Subject: [Benton's Communications-related Headlines] May 4, 2007

From: Kevin Taglang <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 04 May 2007 07:04:39 -0500

FOUR YEARS AGO...

The Media, 'Mission Accomplished' and the Jumpsuit
[SOURCE: Editor & Publisher]
Editor & Publisher took a look back at the May 5, 
2003 edition of NBC's "Meet the Press." What were 
journalists saying about President Bush's landing 
on an aircraft carrier in a jet and climbing out 
in a jumpsuit under a "Mission Accomplished" 
banner? Host Tim Russert compared the image to 
video footage of Gov Michael Dukakis in a tank 
and asked, "Why is one perceived as real and the 
other as—" David Broder: It's "physical posture" 
and "that it has something to do with what they 
had done before they got to that moment. This 
fellow’s won a war, and Dukakis, to the best of 
my recollection, never did win a war." Doris 
Kearns Goodwin: "I think it is crazy to criticize 
it. I think it was a good thing he did for 
himself, for the country and the Democrats have 
plenty of other things to criticize, but it’s silly to go on about that."
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003579190
-- See also --
* The Image Bush Just Can't Escape
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050302138.html

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY MAY 3, 2007

On the agenda next week -- 1) the CPB Board meets 
in Alaska (the state, not the street -- anything 
to keep Free Press out of the room) and 2) a 
House hearing on the Future of Video. For these 
and other upcoming media policy events, see http://www.benton.org

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
	Bush Wants Phone Firms Immune to Privacy Suits

MEDIA & ELECTIONS
	Digg's online crowd flexes its muscle
	Meet the OPOs
	Obama Wants Debate Footage Copyright Waived

DIGITAL CONTENT
	Retail CDs get personal
	Digital Rights Management and the Secret War Against Your Fair Use Rights
	Study Concludes That Many Top News Sites Don't Do RSS Well

MEDIA OWNERSHIP
	Murdoch on Owning The Wall Street Journal
	Reuters confirms takeover approach
	Clear Channel Board Rejects Sweetened Offer From Bidder
	NBC's ION Takeover Imminent

QUICKLY -- Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop 
Laptops; Phones studied as attack detector; 
Surprise Interest in Over-The-Air TV; Court 
denies Vonage bid for patent case retrial; Cox 
Gains Statewide Nod in California; Iraq Policy 
and Presidential Politics Top the News

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

BUSH WANTS PHONE FIRMS IMMUNE TO PRIVACY SUITS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ellen Nakashima]
The Bush administration is urging Congress to 
pass a law that would halt dozens of lawsuits 
charging phone companies with invading ordinary 
citizens' privacy through a post-Sept. 11 
warrantless surveillance program. The measure is 
part of a legislative package drafted by the 
Justice Department to relax provisions in the 
1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) 
that restrict the administration's ability to 
intercept electronic communications in the United 
States. If passed, the proposed changes would 
forestall efforts to compel disclosure of the 
program's details through Congress or the court 
system. Civil liberties advocates opposed the 
immunity measure. They said the government had 
yet to disclose to Congress the attorney 
general's legal opinion supporting the 
surveillance program and what role the phone 
companies played in it. They charge that blanket 
immunity would amount to a legislative pardon to 
telecommunications companies and others that have 
aided the government's warrantless surveillance, 
without explaining the pardon's basis.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050302323.html
(requires registration)

MEDIA & ELECTIONS

MEET THE OPOs
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Jose Antonio Vargas]
Howard Dean's cometlike campaign in 2003 was the 
first to integrate the Internet into a 
presidential race, and Joe Rospars was there, a 
22-year-old working as an "all-around Web guy" 
until the campaign suddenly collapsed. Four years 
later, it's not just the upstarts, as Dean was, 
who have embraced online campaigning. And Rospars 
is part of a new generation of strategists who 
share a passionate belief that they can transform 
not just individual campaigns but also politics 
itself. Now he runs a staff of 11 at the Chicago 
headquarters of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). Mathew 
Gross, 35, who blogged for Dean a few desks away 
from Rospars, serves as chief online strategist 
for Democrat John Edwards in Chapel Hill, N.C. 
Mindy Finn, 26, a veteran of the 2004 Bush 
campaign, does the same for Republican Mitt 
Romney in Boston. Every campaign has someone 
similar -- young, tech-savvy and committed to the 
transforming possibilities of the Internet. For 
these online political operatives -- or OPOs, as 
a few have taken to calling themselves -- the 
Internet isn't just a tool. It's a strategy, a 
whole new way of campaigning, a form of 
communication, from blogs to MySpace to YouTube, 
with far more potential than the old media of 
print and television. "TV is a passive 
experience, and the Internet is all about 
interactivity, all about making a direct 
connection," said Rospars, waxing expansive in the way all the OPOs tend to do.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050302546.html
(requires registration)

OBAMA WANTS DEBATE FOOTAGE COPYRIGHT WAIVED
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama 
(D-IL) has asked Democratic National Committee 
Howard Dean to make video of the Democratic 
presidential debates publicly available free and 
unrestricted. Sen Obama wants the copyright 
holder--whether the DNC or a media outlet-- to 
waive copyright, saying "there is no reason that 
this particular class of content needs the 
protection." MSNBC says that it and co-sponsor 
POLITICO.com are maintaining control over the 
footage. They are requiring on-screen credits and 
limiting aired or streamed excerpts to no more 
than a combined two minutes in the hours just 
after the debate and no more than 10 minutes 
after that, with no excerpts to be archived or 
streamed after June 2 without express permission from MSNBC.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6438871.html?rssid=193

DIGITAL CONTENT

DIGG'S ONLINE CROWD FLEXES ITS MUSCLE
[SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Chris Gaylord]
Earlier this week a torrent of online activity 
brought the popular news aggregator Digg.com to 
its knees. Web users flooded the site with posts 
of a code that could crack the encryption on 
HD-DVDs, unlocking the high-definition movies to 
online piracy and potentially exposing Digg to 
legal troubles. The site's users couldn't be 
prouder. And, in a way, this is what Digg is 
designed to do. The website touts itself as a 
news service without editors -- or, to look at it 
another way, millions of editors. The community 
of users compiles articles from across the 
Internet and votes on which ones deserve 
prominent placement on the site. However, when 
Digg's administrators stepped in Tuesday and 
removed several posts containing that once-secret 
proprietary code, the community mutinied. The 
site's founders explained they were responding to 
cease-and-desist orders on behalf of the trade 
group that holds the rights to the HD-DVD code. 
But Digg users countered each takedown by posting 
the code again and again, multiplying like the 
heads of a hydra, until articles, pictures, even 
song lyrics containing the 32-character data key swamped the site.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0504/p03s01-ussc.html
* User revolt at Digg.com shows risks of Web 2.0
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/05/03/MNG4RPK18J1.DTL&type=tech

RETAIL CDs GET PERSONAL
[SOURCE: Chicago Tribune 5/3, AUTHOR: Eric Benderoff]
Executives from the world's leading record 
companies and the owners of the nation's 
struggling music sellers have been huddled in a 
Chicago hotel since Sunday, trying to figure out 
how to halt a slide in CD sales while providing 
music fans with new reasons to shop at a store. 
When the attendees of the National Association of 
Recording Merchandisers leave town Thursday, 
they'll have a little more knowledge on how to 
adapt to an increasingly digital music market, 
but also a sobering sense that things aren't 
getting better soon. A report released Wednesday 
from Ipsos Insight, a Chicago market research 
firm, showed that while 51 percent of U.S. 
consumers ages 12 and up bought a CD in the past 
six months, that's down 15 percent from 2002. 
Furthermore, a Sony executive said Wednesday that 
a 6 percent increase in online music sales in the 
first quarter hardly offset decreases in physical 
CD shipments, which were down 20 percent. One new 
tactic is selling digital singles: New machines, 
available from at least five different companies 
and now in operation in more than 150 record 
stores, Starbucks, book stores and big-box 
electronics stores across the country, allow 
consumers to pick 15 or so singles from various 
artists and burn them onto a CD. The cost of the 
do-it-yourself CDs varies depending on the 
retailer, but typically each song costs 99 cents 
after a $3 fee to cover the costs of a jewel 
case, customized labels and a CD. So burning one 
song costs $3.99 but burning 10 would cost $12.90.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0705021015may03,0,7930722.story?track=rss

DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT AND THE SECRET WAR AGAINST YOUR FAIR USE RIGHTS
[SOURCE: saschameinrath.com]
[Commentary] A massive secret war on consumers' 
rights to make legal use of audio, video, print, 
and other media is being waged. This battle, 
under the ironically titled rubrics of “Digital 
Rights Management” (DRM) is part of the ongoing 
battle to more fully commoditize previously free 
media use and exact additional control over 
copyrighted material and extract additional 
profits from media consumers. This article 
documents some of the changes surrounding 
copyright and focuses on the increasing use of 
Digital Rights Management and decreasing freedom all of us face.
http://www.saschameinrath.com/2007may03digital_rights_management_and_the_secret_war_against_your_fair_use_rights

STUDY CONCLUDES THAT MANY TOP NEWS SITES DON'T DO RSS WELL
[SOURCE: Editor&Publisher]
A new study from the International Center for 
Media and Public Agenda, looking at 19 top news 
sites, concludes that RSS feeds work very poorly 
for anyone who uses news for more than 
infotainment. Rather than RSS, the study found, 
casual news consumers users should just stick 
with Google's Top Stories. "The problem," the 
study concludes, "is that many news outlets don't 
want to share all the news that's on their site 
-- especially stories that are not staff-written 
or produced. One reason may be that such stories, 
such as those by AP or Reuters, don't carry the 
'brand' of the news organization. But without 
those stories, many RSS feeds are not truly 
delivering news 24/7 and, in addition, lack the 
breadth of news their home sites deliver."
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003580613
* International News and Problems with the News Media’s RSS Feeds
http://www.icmpa.umd.edu

MEDIA OWNERSHIP

MURDOCH ON OWNING THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Richard Silkos & Andrew Ross Sorkin]
How might the Wall street Journal change under 
Rupert Murdoch? Sorter articles, more political 
coverage in the news pages, a greater emphasis on 
Washington. He insists he won't meddle in the 
journalism or slash-and-burn the staff. “We’re 
not coming in with a bunch of cost-cutters,” he 
said, but added: “I'm not saying it’s going to be 
a holiday camp for everybody.” He sees himself as 
a lifelong newspaperman who learned journalism 
from his father in Australia, he also tried to 
say that his reputation as an interloper owner 
was overstated. He said he was not involved with 
the news operations of the higher-end newspapers, 
although he takes a closer role in tabloids like 
The Sun in London and The New York Post. And he 
said he would propose to the Bancrofts setting up 
a separate board for the newspaper, mandated with 
ensuring its editorial independence, as he has 
done since he acquired The Times and Sunday Times 
in 1981. He said the independent board works, 
recalling that “The Sunday Times came out loudly 
for the decapitation of Margaret Thatcher,” whom 
he had personally supported. He said, “I didn't 
know about it,” and then joked, “I pretended I hadn't read it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/business/media/04murdoch.html
(requires registration)
* News Corp. Plans Strategy To Woo Family, Journalists
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117823661335791549.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
* Behind Murdoch's Journal Bid
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050302286.html
* Murdoch could spark a class war
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20070504/1b_dowshareholders04.art.htm
* Rupert will get WSJ; Wall Street will get it \
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070504/al04.art.htm
* Lusting after the Wall Street Journal
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-pearlstine4may04,1,6806987.story?coll=la-news-a_section

REUTERS CONFIRMS TAKEOVER APPROACH
[SOURCE:  Financial Times, AUTHOR: Gordon Smith]
Reuters, the news and information group, 
confirmed on Friday it had received a preliminary 
approach – thought to be from Canadian rival 
Thomson – as interest in providers of financial 
information reaches unprecedented levels. 
Thomson, the company that is thought to have made 
the approach, is also growing its information 
services quickly. Later this month it will start 
selling a new global news service to clients 
built on the back of AFX News, the financial 
newswire service it bought for an estimated $20m 
last year, as it attempts to compete more 
effectively with rival Bloomberg. But a sale may 
be complicated by Reuters’ shareholder structure. 
The Reuters Founders Share Company controls 30 
per cent of the voting shares and was set up when 
the group listed in 1984 and is ordered to 
maintain the independence of the company.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/761152aa-fa21-11db-8bd0-000b5df10621.html
(requires subscription)

CLEAR CHANNEL BOARD REJECTS SWEETENED OFFER FROM BIDDER
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Ross Sorkin]
Clear Channel Communications, the nation’s 
largest radio broadcaster, said last night that 
its board had rejected a revised offer by two 
equity firms that had agreed to buy the company, 
but are now trying to keep the deal from falling 
through. The new offer was a last ditch attempt 
to save the deal from being voted down by 
shareholders next week, but now means the buyout 
is almost certain to be rejected.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/business/media/04clear.html
(requires registration)
* Clear Channel Rejects Firms' Revised Offer
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117824700562091923.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

NBC'S ION TAKEOVER IMMINENT
[SOURCE: New York Post 5/3, AUTHOR: Zachery Kouwe]
Ion Media Networks appears close to approving a 
takeover deal with media giant NBC Universal and 
hedge fund Citadel despite intense opposition 
from a group of dissident shareholders and a 
rival offer made by satellite company EchoStar 
Communications. Media-ownership rules prevent NBC 
from owning a majority of Ion, but the company 
will maintain its minority ownership with Citadel 
as a partner. As part of its long-term plan, NBC 
may try to use Ion's national footprint to 
strong-arm NBC affiliates into accepting smaller 
payments for use of their programming by 
threatening to move their signal to the Ion-owned 
stations. NBC pays network affiliates to carry 
their content and those contracts are set to be 
renegotiated in the next three to five years. 
Ion, once known as Paxson Communications, owns 
about 60 TV stations reaching 90 million households.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/05032007/business/nbcs_ion_takeover_imminent_business_zachery_kouwe.htm
* ION Rejects EchoStar’s $2.13B Bid
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6438837.html
* ION Approves NBC Sale Amid Unrest
Scratch the "imminent." Television broadcaster 
Ion Media Networks yesterday approved a takeover 
offer from NBC Universal and hedge fund Citadel 
Investment Group, despite three opposing board 
members and threats from a dissident group of 
shareholders. The deal, which will allow NBC to 
keep a minority stake in Ion, was approved by a 
majority of the broadcaster's board in a heated 
meeting. Three of Ion's independent directors, 
who represent disgruntled shareholders, voted 
against the offer with one director not present at the meeting.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/05042007/business/ion_approves_nbc_sale_amid_unrest_business_zachery_kouwe.htm

BROADCASTING

LAWYER SAYS IMUS TO SUE CBS, ACCUSING IT OF BREAKING CONTRACT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Bill Carter]
The lawyer for the ousted radio host Don Imus 
said yesterday that he would file a $40 million 
lawsuit against CBS next week, accusing it of 
breach of contract. The lawyer, Martin Garbus of 
Manhattan, said CBS violated a clause in Mr. 
Imus’s contract that specifically encouraged him 
to engage in what the clause called 
“extraordinary,” “irreverent” and “controversial” 
topics on his program. Mr. Garbus said the 
language in the clause he cited proved “they were 
creating a shock jock.” He said Mr. Imus was 
doing “exactly what they wanted him to do.” Mr. 
Garbus also said that CBS had agreed to give Mr. 
Imus an official warning after one incident of 
offensive language before taking action, and that 
“both CBS and MSNBC had a delay button and 
neither of them used them in this case.” CBS 
said: “We terminated Mr. Imus for cause. Based on 
the comments in question and relevant contract 
terms, we believe that the termination was 
appropriate and CBS would expect to prevail in 
any attempt by Mr. Imus to recover money for his 
actions.” Many issues in the case could turn on 
whether CBS had reason to worry that the Federal 
Communications Commission could punish the CBS 
stations for the use of such language. David 
Fiske, a spokesman for the F.C.C., said yesterday 
that Congress had told the commission to levy 
fines for profane or indecent language, but 
purely offensive words might not come under that 
standard. But the stations must also uphold 
community standards or risk challenges to their broadcast licenses, he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/business/media/04imus.html
(requires registration)
* Legal Battle Brews Over Imus Contract With CBS
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050302392.html

QUICKLY

SEEING NO PROGRESS, SOME SCHOOLS DROP LAPTOPS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Winnie Hu]
A handful of schools around the country that 
adopted one-to-one computing programs and are now 
abandoning them as educationally empty — and 
worse. Many of these districts had sought to 
prepare their students for a technology-driven 
world and close the so-called digital divide 
between students who had computers at home and 
those who did not. “After seven years, there was 
literally no evidence it had any impact on 
student achievement — none,” said the school 
board president from one of the first districts 
in New York State to experiment with putting 
technology directly into students’ hands. “The 
teachers were telling us when there’s a 
one-to-one relationship between the student and 
the laptop, the box gets in the way. It’s a 
distraction to the educational process.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/education/04laptop.html
(requires registration)

PHONES STUDIED AS ATTACK DETECTOR
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Mimi Hall]
The government is researching whether the best 
defense against a chemical, biological or 
radiological attack might one day be right in 
everyone's hands — or on their ears. Homeland 
Security officials are looking into outfitting 
cellphones with detectors that would alert 
emergency responders to radiological isotopes, 
toxic chemicals and biological agents such as 
anthrax. "If it's successful, it'll change the 
way chemical, biological and radiation detection 
is done," says Rolf Dietrich, deputy director of 
the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects 
Agency, which invests in high-tech solutions to 
secure the nation against terrorist attacks. 
"It's a really, really neat thing."
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070504/1a_lede04.art.htm

SURPRISE INTEREST IN OVER-THE-AIR TV
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Glen Dickson]
After an Associated Press story ran on April 29 
that described how simple antennas might deliver 
better HDTV pictures than cable or satellite 
service, due to the level of compression that 
some operators use for HDTV signals, a flurry of 
traffic hit a Website run by the Consumer 
Electronics Association that provides information 
on over-the-air antennas. The CEA site had 86,000 
inquiries about DTV antennas that day, a huge 
jump from the normal Sunday traffic of 6,000 
inquiries, according to CEA spokesman Jason 
Oxman; the site usually averages 100,000 inquiries per month
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6439202.html

COURT DENIES VONAGE BID FOR PATENT CASE RETRIAL
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Peter Kaplan]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 
has denied a request by Internet phone company 
Vonage that it order a retrial in the patent 
infringement case brought against it by Verizon. 
The court, in a ruling dated Wednesday, turned 
down a motion by Vonage to have an infringement 
verdict by a lower court vacated because of a 
landmark patent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court 
on Monday. The appeals court said Vonage can cite 
the new Supreme Court ruling as part of its pending appeal of the case.
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSWAT00742420070503
* Court rejects Vonage bid for patent case retrial
http://news.com.com/Court+rejects+Vonage+bid+for+patent+case+retrial/2100-1036_3-6181235.html?tag=html.alert.hed

COX GAINS STATEWIDE NOD IN CALIFORNIA
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Linda Haugsted]
Cox Communications became the first incumbent 
cable operator in California to gain state 
certification under its franchising-reform law. 
The permit was issued April 27. Cox’s state franchise will expire in 2017.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6439072.html?rssid=196

IRAQ POLICY AND PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS TOP THE NEWS
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
After two weeks in which breaking mega-stories 
(Don Imus’s firing and the Virginia Tech 
massacre) dominated the news, two familiar 
ongoing issues generated the most coverage last 
week. The top story was the Iraq policy debate at 
15% of the overall newshole, according to PEJ’s 
News Coverage Index from April 22-27. Although 
the debate over Iraq has consistently been a 
top-five story in the weekly Index, this marked 
the first time it had been the number one story since mid-February.
The crowded and active race to succeed George 
Bush in the White House -- which included a 
debate among Democrats last week -- followed in 
second place at 10%. Both stories gained 
significant momentum late in the week. The policy 
debate -- which generated the most coverage 
online (15%), on network TV (20%), cable news 
(17%) and radio (16%) -- was fueled by the 
House’s and the Senate’s passage of Iraq funding 
measures with withdrawal timetables. The 
President upped the political ante and drama by 
vowing to veto the legislation. Meanwhile, the 
televised April 26 debate from South Carolina 
generated a major portion of the presidential race coverage for the week.
http://www.journalism.org/node/5343
--------------------------------------------------------------
... and we're outta here. have a great weekend. Go Cubs!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Communications-related Headlines is a free online 
news summary service provided by the Benton 
Foundation (www.benton.org). Posted Monday 
through Friday, this service provides updates on 
important industry developments, policy issues, 
and other related news events. While the 
summaries are factually accurate, their often 
informal tone does not always represent the tone 
of the original articles. Headlines are compiled 
by Kevin Taglang [email-masked] -- we welcome your comments.
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The Benton Foundation (www.benton.org) works to 
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emerging communications environment and to 
demonstrate the value of communications for solving social problems.
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Kevin Taglang
Editor, Communications-related Headlines
Benton Foundation
Communications in the Public Interest
1625 K Street, NW 11th Floor
Washington, DC 20006
headlines AT benton DOT org 

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