When it comes to media consolidation, the FCC is feeling the heat from all sides. Today activists took to the streets outside the FCC headquarters to deliver more than 200,000 signatures from people all over the U.S. who are calling on the agency to halt its rush to gut media ownership protections.
Josh Stearns, Free Press
Extra! Extra! 200,000 Activists Tell FCC: No More Media for Murdoch
Activists gathered outside the FCC to spread the news about growing opposition to the FCC’s plans to gut media ownership rules. They handed out broadsheet special editions of the Free Press to passersby, highlighting opposition to greater media consolidation from the courts, Congress, civil rights leaders and President Barack Obama. Advocates from Free Press and CREDO Action also delivered more than 200,000 petition signatures opposing the FCC’s rush to eliminate longstanding limits on how much media one company can own in a single market.
Free Press
United Behind the Free Flow of Information
Across his administration, President Obama has taken bold steps advancing a digital environment that rewards innovation and empowers individuals the world over. These ideas, and the policies that support them, are cornerstones of America’s economy. But the benefits from this approach extend well beyond the United States: They are equally important to the social and economic well-being of Internet users across the globe.
Michael Daniel, R. David Edelman and Tom Power, White House
Google has published its official 2012 retrospective. But this is Google we’re talking about, an integral part of the global Net-surfing experience, so the company kicked off its Zeitgeist page with a big number bang: “1.2 trillion searches. One hundred and forty-six languages. What did the world search for in 2012?”
Kit Eaton, Fast Company
Mr. Zuckerberg, Tear Down This Wall
The Web was created to knock down walls. You could create a page on a Unix workstation in Switzerland that could be viewed perfectly on a Windows laptop in California, all thanks to the miracle of common formats and open standards. But lately it seems like the big social networks are doing their best to undermine this sort of compatibility and to integrate products vertically much as behemoths like IBM and DEC did 40 years ago.
Ryan Tate, Wired
Free Press Pleased with FCC Action on Special Access and DISH Spectrum
The FCC adopted an order that enables the Wireline Bureau to gather broadband-industry data, allowing the agency to assess the level of competition that exists in the special access market.
Free Press
FCC Approves DISH Network Plans for Mobile Broadband
Dallas-based AT&T could have a new competitor in the mobile market. The FCC gave approval to DISH Network to turn satellite frequencies it owns into a nationwide wireless network.
Lance Murray, Dallas Business Journal
Let’s pause for a moment to remember the Internet as we know it. That Internet could soon be gone — in favor of something more like cable TV — if Verizon and MetroPCS Communications get their way in a fight with the FCC. If that sounds a touch alarmist, the two network owners are making some alarming claims in a dispute they have taken to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Jeff Gelles, Philadelphia Inquirer
Lautenberg Urges FCC to Reconsider Plan to Ease Media Ownership Rules
Sen. Frank Lautenberg is urging the FCC to reconsider its proposal to relax media ownership regulations.
Brendan Sasso, The Hill
Tribune Said to Seek Bankers for Newspaper Sale
Tribune Co., the bankrupt owner of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and six other daily newspapers, is interviewing bankers about selling its papers. The company’s owners are seeking an adviser for a possible sale after Tribune Co. exits bankruptcy. Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive officer of News Corp., plans to take a close look at Tribune Co.’s newspaper assets once they’re available.
Edmund Lee & Serena Saitto, Bloomberg News
The Best (and Worst) Media Errors and Corrections of 2012
If my annual tally of plagiarism and fabrication incidents is the depressing part of “Regret the Error”‘s year-end coverage, then this annual collection of the best of the worst in errors and corrections is the highlight. That’s not to say the mistakes detailed below are minor or purely amusing; many are serious failures. But it’s important to acknowledge the amusing and outrageous, and to collect them to help journalists avoid making the same mistakes.
Craig Silverman, Poynter
Rebekah Brooks Took £10.8m Compensation from News Corp.
Rebekah Brooks walked away with £10.8m from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. as compensation after she resigned from her position as chief executive of News International at the height of the phone-hacking scandal, U.K. accounts published by News Corp. show.
Dan Sabbagh, The Guardian