hooked on applications. Despite the historic importance of trains, there was never a call to bring railroad tracks to every American's doorstep. Railways were built in accordance with commercial demand, creating more demand along the way. If you didn't live near the tracks, it was up to you to bring yourself the rest of the way.
 http://benton.org/node/22221

FACEBOOK'S USERS ASK WHO OWNS INFORMATION
 [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter]
 Reacting to an online swell of suspicion about changes to Facebook's terms of service, the company's chief executive moved to reassure users on Monday that the users, not the Web site, "own and control their information." The online exchanges reflected the uneasy and evolving balance between sharing information and retaining control over that information on the Internet. The subject arose when a consumer advocate's blog shined an unflattering light onto the pages of legal language that many users accept without reading when they use a Web site. The pages, called terms of service, generally outline appropriate conduct and grant a license to companies to store users' data. Unknown to many users, the terms frequently give broad power to Web site operators.
 http://benton.org/node/22179

THE GREATER REALITY OF MINORITIES ON TV
 [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Greg Braxton]
 The much-maligned world of reality television is winning praise these days for "keeping it real" in an unexpectedly relevant way -- reflecting a more diverse America than its more highbrow cousins in scripted prime-time shows. Despite decades of public pressure on the major networks to diversify, the lead characters in all but a few of prime-time scripted shows this season are still white -- and usually young and affluent. In contrast, reality programs consistently feature a much broader range of people when it comes to race, age, class and sexual orientation. A report released last year by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, titled "Out of Focus -- Out of Sync," accused the networks of perpetuating a view of the nation that recalls "America's segregated past." The 40-page report charged that non-whites are underrepresented in almost every aspect of the television industry -- except for reality programming. That's no accident, according to reality TV producers and creators.
 http://benton.org/node/22184

WITH SHIFT TO DIGITAL TV, HOW LONG CAN VCRs STAY AFLOAT?
 [SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Troy Wolverton]
 The venerable VCR is one of the unsung casualties of the move to digital television. Consumers who have used the devices for years to record over-the-air or cable channels will soon be losing key features as both systems go from analog to digital transmissions. They will be left to choose from a few jerry-built or pricey solutions. "What we're witnessing is that the VCR is becoming a little bit more obsolete," said Amina Fazlullah, a legislative counsel at the U.S. Public Interest Resource Group who has focused on the transition to digital television. VCRs have been on the way out for years, of course. DVDs replaced video tapes long ago at video rental stores. More recently, cutting-edge consumers have moved on to DVRs or to watching video directly downloaded or streamed from the Internet. But the VCR is still a prized piece of equipment for many Americans. Some 72 percent of U.S. households with a TV also have a VCR, according to research group Nielsen. While the number of homes with a VCR has been declining, it's still much larger than the number of homes with DVRs. Just 24 percent of TV-owning households have one of the newer recording devices.
 http://benton.org/node/22185

THE FUTURE OF MUSIC POLICY
 [SOURCE: Pew Internet & American Life Project, AUTHOR: Mary Madden]
 While the Internet can often be viewed as an unfriendly place for musicians' pockets, online radio has proven to be one of more lucrative digital channels for artists. Online radio stations are currently required to pay a performance royalty to musicians every time their song is played. Terrestrial radio, on the other hand, still benefits from an exemption that allows them to avoid paying performance royalties to musicians. The U.S. stands out in this regard, as many other parts of the world do not provide this exemption to broadcasters.
 http://benton.org/node/22125

THE FIRST TELECOM PRESIDENT
 [SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Brad Adgate]
 President Abraham Lincoln was also the first President to grasp the benefits and power of telecommunications. Originally considered an unsophisticated westerner, Lincoln was fascinated with new technology (Lincoln is the only President to be granted a patent), whether it was the latest in weaponry, hot air balloons, railroads (he had paved the way for the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869) or the telegraph, which was first used in 1844. Lincoln almost immediately saw the advantages of the telegraph. His historic debates with Stephen Douglas in 1858 crystallized his position on slavery and were carried almost instantly around the nation, paving the way for his Presidential run two years later. Lincoln used and understood the telegraph as a powerful communications vehicle in the 19th century. In all likelihood, if Lincoln were campaigning and elected President in the 21st century, he would recognize the assets that modern technology would bring to him and to the country.
 http://benton.org/node/22126

IN WEB AGE, LIBRARY JOB GETS UPDATE
 [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Motoko Rich]
 A growing cadre of 21st-century multimedia specialists help guide students through the digital ocean of information that confronts them on a daily basis. These new librarians believe that literacy includes, but also exceeds, books. Some of these new librarians teach children how to develop PowerPoint presentations or create online videos. Others get students to use social networking sites to debate topics from history or comment on classmates' creative writing. Yet as school librarians increasingly teach students crucial skills needed not only in school, but also on the job and in daily life, they are often the first casualties of school budget crunches.
 http://benton.org/node/22134

DO WE NEED A NEW INTERNET?
 [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: John Markoff]
 [Commentary] There is a growing belief among engineers and security experts that Internet security and privacy have become so maddeningly elusive that the only way to fix the problem is to start over. What a new Internet might look like is still widely debated, but one alternative would, in effect, create a "gated community" where users would give up their anonymity and certain freedoms in return for safety. Today that is already the case for many corporate and government Internet users. As a new and more secure network becomes widely adopted, the current Internet might end up as the bad neighborhood of cyberspace. You would enter at your own risk and keep an eye over your shoulder while you were there. "Unless we're willing to rethink today's Internet," says Nick McKeown, a Stanford engineer involved in building a new Internet, "we're just waiting for a series of public catastrophes."
 http://benton.org/node/22142

PRIVACY, TRANSPARENCY, PARTICIPATION: PICK TWO
 [SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Julian Sanchez]
 The tension between privacy and transparency is nothing new, but perhaps ironically, the same technologies that are making politics more democratic and participatory for millions of citizens are also heightening the tension between those two core political values. If politics is increasingly driven by small donors, spontaneous coalitions of socially networked activists, and citizen journalists, then open access to information about political actors will increasingly mean the exposure not only of corporate titans, media moguls, and elected officials, but of ordinary citizens as well.
 http://benton.org/node/21911

NEW MEDIA BREAKS IN, BUT TRADITION LIVES ON
 [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jeff Zeleny]
 President Obama on Monday evening became the 10th American president to call on Helen Thomas at a White House news conference. And he was the first to call on Sam Stein, a reporter for The Huffington Post. It was not the answer but the very fact that he took a question from Mr. Stein that created a buzz and signaled yet another shift in the ever-evolving news media landscape. The White House decided in advance which reporters would be selected. And on Monday night, correspondents for The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, Time and Newsweek were not on the list.
 http://benton.org/node/21895

JOURNALISTS AT HIGH RISK IN MEXICO, GROUP SAYS
 [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR:]
 A leading journalists association on Tuesday ranked Mexico among the most dangerous countries in the world for reporters, as news media workers increasingly become targets of organized crime groups. Five Mexican reporters were killed in 2008 and seven have disappeared in the last three years, according to a report released Tuesday by the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based organization.
 http://benton.org/node/21918

SPECIALTY MEDIA ON THE RISE IN WASHINGTON, STUDY SAYS
 [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: James Rainey]
 Shifts in the way news is reported in Washington mean that average citizens find information about the government harder to come by, while an "elite" specialty audience has access to more information than ever, a study to be released today has found. The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism plans to report that -- while mainstream media outlets continue to diminish because of declining advertising -- specialty publications serving lobbyists and insiders are growing in size and influence. "In short, those influencing policy have access to more information than ever, while those affected by those policies -- but not organized to shape them -- are likely to be less informed," said the report, the result of a three-month review. The "balance of information" has tilted away from average readers with the decline in general-interest news outlets. In 1985, reporters representing 564 outlets had credentials to cover Congress, while just 160 outlets had credentialed reporters as of 2007. The number has declined since then.
 http://benton.org/node/21919

CUBA LOOKS TO EXPAND INTERNET ACCESS
 [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Esteban Israel]
 Cuba wants to expand access to the Internet but has been held back by economic problems and bandwidth limitations, Cuban communications minister Ramiro Valdes said on Tuesday. Valdes, speaking at a computer exposition in Havana, said the situation was expected to improve when socialist ally Venezuela completes a 930-mile-long fiber optics line to the communist-run island next year. Internet use in Cuba is limited mostly to government officials and academics, and comes to the island through a slow, costly satellite connection. According to the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union, only 2.1 percent of the population has access to the Internet.
 http://benton.org/node/21915

STUDY LINKS TV AND DEPRESSION
 [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Karen Kaplan]
 Television may increase teenagers' risk of becoming depressed as adults. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard Medical School looked at the media habits of 4,142 healthy adolescents and calculated that each additional hour of TV watched per day boosted the odds of becoming depressed by 8%. Other forms of media, such as playing computer games and watching videos, didn't affect the risk of depression, according to the study published today in the Archives of General Psychology. The results don't prove that TV viewing itself causes depression, said Dr. Brian Primack of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Research on Health Care, who led the study. "It could be argued that people with the predilection for later development of depression also happen to have a predilection for watching lots of TV," he said. But the circumstantial evidence pointing to TV as the culprit is strong, the study found.
 http://benton.org/node/21515

CHANGING FACE OF COMMUNICATIONS
 [SOURCE: IBM, AUTHOR: Rob van den Dam, Ekow Nelson, Zygmunt Lozinski]
 According to a new report from IBM, social networking is not about new Web sites or applications but a fundamental shift in how people communicate, moving away from point-to-point and two-way conversations to many-to-many collaboration and sharing. Control of that communications is also shifting away from the "proprietary domain of telecom providers" to more open Internet platforms. Based on current growth patterns, IBM estimates that by 2012, the number of unique monthly visitors to online social networking sites will surpass 800 million. Traditional telecom service providers must embrace this change and growth ­ or be bypassed. Telcos must focus on moving beyond basic connectivity to "allow individuals, organizations, communications and objects to interact and communicate in ways that were not possible before."
 http://benton.org/node/21506

EX-JOURNALISTS' NEW JOBS FUEL DEBATE ON FAVORITISM
 [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jim Rutenberg]
 Republicans have long accused mainstream journalists of being on the payroll of President Obama and the Democratic Party, a common refrain of favoritism especially from those on the losing end of an election (see Bush vs. Gore, Clinton vs. Bush and Bush vs. Dukakis). But this year the accusation has a new twist: In some notable cases it has become true, with several prominent journalists now on the payrolls of President Obama and the Democratic Congressional leadership. An unusual number of journalists from prominent, mainstream organizations started new government jobs in January, providing new kindling to the debate over whether President Obama is receiving unusually favorable treatment in the news media.
 http://benton.org/node/21516

A THIRD OF ADULTS WITHOUT INTERNET DON'T WANT IT
 [SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Jack Gillum]
 About one in four American adults don't use the Internet. And many of them couldn't care less about getting online. A report last month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that although price is a barrier for dial-up users in switching to broadband, one-third of those without a Net connection simply aren't interested in e-mailing or exploring the Web. The findings come amid the settling-in of an Internet-focused White House, one that pushed an $819 billion economic stimulus package that contains billions for broadband expansion. (It passed last week in the House.) Still, the new Pew numbers suggest that a noteworthy digital divide lingers in the USA. "There certainly are those people who have no interest in getting connected to the Internet," says Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, which runs the Internet for Everyone initiative in Washington. "That does not mean that they won't one day." About 35% of dial-up customers — whose connection speeds are typically a fraction of broadband users' — said cost was a problem. About one in five dial-up customers said nothing could get them to upgrade.
 http://benton.org/node/21521

BRINGING THE INTERNET TO REMOTE AFRICAN VILLAGES
 [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Chris Nicholson]
 In recent years the mobile phone has emerged as the main modern communications link for rural areas of Africa. From 2002 to 2007, the number of Kenyans using cellphones grew almost tenfold to reach about a third of the population, many of whom did not have land lines, according to the International Telecommunication Union. But many of the phones were simple models made more for talking than Web browsing, and wireless data networks are slow, with sporadic coverage. Satellite connections are faster and more stable, which is why they are attracting interest from the likes of Google, as a way to provide Internet connections to the estimated 95 percent of Africans who, according to the telecommunications union, have no access. Although providing Internet access is outside the normal business realm of Google, with this project it is looking at how obstacles might be overcome in Kenya and other parts of Africa.
 http://benton.org/node/21474

THE RISE OF SOFT CENSORSHIP
 [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Don Podesta]
 [Commentary] Among the accusations swirling around ousted Gov Rod Blagojevich (D-IL) is one that touches on his relationship with the most important newspaper in his state, the Chicago Tribune. Blagojevich reportedly threatened to withhold state assistance from a deal involving the sale of Wrigley Field, owned by the Tribune Co., if the paper didn't fire members of the editorial board whom he viewed as highly critical of him. Thus Illinois joins a growing list of places across the globe where media-government relations are often ruled by money. Or, more specifically, money used as a tool to manipulate news coverage. This is a serious problem in countries, like the US, where democracies are fragile and there is no culture of strong, independent news media. Many fledgling democracies have no tradition of independent news media, without which it is difficult, if not impossible, to sustain an open political dialogue and transparency in governance. Strengthening independent news media in the developing world should be the cornerstone of any effort to build democracies.
 http://benton.org/node/21482

THE BARACKBERRY
 [SOURCE: The Economist, AUTHOR: ]
 President Obama may have surrendered his trusty BlackBerry, but in its place he's acquired a look alike that's technically superior in every aspect, even if (at 12 ounces) it weighs three times more.
 http://benton.org/node/21412

WHY ATTACKING THE PRESS NEVER WORKS
 [SOURCE: Politico.com, AUTHOR: Roger Simon]
 [Commentary] The Columbia Journalism Review revealed this week that the "high command" of the John McCain campaign hired a blogger "to attack" and engage in "bullying" the press during the last six months of the presidential campaign. The blogger was Michael Goldfarb, who was hired by the McCain people from The Weekly Standard. The McCain campaign, he says, "assured me that they were looking for someone to attack the press. And that struck me as a really bad idea, but when a presidential campaign calls up and offers you a job, you take it." One of the things Goldfarb reveals is that the McCain campaign was going to throw The New York Times off the campaign plane (presumably when it was on the ground). Goldfarb wrote a memo that was supposed to explain that decision to the public, but the idea was dropped. Barring reporters is rarely done by campaigns. Smart campaigns know that it's a waste of time to attack and ban the media. Seducing the media is much more productive. Attacking the media is a waste because it is not an issue voters care about. Many voters already have a low opinion of the media, and it is unlikely that a campaign can lower it further. All it does is make the campaign look petulant.
 http://benton.org/node/21413

ABC SAYS WEB VIEWERS WILL TOLERATE TWICE THE ADS
 [SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Michael Learmonth]
 The web is about to get a little more like TV -- minus the ad-skipping. ABC.com has started to peddle research that shows online viewers will tolerate shows with ads from multiple sponsors, much like TV. The ABC/Nielsen research concluded that adding multiple sponsors per ad break had "a minimal effect" on recall and did not affect purchase consideration or ad attentiveness. ABC said the data show that doubling the number of ads within a show from four to eight "did not affect the viewers' overall experience with the ABC.com player." If ABC.com is successful, expect other online players to follow, since demand for online spots in network shows generally outstrips supply.
 http://benton.org/node/21417

BRITAIN UNVEILS PLANS FOR UNIVERSAL BROADBAND
 [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Kate Holton, Georgina Prodhan]
 Britain plans to provide universal broadband access in a bid to make the country more competitive and help drag it out of recession. A report by Communications minister Lord Carter said Britain would work to provide Internet access to the whole country at around 2 Megabits per second (Mb) through a mixture of fixed and wireless connections by 2012. Carter also intends to introduce legislation to force Internet service providers to crack down on Web piracy, will form a body to promote UK content and copyright, and will look to allow broadcasters to adapt to the changing times. Currently, around 60 percent of the country takes broadband, while some 99 percent has access to it, but not always at the required 2 Mb speed. Welcoming the Carter proposals, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Britain would look to support the 52 billion-pound ($73.37 billion) industry as it would play a crucial part in lifting the country out of the recession.
 http://benton.org/node/21434

BROADBAND LINK TO US JOBS EXAGGERATED
 [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Kim Dixon]
 Robert Crandall, a Brookings Institution economist, co-authored a widely-cited study that nearly 300,000 US jobs would be created for every percentage point rise in high-speed Internet use. The Brookings Institution study, published in July 2007, is not particularly relevant now because of differing employment and related migration trends at the time of the study, Crandall said. "There is a great deal of overstatement in most of these studies," said Crandall. Most the data on jobs and broadband is not relevant because it doesn't apply to underserved, mostly rural and high cost areas targeted in the stimulus package, said Shane Greenstein, a professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "The experience of Manhattan in 2005 has no relationship to the experience in West Texas," Greenstein said. Chris King, an investment analyst at Stifel Nicolaus said the proposals targeting unserved rural areas are not enough to propel rural providers to invest in any event, largely because they do not address ongoing operating costs.
 http://benton.org/node/21439

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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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