• Commissioner Clyburn to Verizon: Are You ETFing With Consumers?

    December 24, 2009

    This post is by Marvin Ammori, Senior Advisor to Free Press. It was originally posted in the Huffington Post.

    I wouldn't mess with FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn.

  • The Top 10 Internet Moments of 2009

    December 23, 2009

    More than a decade ago, President Clinton pledged that every person in America would soon be able to go online "to order up every movie ever produced or every symphony ever created in a minute's time."

  • A Contrarian Take On The Demise Of The News Industry In America

    December 22, 2009

    This is a guest post by Sean Paul Kelley and was originally posted on his blog http://www.seanpaulkelley.com.

    Call me a contrarian on this one. But I don’t buy all the hype that the internet is even the primary culprit of the demise of journalism. The primary culprit is the same as it is all over the country, in every industry and in government: equity extraction.

    Let me explain, in short: when executives expect unrealistic profits of 20% and higher per annum on businesses something has got to give. It’s an unnatural and unsustainable growth rate. For the first ten or so years of a small to medium size company’s life? Sure. But when you are 3M, or GE? Unrealistic and ultimately impossible.

  • Civil Rights, Self-Representation, and the Fight for Open and Neutral Online Networks

    December 21, 2009

    Two weeks ago, the Center for Media Justice brought together a coalition of national media groups working on racial justice issues including the Media Action Grassroots Network, Color of Change, the Media Democracy Coalition, Presente

  • Debate the News: Summarizing the Comments Submitted to the FTC

    December 18, 2009

    In the lead-up to this month’s Federal Trade Commission workshop on the future of journalism, the agency invited the public to submit comments for consideration. More than 2,000 people responded at Free Press and SaveTheNews.org, and a number of other organizations and individuals filed comments as well.

    After sifting through the 300-some pages of comments on the FTC’s Web site, it was clear that everyone agreed on two points: Nobody’s happy with the state of journalism today, yet everybody thinks that reputable journalism is worth saving.

    So how to fix the former so that the latter flourishes? The advice runs the gamut, and I’ve culled some of the most interesting comments for your perusal.

  • Verizon’s Triple Hypocrisy

    December 18, 2009

    In an earlier post about Verizon’s sale of rural assets to Frontier, I highlighted a sad reality about rural broadband. Despite the rhetoric, large Internet service providers have a single focus: How can they make consumers pay as much as possible, while they themselves spend as little as possible?

  • 10 Journalism Resolutions for 2010

    December 17, 2009

    If 2009 was a year of study and debate about the future of journalism, 2010 must be a year of action. We must come together around a core set of ideas to create a better ecosystem for sustainable and high-impact journalism. Based on the various reports and conferences from the past year, we've compiled the five most important areas that journalism organizations (and those invested in the future of journalism) must tackle in 2010—and suggest some initial steps to begin moving forward.

  • Authentic Storytelling on the Net

    December 17, 2009

    The following is an excerpt from testimony delivered by Garlin Gilchrist II to the FCC during a hearing this week on Net Neutrality:

  • The Internet's Greatest Gift: Participation

    December 16, 2009

    What do digital networks make possible? First, they allow people to become active speakers and creators instead of merely passive consumers of information and entertainment. Second, they decentralize innovation, giving people abundant opportunities to create and use new applications for communication and creativity.

  • Protecting the Public's First Amendment Rights

    December 16, 2009

    Testifying at yesterday's FCC hearing on Net Neutrality, Media Access Project's Andrew Jay Schwartzman emphasized that the Commission should implement policies to promote the public’s First Amendment right to free expression and civic participation. He argued that the FCC should give little credence to Internet service providers' demands for unfettered discretion over speech on their networks.

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