Rep. Barton criticizes FCC Commissioner Copps over speech on medi
See also Is Journalism in Peril (linked here).
From LA Times Company Town Blog:
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), an influential member of the House Commerce Committee, is upset with Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps over a speech the regulator gave last week at Columbia University's School of Journalism and an interview he did with the BBC America.
In the speech, Copps was heavily critical of both the media industry's coverage of news and public affairs and of his own agency's role in media regulation.
The media giants are not "producing the body of news and information that democracy needs to conduct its civic dialogue," Copps told the BBC's Katty Kay. If that trend continues, he added, "we are going to be pretty close to denying our citizens the essential news and information that they need to have in order to make intelligent decisions about the future direction of their country.” As for the Internet being a savior, Copps warned that "increasingly, the private interests who design and control our 21st century information infrastructure resemble those who seized the master switch of the last century’s communications networks."
Possible solutions, Copps said, could be new public interest regulations and toughening up the process by which broadcasters renew their licenses to operate TV and radio stations.
In a letter sent to Copps on Monday, Barton said he was "troubled" by the remarks and said he does not believe that the "subjective opinions of five unelected officials should hold sway over the content broadcasters air or the licenses they hold to air it."
While Barton said he has no issue with Copps' views, he said he hopes that the commissioner does not "mean to suggest that it is the job of the federal government, through the Federal Communications Commission, to determine the content that is available for Americans to consume."
-- Joe Flint
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Monday, December 6, 2010
TRON: Legacy Soundtrack
Net Neutrality Debate and how it impacts you - one view
And America/Radio is About to Get Burned
A message from Eric Rhoads, Radio Ink
As in a magic show, things are not always what they appear to be. In Washington, gentle names are given to horrible ideas so they appear fine to the general public. The FCC and Chairman Julius Genachowski are about to pull the wool over the eyes of America, then clobber us over the head.
The FCC is due to vote December 21 on a set of new "net neutrality" regulations. (Sounds harmless, right?) The open meeting at which the vote will be held was moved from December 15, leading some to speculate that the commission wanted to bury this key vote in holiday distractions. But that isn't really Chairman Genachowski's style.
Indeed, Genachowski has been quite straightforward about his desire to get regulatory control of the Internet. So was his predecessor, Kevin Martin, whose attempt to sanction Comcast for throttling down BitTorrent traffic ultimately led to the Comcast v. FCC decision, in which the DC appeals court ruled that the commission had overreached its authority in attempting to tell Comcast how to run its network.
But sharks want to swim and regulators want to regulate, and the commission couldn't shrug off that Comcast decision. So one of Genachowski's leading priorities as chairman -- indeed, practically his only public priority -- has been to get FCC control over the Internet. To that end, he has adopted the language of "Net neutrality" and the "open Internet."
Beware of a wolf in sheep's clothing.
What, exactly, does Genachowski want to do in the name of openness and neutrality? It's all fairly murky right now. The commission hasn't released the exact draft rules on which it intends to vote. Keeps us guessing and reduces flak.
But the rules will, Genachowski said, involve a "transparency" requirement (a fairly hilarious demand from an agency that won't make public the industry-changing rules on which it plans to vote in less than three weeks). There will also be a ban on "unreasonable discrimination in transmitting lawful network traffic." But the rules will allow for "reasonable network management."
All very (ahem) reasonable, right? But, setting aside the question of what the FCC will consider to be reasonable, and the likelihood that any definition will be flexible enough to adjust as technology develops rather than simply stopping that development in its tracks, the fact is, how private businesses manage the infrastructure in which they have invested their own resources is none of the FCC's concern.
And, more to the point, "net neutrality" is a solution to an imaginary problem.
Though there have been periodic disputes, no one is contending that telecom or cable companies are interfering with broadband traffic in any systematic way.
What worries the "net neutrality" brigade is the notion that these sinister "gatekeepers" could do it if they wanted to; comments from Free Press and other activist groups are full of references to what these companies could do, or really want to do. (Comcast's ill-considered decision to mislead customers about its blocking BitTorrent was not helpful in this part of the debate. But that was in 2007, eons ago in Internet time.)
What worries the "net neutrality" brigade is the notion that these sinister "gatekeepers" could do it if they wanted to; comments from Free Press and other activist groups are full of references to what these companies could do, or really want to do. (Comcast's ill-considered decision to mislead customers about its blocking BitTorrent was not helpful in this part of the debate. But that was in 2007, eons ago in Internet time.)
Right now, the explosive growth of the bandwidth-intensive Netflix -- and no doubt Netflix rivals to come -- could cause some issues in fairly short order. In fact, Level 3 is duking it out in public right now over Comcast's desire to charge Level 3 more for access to its network now that Level 3 has a contract to supply streaming to Netflix. (Level 3 says Comcast is violating net neutrality principles with the proposed added fees; Comcast says Level 3 wants to reframe long-standing traffic-exchange principles among networks as a net neutrality issue. )
But consumers who find their movie service being degraded or who are being charged extra for "excess" bandwidth will soon find new providers. It will likely get rocky for a while, and then technology and the market will sort it out. This is how it's worked for some 25 years, during which the Internet has merrily thrived with hardly any government regulation at all.
It is also worth noting that Genachowski specified that he is no longer looking to reclassify broadband as a Title II telecommunications service, which would mean treating it as though it were a monopoly phone company. He couldn't get that notion past even the current Congress, which has not been, one might say, averse to government overreach.
The FCC is naturally splitting along party lines on this, with the two Republicans, Robert McDowell and Meredith Attwell Baker, releasing blunt statements in opposition and Democrats Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps in support.
This will be approved later this month, though Copps, who is ordinarily Genachowski's reliable wingman, is still apparently holding out hope for Title II regulation. Indeed, the fact that Copps
Michael Copps sees it as part of the FCC's mandate to investigate and judge the "state of journalism," and to create tests of a station's "public value," and even to count how many local or regional artists get on the air. What sort of regulation do you suppose Copps will feel is appropriate for an FCC-controlled Internet?
What's this got to do with radio? Radio, like every other media business, is going to rely more and more on the Internet for revenue and content delivery. Digital is already a key and growing part of radio's business model. The FCC would like to insert itself into that part of your business, introducing regulatory uncertainty, unsettling potential investors, and interfering with the natural development of the market and of technology. Does that sound appealing?
To allow the FCC to get its hands on the Internet on the basis that bad things might happen -- things that have natural, market-driven solutions -- would be wildly short-sighted and destructive. Indeed, the very notion that government regulation of any communications medium will lead to greater freedom and openness would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous.
There's probably nothing that can stop the FCC from approving this in a party-line vote on December 21. But some legislators have already vowed that they'll do everything they can to undo it. I urge you to get in touch with your representatives and help make sure that stopping Genachowski and the FCC from taking control of the Internet is a top priority in the new Congress.
Eric Rhoads
LINKEDIN
FYI, I am on the opposite side in this debate, but all sides need to be heart. I am for net-neutrality and equal and fair access. -Art Lynch
FYI, I am on the opposite side in this debate, but all sides need to be heart. I am for net-neutrality and equal and fair access. -Art Lynch
Can we compete?
Americans are competing against two billion more people for jobs, yet one educated American workers can do the job of five to ten Chinese at less money for work done. For that to be true we need to invest in education, in keeping corporations investing in America, on positioning ourselves using the real world of the new post Great Recession economy instead of the “good old days” when America led the world during the second half of the twentieth, now last, century. These views were voiced on many Sunday morning talk shows, on the BBC and on NPR this morning, from economist, politicians, pundits, historians and sociologists.
No country will overtake the US as the world superpower, but that role will decrease in power and value as the world flounders and eventually finds its legs in a new international economy, no matter how much conservatives and even the progressive left want to admit.
The people want to see a plan to make American Great Again, when the role of and nature of “great” has shifted beyond his or any other individuals’ control.
Join a tide that raises all boats, not just American boats, argue the economists, even those who are thought to be conservative.
The great fights will come over how, and in a polarized political environment compromise and true movement forward may leave us dragging in the mud as the world passes us by.
Just a thought.
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
The late Hawaiian musician Israel Kamakawiwo'ole (Kah-MAH-kah-VEE-voh-OH-lay), did something rare in music. He redefined a beloved classic.
Israel's body lay in state at Hawaii's Capitol building, a rare honor.His version of "Over the Rainbow" has the poignancy of Judy Garland's and the shimmering vulnerability, but these days it's heard so often on TV and in the movies, a younger generation may only know Israel's version. It's become so popular, it is now the most requested version of the song by far, according to music publishing house EMI. That's quite remarkable for a rendition with one voice, accompanied only by ukulele.In the summer of 1997, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole , by then one of the most beloved singers in the history of Hawaiian music, died of respiratory failure. He was 38 — and just beginning to see the huge success of "Over the Rainbow."Days later, he was cremated, along with his vintage Martin ukulele — the one he used to record "Over the Rainbow." The ashes were carried on a traditional Hawaiian voyaging canoe.
His longtime friend Del Beazley and producer Jon de Mello were among those onboard.
"And going down the coastline," says de Mello, "all the big semi-trucks on the island of Oahu had their air horns blowing. And from the ocean we could hear the echo, the bounce off the mountain ranges."
"In the old days," says Beazley, "people would wail when the mo'i or 'king' passed away — and cry. And that's really what it was. This whole island came together just to say goodbye to this one Hawaiian. But I tell you, he would have been laughing."
Photo: Courtesy of Mountain Apple Company
Disrespect the holidays
What happened to Christmas?
Marriage on the decline, except in college educated households
Unmarried Women Having Children On The Rise
Increasingly couples are waiting later to get married, those without or with only a high school education are less likely to see marriage as "sacred"or "needed", and those who earn "working class" incomes, as redefined in our post-recession, anti-union, declining wage age....do not stay married.
From the Executive Summary of a Pew Trust Long Term Study on Marriage and the Rise of New Families (click here for the full summary of the study):
"The transformative trends of the past 50 years that have led to a sharp decline in marriage and a rise of new family forms have been shaped by attitudes and behaviors that differ by class, age and race, according to a new Pew Research Center
nationwide survey, conducted in association with TIME magazine, and complemented by an analysis of demographic and economic data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
"The transformative trends of the past 50 years that have led to a sharp decline in marriage and a rise of new family forms have been shaped by attitudes and behaviors that differ by class, age and race, according to a new Pew Research Center
nationwide survey, conducted in association with TIME magazine, and complemented by an analysis of demographic and economic data from the U.S. Census Bureau.A new "marriage gap" in the United States is increasingly aligned with a growing income gap.
Marriage, while declining among all groups, remains the norm for adults with a college education and good income but is now markedly less prevalent among those on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder."
How Marriage Is Changing (source The National Marriage Project):
The National Marriage Project's State of Our Unions report compares the health of marriages today with those of the 1970s. It finds a widening marriage gap between the working class and the college educated:
Divorce. Divorce rates are up slightly (from 36 percent to 37 percent) among those with only a high school diploma, but have dropped (from 15 percent to 11 percent) for the college educated.
Marital happiness. College-educated spouses are just as likely to say they are "very happy" in their marriages (69 percent), but the share among the high-school educated has dropped sharply (from 69 percent to 57 percent).
Nonmarital births. The number of nonmarital births is up sharply for both groups. It's only a sliver among the college educated (from 2 percent to 6 percent) but a large share among those with a high school diploma only (from 13 percent to 44 percent).
Chart: Source: National Surveys of Family Growth / National Marriage Project
Credit: Nelson Hsu/NPR
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