Newshare -- Sharing the future of news

The August edition of Harper's Magazine has a cover article by New York University journalism professor Mark Crispin Miller marshalling evidence and conjecture about whether the Ohio presidential-election returns in 2004 were rigged, thus giving George Bush, instead of John Kerry, the White House. The just of the piece is that the mainstream news media, especially the New York Times, is afraid to report the possibility that the nation's electoral system is capable of being rigged because of the destabilizing effect which would result. Harper's is not online. But here are three links to other Miller writings that give his story line.

http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/2005/07/none-dare-call-it-stolen.html
http://www.pastpeak.com/archives/2004/11/mark_crispin_mi.htm
http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/04/12/ana04029.html

The Korea Times : Portal News Service Sweeps Online Media Scene
Internet portals are elbowing out newspapers in the online news service market, as a growing number of people get news information through the online portals, not through newspaper homepages, writes Kim Ki-tae, staff reporter for The Korea Times. In the case of major portal www.daum.net, its news service��s page views stood at around 110 million in July 2002, but soared to nearly 3.8 billion last month, showing the times 34.5 increase. Meanwhile, the page views of the homepage of Chosun Ilbo, which has the most popular Web site out of the local dailies, slid from 690 million to 451 million in the three years.

FROM MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW . . .
Headline: Control of the Internet

The United States may have mostly invented the technology that founded the
Internet, but today only about one in five Internet users is an American.
That would seem to make international control of the Internet an obvious
goal, and until recently that was the plan. By David Appell

http://wwwnl.technologyreview.com/t?ctl=E189F6:2ED7CC0

Everybody is probably talking about this, so here is my contribution/legal analysis:

Two Defeats - and a Silver Lining

The Supreme Court's Grokster and Brand X decisions may be disappointing,
but file-sharing technology survives, and the campaign for media democracy
goes on.

The link is to http://www.fepproject.org/commentaries/grokster&brandx.html

By Marjorie Marjorie Heins
Brennan Center for Justice
Free Expression Policy Project
161 Avenue of the Americas, 12th fl.
New York, NY 10013
212 992-8847
marjorie.heins@nyu.edu
www.fepproject.org

Associated Press reporter Matt Moore reports from Frankfurt, Germany,
that the U.S. has announced it will retain physical control of the
computers which control Internet addresses -- and hence traffic. The
decision is drawing harsch criticism from other nations. "This seems like
an extension of American security in the aftermath of 9-11,"
said John Strand, a Copenhagen-based technology consultant. "People will ask:
'Do the Americans want to control the Internet?"' Read the full story at:

http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/07/ap/ap_2070105.asp

AUDIO-ONLY STORY

Posted: 7:32 a.m., June 28, 2005
AT: http://www.marketwatch.com

URL:
http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/news.asp?siteid=mktw&doctype=2006&nx=38533.5597800926-837571057&property=sid&value=2006&symb=NYT

WEBSITE HEADLINE:

A service like I-Tunes for news?

An executive at the New York Times thinks online readers
might be ready for a supermarket of low-priced news stories

STREAMED AUDIO:

The senior vice president for digital operations at the New York Times has
a vision for a network of premium-paid content on the Internet. Martin
Nisenholz told a trade conference in New York his company.s Times Select
package of access to Times archives and byline columns should be the first
offering in a venture which would give bloggers a way to make money.

Patterning his idea after Amazon.com's affiliate program, in which web
sites get commissions for helping Amazon sell things, he indicates
bloggers who subscribe and pay for access to Times Select and then link to
its articles, can profit by getting a share of revenue from people who
choose to also subscribe.

Nisenholz says he wants to incite the blogosphere to share revenues. He
said: "We can create a revenue stream for people who are creating
publications and blogs." Nisenholz says he thinks such a network could
include print, audio and video offerings.

I'm Frank Barnako.

FROM: Technology Daily
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-GSSV1119906704461.html

After Court Ruling, Advocacy Groups

Focusing On 'Network Neutrality'

By David Hatch
June 27, 2005

Public advocacy groups are making "network neutrality" a top legislative
priority after the Supreme Court handed them a defeat Monday -- and they
could be boosted by support from Amazon.com, Microsoft and other
corporations, sources said.

Those companies, along with other members of the Coalition of Broadband
Users and Innovators -- such as Yahoo and eBay -- want to safeguard
customer access to their new and existing high-speed Internet services.
But opposition from the cable industry is expected to be fierce.

Meanwhile, Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska and Commerce
ranking member Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, vowed late Monday to review the
impact of the court's ruling in the so-called Brand X case on
public-interest obligations -- including contributions to the $6.5 billion
Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes telecom service in rural and
impoverished areas. Both lawmakers are strong proponents of the fund, and
Stevens plans to introduce a universal service reform bill in an effort to
strengthen the program.

One source, speaking on background, suggested that the high court's
classification of cable-delivered high speed Internet as an "information
service" means the technology also would not be subject to public interest
requirements governing 911 emergency service, consumer privacy, law
enforcement wiretapping, and communications access for the disabled.

"[A committee review] will permit us to consider what steps may be
necessary from the Congress or the Federal Communications Commission to
ensure that our communications laws preserve competition and protect the
interests of consumers," Stevens and Inouye wrote.

Network neutrality would bar cable companies from blocking or degrading
competing telecommunications, media or commercial services offered over
broadband pipes. The restrictions likely would extend to phone providers
of high-speed Internet. The high court ruled Monday that broadband over
cable modems should not be subject to "common carrier" rules requiring the
sharing of networks with competitors.

"Network neutrality is no such thing," Kyle McSlarrow, president of the
National Cable and Telecommunications Association, responded during a
Monday press briefing. His industry has a business incentive to preserve
the rights of cable-modem customers to go anywhere online, he said, and
network neutrality would create a solution for a non-existent problem.

Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the House
Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee, will champion the
neutrality cause by seeking to add anti-discriminatory protections to
telecom legislation being drafted by the House Energy and Commerce
Committee, a source said.

"My goal will be to ensure that national broadband policy reflects the
open architecture model of the Internet and remains a medium friendly to
innovation," Markey said in a statement. "Congress intended that cable
broadband services should be treated with the same openness and access
that consumers and Internet providers enjoy today over telephone lines,"
he added, while declaring, "Unfortunately, today's ruling is both
anti-consumer and anti-competition."

But House Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, may not be
receptive to Markey's goals. "I commend the court for upholding the FCC's
deregulatory approach to broadband services," Barton said in a statement,
adding that the "FCC correctly determined that broadband services should
not be regulated as common carriage."

Said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., chairman of the Senate Commerce Technology
Subcommittee, "It is my hope that Congress can build on the Supreme
Court's decision today on Brand X by updating our nation's communications
laws" and removing barriers to innovation.

SSen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a Commerce Committee member, wants the FCC to
protect independent players on the Internet and is willing to consider a
legislative fix, a source said. But the source suggested that the court's
decision could be moot in a few years -- because the telecom legislation
envisioned by lawmakers would kill the regulatory framework that
classifies technologies as "information" or "telecommunications" services.

"I think it's an uphill battle," Jeff Chester, executive director of the
Center for Digital Democracy, said of the chances of finding support for
network neutrality among influential GOP lawmakers. Nevertheless, he said
the court's ruling in National Cable and Telecommunications Association v.
Brand X Internet, would galvanize cable industry critics. "There will be a
growing call on the part of the civil-liberties community and the Internet
community to reverse this decision," he said.

Gigi Sohn, president of the watchdog group Public Knowledge, said
anti-discriminatory safeguards could be outlined in a few sentences. But a
congressional source suggested that provisions would be lengthier and more
complicated. The FCC or another agency, Sohn said, should be charged with
enforcing the requirements.