Prominent Russian Reporter Shot to Death
- By MARIA DANILOVA, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, October 7, 2006

(10-07) 12:31 PDT MOSCOW, Russia (AP) --

A journalist who chronicled Russian military abuses against civilians in Chechnya, garnering awards and accolades from around the world, was found shot to death Saturday in her apartment building. Prosecutors believe her killing could be connected to her investigative reporting.

Anna Politkovskaya, 48, was found dead in an elevator in the building in central Moscow, police, prosecutors and a colleague said.

Prosecutors have opened a murder investigation, said Svetlana Petrenko, spokeswoman for the Moscow prosecutor's office. Investigators suspect the killing could be linked to her work, Vyacheslav Rosinsky, Moscow's first deputy prosecutor, said on state-run Rossiya television.

Rosinsky said a pistol and bullets were found at the site of the crime. The RIA-Novosti news agency, citing police officials, reported that Politkovskaya was shot twice, the second time in the head.

The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that work was under way on a composite sketch of the attacker based on footage recorded by a security camera at the building. The assailant, believed to have acted alone, wore black.

Politkovskaya was well-known for chronicling the killings, tortures and beatings of civilians by Russian servicemen in Chechnya in reports that put her on a collision course with the authorities but won her numerous international awards.

"People sometimes pay with their lives for saying out loud what they think. People can even get killed just for giving me information," Reporters Without Borders quoted her as saying at a press freedom conference in Vienna in December.

She also wrote a book critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his military campaign in Chechnya, documenting widespread abuse of civilians by government troops. And she was a persistent critic of Chechnya' Moscow-backed Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, accusing his security forces of kidnapping and torturing civilians.

"Whenever the question arose whether there is honest journalism in Russia, almost every time the first name that came to mind was Politkovskaya," said Oleg Panfilov, director of the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.

He said Politkovskaya had frequently received threats, and that a few months ago, unknown assailants had tried unsuccessfully to break into a car her daughter, Vera, was driving.

In 2001, she fled to Vienna, Austria, for several months after receiving e-mail threats alleging that a Russian police officer she had accused of committing atrocities against civilians was intent on revenge. The officer, Sergei Lapin, was detained in 2002 but the case against him was closed the following year.

"There are journalists who have this fate hanging over them. I always thought something would happen to Anya, first of all because of Chechnya," Panfilov said, referring to Politkovskaya by her nickname.

Politkovskaya began reporting on Chechnya in 1999 during Russia's second military campaign there, concentrating less on military engagements than on the human side of the war. She wrote about the Chechen inhabitants of refugee camps and wounded Russian soldiers — until she was banned from visiting the hospitals, Panfilov said.

In 2004, she fell seriously ill with symptoms of food poisoning after drinking tea on a flight from Moscow to southern Russia during the school hostage crisis in Beslan. Her colleagues suspected the incident was an attempt on her life.

She was one of the few people to enter the Moscow theater where Chechen militants seized hundreds of hostages in October 2002 to try negotiating with the rebels. She later devoted much of her investigative reporting to that crisis, in which 129 victims died, the overwhelming majority succumbing to the gas used by special forces to knock out the hostage-takers.

"Anna was a hero to so many of us, and we'll miss her personally, but we'll also miss the information that she and only she was brave enough and dedicated enough to dig out and make public," said Joel Simon, executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Politkovskaya's murder is the highest-profile killing of a journalist in Russia since the July 2004 slaying of Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine.

Russia has become one of the deadliest countries for journalists. Twenty-three journalists were killed in Russia between 1996 and 2005, many in Chechnya, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. At least 12 have been murdered in contract-style killings since Putin came to power, Simon said.

"None of those have been adequately investigated," he said. "We do know that record creates an environment where those who might seek to carry out this murder would feel that there would be few likely consequences."

In addition to her daughter, Politkovskaya is survived by a son, Ilya, Panfilov said.

During her career, Polykovskaya received more than 10 awards and prizes, including an award for human rights reporting from the London-based Amnesty International; a freedom of speech award from the Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders; and a journalism and democracy award from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

September 20, 2006

Fox Unveils a Division for Religious-Oriented Films

By SHARON WAXMAN

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 19 — Hollywood took another step toward America’s vast and apparently growing Christian audience on Tuesday, as 20th Century Fox unveiled a new division, FoxFaith, that will release up to a dozen religious-oriented films each year.

Many of the films, with budgets ranging from about $3 million to $20 million each, will be released straight to DVD. But the studio said that at least six a year would be released nationally in theaters by an independent distributor working with Fox, starting on Oct. 6 with “Love’s Abiding Joy,” a western based on the novel by the Christian writer Janette Oke about a couple facing the trials of life on the American frontier.

“What we’re trying to do is create great movies that are story-driven, that happen to tap into Christian values,” said Simon Swart, the general manager of Fox’s North American home entertainment division. “The genesis of the FoxFaith banner is that it’s a Good Housekeeping seal, a marketing umbrella for these pictures, so that people can have confidence the movies won’t violate their core beliefs.”

The move reflects the growing weight of evangelical Christians in popular culture. It is the latest in a series of incremental steps taken by Hollywood studios in recent years to capitalize on the Christian audience.

FoxFaith grew out of Fox’s home entertainment division, which had huge success with the DVD of “The Passion of the Christ,” Mel Gibson’s controversial drama about the Crucifixion, selling 15 million units. After that film became a blockbuster hit in 2004, Hollywood studios, which had traditionally shied away from overtly religious messages, began cautiously creating alliances with Christian movie producers and consultants, mostly through their home entertainment divisions.

At Sony, Peter Lalonde of the Christian-oriented Cloud Ten Pictures worked with the home entertainment division to make and release “Left Behind III: The World at War,” the third in a series based on the popular end-of-times books by Timothy LaHaye, which went straight to DVD last year. The studio will also be releasing films by Provident Films, a Christian production company, starting with “Facing the Giants,” an inspirational story about a small-town football team, to be released in about 30 theaters on Sept. 29.

The Walt Disney Company has gone after the Christian audience on a more ambitious scale, and successfully courted that audience ahead of the release of its big-budget epic “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” last December. That film, which the studio showed to religious leaders ahead of the release because of its Christian themes, took in $744 million at the worldwide box office.

In another sign of the times, a veteran Hollywood executive turned evangelical Christian, David Kirkpatrick, has founded Good News Holdings, a Christian media company that, among other projects, is developing a film based on the Anne Rice novel “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt,” slated for production next year. A spokesman said he had no studio partner at the moment.

But the new division at Fox is thus far the biggest concerted effort by a major Hollywood studio to seek out films that will feed what many see as a growing, and underserved, Christian audience.

Matt Crouch, a Christian producer, said the move by Fox was a drift toward the mainstream for religious filmmaking, similar to what happened with Christian music a few years ago. “We have an audience, and we know how to get to that audience,” said Mr. Crouch, who financed and produced “One Night With the King,” a $20 million film telling the biblical story of Queen Esther and King Xerxes.

Mr. Crouch said that movie would be released on Oct. 13 in about 900 theaters, with Fox booking a few dozen of them. Fox will also distribute the DVD of the film, which does not have an overtly Christian point of view, around Easter and the Jewish holiday of Purim, which commemorates the ancient tale.

Theatrical distribution of films acquired by FoxFaith will be handled by another company, the Bigger Picture, which is not owned by Fox or its parent, News Corporation. But the studio will market the movies both theatrically and on DVD and video. Fox has already built a network of 90,000 Christian congregations that receive regular information about its films, and that distribute promotional materials.

Some Christian-oriented films of the last few years have been successful despite generally crude production values and amateurish acting. But budgets have been creeping upward, and the Fox initiative is likely to provide access to more professional talent.

And while up to now Christian movies have featured very few known actors, “One Night With the King” has Omar Sharif and Peter O’Toole in supporting roles.

Fox has already had success selling Christian movies on DVD, including “Love Comes Softly,” “Woman Thou Art Loosed” and “The Visitation,” sold at Christian retail stores and other outlets. Another film, “The End of the Spear,” was released independently on 1,400 screens in January, taking in $12 million at the box office and selling one million DVD’s for Fox. The film tells the story of a family of missionaries who are murdered by Indians in Ecuador. The surviving family members befriend and help the Indian tribe that killed their parents.

“Love’s Abiding Joy,” with a $3 million budget, was directed by Michael Landon Jr., son of the producer and star of the television series “Little House on the Prairie.” The film, about a couple building a farm on the prairie in the 1880’s whose faith helps them to overcome challenges, will be released in about 200 theaters.

Jeff Yordy, Fox Home Entertainment’s vice president for marketing, said the studio was looking to acquire similar films, while avoiding any that might have political overtones — for instance, films with an anti-abortion message.

“That’s the mission: quality, story-driven entertainment that meshes with the values of our target audience,” he said. “But it’s entertainment first. We’re not in the business of proselytizing.”

September 20, 2006

Fox Unveils a Division for Religious-Oriented Films

By SHARON WAXMAN

But the new division at Fox is thus far the biggest concerted effort by a major Hollywood studio to seek out films that will feed what many see as a growing, and underserved, Christian audience.

And while up to now Christian movies have featured very few known actors, “One Night With the King” has Omar Sharif and Peter O’Toole in supporting roles.

September 20, 2006

H.P. Studied Infiltrating Newsrooms

By DAMON DARLIN and KURT EICHENWALD

Hewlett-Packard conducted feasibility studies on planting spies in news bureaus for two major publications as part of an investigation of news leaks from the company’s board, an individual briefed on the company’s review of the operation said yesterday.

The studies, referred to in a Feb. 2 draft report for a briefing of senior management, included the possibility of placing investigators acting as clerical employees or cleaning crews in the San Francisco offices of CNET and The Wall Street Journal.

It is not clear whether the plan was ever acted upon.

The report was sent on Feb. 1 by Anthony R. Gentilucci, Hewlett-Packard’s Boston-based manager of global investigations, to four others, including Kevin T. Hunsaker, a senior counsel in Hewlett-Packard’s legal department and the company’s chief ethics officer.

“Feasibility studies are in progress for undercover operations (clerical) in CNET and WSJ offices in SF,” the memo said, referring to two publications in which reports of the company’s board discussions had appeared.

Under a section labeled “Investigation Activity Update,” with the subtitle, “Covert Operations,” it also called for examining the use of cleaning employees at those locations.

The consideration of undercover agents inside news organizations adds a new element to what is known of the Hewlett-Packard investigation, which prominently included the use of subterfuge to gain the phone records of company directors, employees, journalists and others.

An e-mail message obtained by The New York Times from someone with access to the company’s investigative material shows that leading members of the team supervising the investigation knew of the methods at least as early as January 2006 and raised questions about their legality. The disclosure came yesterday as investigators examined the role of a man from the Omaha area who may have obtained private phone records on Hewlett-Packard’s behalf, according to people briefed on the company’s review of the operation.

California and federal prosecutors are exploring whether laws were broken in the investigation, particularly in the use of pretexting — a technique in which an investigator masquerades as someone else to obtain that person’s calling records from a phone company. The prosecutors are also trying to determine who in the company knew of the possibly illegal activities.

Concern over legality was reflected in an e-mail message sent on Jan. 30 by Mr. Hunsaker, the chief ethics officer, to Mr. Gentilucci, the manager of global investigations. Referring to a private detective in the Boston area whom the company had hired, Ronald R. DeLia, he asked: “How does Ron get cell and home phone records? Is it all above board?”

Mr. Gentilucci responded that Mr. DeLia, owner of Security Outsourcing Solutions, had investigators “call operators under some ruse.”

He also wrote: “I think it is on the edge, but above board. We use pretext interviews on a number of investigations to extract information and/or make covert purchases of stolen property, in a sense, all undercover operations.”

Mr. Hunsaker’s e-mail response, in its entirety, said: “I shouldn’t have asked....”

It is unclear who, if anyone, in the company was then briefed on what he had learned. People who have seen other material from Hewlett-Packard’s investigation said that Mr. Hunsaker, in supervising the operation, communicated frequently with Patricia C. Dunn, the company’s chairwoman, about its progress. But they said it was not clear when Ms. Dunn, who ordered the investigation, learned of the methods used.

Mr. Hunsaker did not respond to a request for comment. Mr. Gentilucci referred all inquiries to Hewlett-Packard’s corporate offices, which said it had no comment.

The Hewlett-Packard investigations were initiated early in 2005, around the time of Carleton S. Fiorina’s ouster as chairwoman and chief executive, and then resumed in January 2006. The two phases — each begun after accounts of board members’ discussions appeared in news articles — were code-named Kona I and Kona II, according to several people who saw the company’s investigative records. The names are intriguing; Ms. Dunn’s vacation home is in Kona, Hawaii.

Not all board members were targets in the investigation, according to people who had seen some of the company’s investigatory materials. The detectives seemed to focus on allies of Thomas J. Perkins, Ms. Dunn’s board antagonist.

In the first phase of the investigation, the targets were Mr. Perkins, George A. Keyworth II and Robert E. Knowling Jr., a director who stepped down last September. Ms. Fiorina was also a target, the documents show.

In the second phase, Mr. Keyworth, his wife, Mr. Perkins and two other directors — Lucille S. Salhany, a former television executive, and Richard A. Hackborn, a former H.P. executive — were targets. Both phases used pretexting, according to documents the company has given various investigators.

Another target was Shane Robison, an executive vice president and chief strategy and technology officer. Mr. Robison is not on the board, but was a liaison to its technology committee, on which Mr. Keyworth and Mr. Perkins served. A company memo, described to a reporter, instructs detectives to obtain the records of Ms. Dunn and Mr. Robison for the sake of completeness.

Mr. Perkins resigned in June in protest over the investigation. Mr. Keyworth, identified as having given information to reporters, agreed last week to resign from the board after Ms. Dunn said she would step down as chairwoman in January.

In addition to Hewlett-Packard directors, nine journalists and two employees, those whose phone records were obtained included Larry W. Sonsini, the outside counsel, a spokeswoman for his law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, said yesterday, confirming a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The identification of a man from the Omaha area as a possible participant in the operation provides a potentially critical link in a chain that has stretched from Hewlett-Packard’s sprawling Silicon Valley headquarters to its security operations in Boston and to detective agencies there and in Florida.

The man, Brian Wagoner, has spent several years working for the Action Research Group, a Florida detective agency, according to a relative of Mr. Wagoner. The Florida agency has been identified by people briefed on Hewlett-Packard’s review of its operation as a contractor for Security Outsourcing Solutions, Mr. DeLia’s firm.

An e-mail message to Mr. Hunsaker, the Hewlett-Packard ethics officer, indicates that he was aware of the involvement of the Action Research Group in the operation. On Feb. 7, Mr. DeLia informed Mr. Hunsaker that he had sent an e-mail message to “my source in FL and asked him if there were any state laws prohibiting pretexting telephone companies for call records.”

Mr. DeLia gave the response from that firm, presumably Action Research: “We are comfortable there are no Federal laws prohibiting the practice.” He added that he had been using the firm for 8 to 10 years.

Mr. DeLia did not respond yesterday to requests for comment.

Action Research and Mr. Wagoner, the Omaha man, had been linked before. His name appeared in connection with Action Research in April, when Congressional investigators studying pretexting interviewed James Rapp, a Denver man convicted in 2000 of illegally obtaining phone records. Rob Douglas, an information security expert who was a consultant to the Congressional investigation, said Mr. Rapp had disclosed his employment for years with the Action Research Group.

Mr. Rapp told investigators that after his own conviction, which led to the shutdown of his business, some of his employees went to work for Action. Among them was Mr. Wagoner, whom Mr. Rapp identified as his nephew during the interview with Congressional investigators, Mr. Douglas said.

Mr. Rapp said in an interview yesterday that Brian Wagoner split his time between the Omaha and Denver areas and had worked for Action Research. “I know for a fact there’s been correspondence between he and Action for many, many years,” Mr. Rapp said.

Mr. Rapp said he had spoken with Mr. Wagoner twice yesterday and described him as “nervous and hesitant.”

“He keeps trying to tell me that Action doesn’t do that kind of work any more,” Mr. Rapp said. But he said Mr. Wagoner had told him that he did believe he had worked on H.P. case. “He did do the work,” Mr. Rapp said. “He does remember that.”

Matt Richtel contributed reporting.

September 20, 2006

H.P. Studied Infiltrating Newsrooms

By DAMON DARLIN and KURT EICHENWALD

It is not clear whether the plan was ever acted upon.

Under a section labeled “Investigation Activity Update,” with the subtitle, “Covert Operations,” it also called for examining the use of cleaning employees at those locations.

Mr. Gentilucci responded that Mr. DeLia, owner of Security Outsourcing Solutions, had investigators “call operators under some ruse.”

Mr. Hunsaker’s e-mail response, in its entirety, said: “I shouldn’t have asked....”

Mr. Hunsaker did not respond to a request for comment. Mr. Gentilucci referred all inquiries to Hewlett-Packard’s corporate offices, which said it had no comment.

Mr. DeLia did not respond yesterday to requests for comment.

Mr. Rapp said he had spoken with Mr. Wagoner twice yesterday and described him as “nervous and hesitant.”

Matt Richtel contributed reporting.

Sunday, September 17, 2006 (AP)
U.S. Holds AP Photographer in Iraq 5 Months

By ROBERT TANNER, AP National Writer

   (09-17) 18:49 PDT , (AP) --

   The U.S. military in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer
for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing
charges or permitting a public hearing.

   Military officials said Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen, was being held
for "imperative reasons of security" under United Nations resolutions. AP
executives said the news cooperative's review of Hussein's work did not
find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any
evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice
system.

   Hussein, 35, is a native of Fallujah who began work for the AP in
September 2004. He photographed events in Fallujah and Ramadi until he was
detained on April 12 of this year.

   "We want the rule of law to prevail. He either needs to be charged or
released. Indefinite detention is not acceptable," said Tom Curley, AP's
president and chief executive officer. "We've come to the conclusion that
this is unacceptable under Iraqi law, or Geneva Conventions, or any
military procedure."

   Hussein is one of an estimated 14,000 people detained by the U.S.
military
worldwide — 13,000 of them in Iraq. They are held in limbo where few
are ever charged with a specific crime or given a chance before any court
or tribunal to argue for their freedom.

   In Hussein's case, the military has not provided any concrete evidence to
back up the vague allegations they have raised about him, Curley and other
AP executives said.

   The military said Hussein was captured with two insurgents, including
Hamid Hamad Motib, an alleged leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. "He has close
relationships with persons known to be responsible for kidnappings,
smuggling, improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and other attacks on
coalition forces," according to a May 7 e-mail from U.S. Army Maj. Gen.
Jack Gardner, who oversees all coalition detainees in Iraq.

   "The information available establishes that he has relationships with
insurgents and is afforded access to insurgent activities outside the
normal scope afforded to journalists conducting legitimate activities,"
Gardner wrote to AP International Editor John Daniszewski.

   Hussein proclaims his innocence, according to his Iraqi lawyer, Badie
Arief Izzat, and believes he has been unfairly targeted because his photos
from Ramadi and Fallujah were deemed unwelcome by the coalition forces.

   That Hussein was captured at the same time as insurgents doesn't make him
one of them, said Kathleen Carroll, AP's executive editor.

   "Journalists have always had relationships with people that others might
find unsavory," she said. "We're not in this to choose sides, we're to
report what's going on from all sides."

   AP executives in New York and Baghdad have sought to persuade U.S.
officials to provide additional information about allegations against
Hussein and to have his case transferred to the Iraqi criminal justice
system. The AP contacted military leaders in Iraq and the Pentagon, and
later the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad.

   The AP has worked quietly until now, believing that would be the best
approach. But with the U.S. military giving no indication it would change
its stance, the news cooperative has decided to make public Hussein's
imprisonment, hoping the spotlight will bring attention to his case and
that of thousands of others now held in Iraq, Curley said.

   One of Hussein's photos was part of a package of 20 photographs that won
a
Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography last year. His contribution
was an image of four insurgents in Fallujah firing a mortar and small arms
during the U.S.-led offensive in the city in November 2004.

   In what several AP editors described as a typical path for locally hired
staff in the midst of a conflict, Hussein, a shopkeeper who sold cell
phones and computers in Fallujah, was hired in the city as a general
helper because of his local knowledge.

   As the situation in Fallujah eroded in 2004, he expressed a desire to
become a photographer. Hussein was given training and camera equipment and
hired in September of that year as a freelancer, paid on a per-picture
basis, according to Santiago Lyon, AP's director of photography. A month
later, he was put on a monthly retainer.

   During the U.S.-led offensive in Fallujah in November 2004, he stayed on
after his family fled. "He had good access. He was able to photograph not
only the results of the attacks on Fallujah, he was also able to
photograph members of the insurgency on occasion," Lyon said. "That was
very difficult to achieve at that time."

   After fleeing later in the offensive, leaving his camera behind in the
rush to escape, Hussein arrived in Baghdad, where the AP gave him a new
camera. He then went to work in Ramadi which, like Fallujah, has been a
center of insurgent violence.

   In its own effort to determine whether Hussein had gotten too close the
insurgency, the AP has reviewed his work record, interviewed senior photo
editors who worked on his images and examined all 420 photographs in the
news cooperative's archives that were taken by Hussein, Lyon said.

   The military in Iraq has frequently detained journalists who arrive
quickly at scenes of violence, accusing them of getting advance notice
from insurgents, Lyon said. But "that's just good journalism. Getting to
the event quickly is something that characterizes good journalism anywhere
in the world. It does not indicate prior knowledge," he said.

   Out of Hussein's body of work, only 37 photos show insurgents or people
who could be insurgents, Lyon said. "The vast majority of the 420 images
show the aftermath or the results of the conflict — blown up houses,
wounded people, dead people, street scenes," he said.

   Only four photos show the wreckage of still-burning U.S. military
vehicles.

   "Do we know absolutely everything about him, and what he did before he
joined us? No. Are we satisfied that what he did since he joined us was
appropriate for the level of work we expected from him? Yes," Lyon said.
"When we reviewed the work he submitted to us, we found it appropriate to
what we'd asked him to do."

   The AP does not knowingly hire combatants or anyone who is part of a
story, company executives said. But hiring competent local staff in combat
areas is vital to the news service, because often only local people can
pick their way around the streets with a reasonable degree of safety.

   "We want people who are not part of a story. Sometimes it is a judgment
call. If someone seems to be thuggish, or like a fighter, you certainly
wouldn't hire them," Daniszewski said. After they are hired, their work is
checked carefully for signs of bias.

   Lyon said every image from local photographers is always "thoroughly
checked and vetted" by experienced editors. "In every case where there
have been images of insurgents, questions have been asked about
circumstances under which the image was taken, and what the image shows,"
he said.

   Executives said it's not uncommon for AP news people to be picked up by
coalition forces and detained for hours, days or occasionally weeks, but
never this long. Several hundred journalists in Iraq have been detained,
some briefly and some for several weeks, according to Scott Horton, a New
York-based lawyer hired by the AP to work on Hussein's case.

   Horton also worked on behalf of an Iraqi cameraman employed by CBS, Abdul
Ameer Younis Hussein, who was detained for one year before his case was
sent to an Iraqi court on charges of insurgent activity. He was acquitted
for lack of evidence.

   AP officials emphasized the military has not provided the company
concrete
evidence of its claims against Bilal Hussein, or provided him a chance to
offer a defense.

   "He's a Sunni Arab from a tribe in that area. I'm sure he does know some
nasty people. But is he a participant in the insurgency? I don't think
that's been proven," Daniszewski said.

   Information provided to the AP by the military to support the continued
detention hasn't withstood scrutiny, when it could be checked, Daniszewski
said.

   For example, he said, the AP had been told that Hussein was involved with
the kidnapping of two Arab journalists in Ramadi.

   But those journalists, tracked down by the AP, said Hussein had helped
them after they were released by their captors without money or a vehicle
in a dangerous part of Ramadi. After a journalist acquaintance put them in
touch with Hussein, the photographer picked them up, gave them shelter and
helped get them out of town, they said.

   The journalists said they had never been contacted by multinational
forces
for their account.

   Horton said the military has provided contradictory accounts of whether
Hussein himself was a U.S. target last April or if he was caught up in a
broader sweep.

   The military said bomb-making materials were found in the apartment where
Hussein was captured but it never detailed what those materials were. The
military said he tested positive for traces of explosives. Horton said
that was virtually guaranteed for anyone on the streets of Ramadi at that
time.

   Hussein has been a frequent target of conservative critics on the
Internet, who raised questions about his images months before the military
detained him. One blogger and author, Michelle Malkin, wrote about
Hussein's detention on the day of his arrest, saying she'd been tipped by
a military source.

   Carroll said the role of journalists can be misconstrued and make them a
target of critics. But that criticism is misplaced, she said.

   "How can you know what a conflict is like if you're only with one side of
the combatants?" she said. "Journalism doesn't work if we don't report and
photograph all sides."

Copyright 2006 AP

August 31, 2006 4:34 p.m. EDT

Movie Studios Plan Roll Out
Of Blu-ray Format in Europe

Associated Press
August 31, 2006 4:34 p.m.

Several movie studios announced plans Thursday to release a handful of films this fall on the Blu-ray DVD format in Europe, continuing the slow rollout of the technology.

The Blu-ray Disc Association, which supports one of the two rival and incompatible next-generation DVD formats, also announced that Sun Microsystems Inc., the creator of the Java technology, would join its board. Blu-ray uses Java to create interactive features.

DUELING DISCS

1 In a battle reminiscent of VHS vs. Betamax, Blu-ray and HD DVD are fighting for control of your living room. See how they compare.2

Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures Entertainment and News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox said they would release several current and older titles this fall to coincide with the availability of Blu-ray players in various European countries. Sony's game console, PlayStation 3, will also include a Blu-ray DVD drive when it goes on sale later this year.

Earlier this week, more than a dozen Hollywood studios announced3 that some 75 movie titles, including "The Da Vinci Code" and "Chicken Little," will go on sale in Japan later this year using the Blu-ray format.

Studios have been slowly releasing titles in the U.S. since the first Toshiba HD DVD player went on sale in March and the Samsung Blu-ray player followed in July. Fox said Thursday it would release its first titles in November as well as distribute MGM titles such as "Rocky."

Blu-ray is backed by a consortium led by Sony. It is fighting for dominance with HD DVD, a format backed by Toshiba Corp.

Both formats deliver sharper pictures and crisper sound and hold several times the data that standard definition DVDs contain. Next-generation DVDs also promise interactive features such as games and menus that display while the film is playing.

Blu-ray discs can hold more data, but HD DVD is more similar to regular DVDs, which simplifies production, according to its backers. The HD DVD camp also has the slight advantage of coming to market first.

Most of the major studios have said they will release titles in Blu-ray. Several has said they would release in both formats.

Universal Studios is the only studio backing HD DVD exclusively. Fox and Sony have said they intend to only back the Blu-ray format.

EA's Madden NFL Hits $100 Million In Its First Week

By NICK WINGFIELD
September 1, 2006; Page A12

Electronic Arts Inc. said videogame Madden NFL 2007 grossed $100 million in retail sales in its first seven days on the market, the best opening-week performance so far for the videogame publisher's flagship sports title and a further sign that the games industry may be coming out of its doldrums.

The Redwood City, Calif., company said it sold more than two million copies of Madden NFL 2007 in the week after its Aug. 22 launch, up roughly 12% from the 1.8 million copies of last year's version sold in its first week on the market. That exceeded the opening-week box-office gross of some hit summer movies such as "Cars," which had $83 million in ticket sales in its first seven days in theaters, according to Boxofficemojo.com.

GAME QUEST

1 Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are battling for videogame dominance with their next-generation systems. See how they compare.2

Madden NFL, featuring commentary by sportscaster and former NFL coach John Madden, is one of EA's most popular and lucrative games. For much of its 17-year history, it has topped North American game-sales charts. While a few other game franchises may occasionally outsell it world-wide, a new version of Madden football comes out every year, more frequently than other games.

The strength of this year's Madden NFL sales is a welcome sign for EA, which, along with other game publishers, has seen sales and profit suffer as the industry shifts toward a new generation of more powerful game consoles. Such technology transitions, common in the game industry every five years or so, typically curb consumer spending as gamers wait to get their hands on the new systems. Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. plan to release new game consoles -- the PlayStation 3 and Wii -- this holiday season, after Microsoft Corp.'s release of the Xbox 360 last November.

"I think we're starting to see the industry come out of the transition," said Todd Sitrin, EA vice president of marketing. "I think Madden is certainly one of those titles that's helping accelerate us out of the transition."

Separately, EA, the world's largest videogame publisher by sales, signed deals with two companies -- Microsoft's Massive unit and IGA Worldwide Inc. -- that specialize in delivering advertisements over the Internet and inserting them into the action of games.

EA said Massive will deliver ads that appear in as many as four of its titles for personal computers and Microsoft Xbox 360 consoles, starting with Need for Speed Carbon, a new version of EA's bestselling racing game due out this fall. EA said IGA will distribute ads into a "portfolio" of EA games, including the PC combat game Battlefield 2142. The companies didn't disclose financial terms.

Advertising in games remains a relatively small business. Many game publishers believe there is a large untapped revenue opportunity in displaying ads to their audiences. Many games are played by 18- to 34-year-old men, a prized demographic for marketers -- and a group that is spending more time playing games at the expense of typical ad-supported media such as television. The potential of in-game advertising prompted Microsoft, Redmond, Wash., to acquire Massive this year.

Write to Nick Wingfield at nick.wingfield@wsj.com3

Journalist Josh Wolf Released After Month In Jail

DUBLIN, CA (September 1, 2006) – Freelance journalist and blogger Josh Wolf was released on bail from a federal correctional facility in California today after a two-judge panel for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found Thursday that Wolf’s appeal of a grand jury subpoena to turn over video tapes was neither frivolous nor intended to delay court proceedings.

Wolf, 24, had been in a federal jail since August 1 for refusing to turn over unaired videotape of a 2005 protest that resulted in damage to a San Francisco police car. He also refused to testify before the grand jury that’s hearing accusations that crimes were committed at the protest. Because of Wolf’s refusal, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup held him in contempt of court and ordered him to jail.

Attorney Mickey Osterreicher of Buffalo, NY, who represents NPPA on First Amendment issues, responded to the news of Wolf's release today saying, "While it is unfortunate that a journalist had to spend 30 days in jail in order to uphold his First Amendment right to gather news without becoming an agent of law enforcement, it is also encouraging that the chief justice of the 9th Circuit along with another judge found merit in his appeal and released him on his own recognizance."

Wolf is now free on bail while his appeal is pending. A different 9th Circuit Court panel than the one that released him is now scheduled to rule on Wolf’s refusal to hand over the videotape. If he loses the appeal, he can be returned to prison until the grand jury’s term expires in July 2007.

A week after he was jailed, the president of the National Press Photographers Association led a press conference in San Francisco protesting Wolf’s incarceration and called for his release. At the same time NPPA also protested two separate court rulings, one against San Francisco Chronicle reporters in the BALCO baseball and steroids scandal who have refused to name sources who provided them with secret grand jury testimony, and a separate a court ruling that allowed investigators to examine the telephone records of New York Times reporters.

“This is a major victory in our ongoing battle to defend First Amendment protections for journalists,” NPPA president Tony Overman said today. “Jailing journalists for invoking those protections is wrong. And today the appellate court confirmed that. The judges recognized what NPPA and other journalism organizations have said all along: that journalists have the right to oppose the government’s demands to relinquish unpublished photographs or video.

“This case is far from over, and ultimately the final outcome may not support shield law protection. We will continue the fight. However, today's ruling makes clear that it was wrong to jail Wolf simply because he invoked these protections.”

NPPA past president Alicia Wagner Calzada said, "Without shield laws, and the use of restraint when subpoenaing journalists, photographers and reporters will be viewed as evidence gatherers and will find it harder and harder to gain trust from their sources. The fact that federal courts were used to get around a state shield law is appalling. The lawmakers of California they recently voted unanimously to ask Congress for a federal sheild law as a direct result of the Wolf case."

When the judge jailed Wolf for refusing to turn over to a federal grand jury his unaired video, The Washington Post reported that Alsup said that he was not jailing Wolf to punish him. “The purpose of this is to get you to change your mind,” the judge was quoted as saying.

At the time he was jailed, the Associated Press reported that Wolf had sold footage of the protest to San Francisco television stations as well as posting it on his Web site, but that investigators were seeking portions of that videotape that had not been broadcast.

Osterreicher wrote shortly after Wolf was taken into custody, “The first San Francisco (Wolf) case is disturbing because state and federal prosecutors apparently joined forces in circumventing California’s comprehensive state shield law, claiming that the burning of a police car and the injury to a police officer during a protest outside a meeting of world economic leaders falls under federal purview because the San Francisco Police Department uses federal funds to purchase its police vehicles. In almost all cases such crimes would be considered a violation of state law.

“Had prosecutors convened a state grand jury, Wolf would have been able to claim the reporter’s privilege not to be compelled to testify or provide evidence gathered in his capacity as a journalist unless the government made a showing that the information he possessed was sufficiently important to the case at hand and that it was unavailable from other sources. California’s shield law also protects a journalist from being held in contempt of court for refusing to disclose either unpublished information or the source of any information that was gathered for news purposes, whether the source is confidential or not. An exception can arise where a criminal defendant’s federal constitutional right to a fair trial would be violated without a reporter’s testimony.”

NPPA, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and other press freedom organizations have supported Wolf’s refusal to comply with the subpoena, and have offered to support his defense.

“Jailing a journalist for his work is alarming, especially so when it is done by a democratic country,” Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said today

Posted on Mon, Aug. 28, 2006

Bonds' trainer in contempt, prison-bound

DAVID KRAVETS
Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - Barry Bonds' personal trainer was on his way back to prison Monday after being held in contempt of court for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating the Giants slugger.

Greg Anderson could remain behind bars for more than a year while the grand jury investigates Bonds for perjury and tax evasion, regarding income from sales of his sports memorabilia.

Anderson, who has appeared five times before two federal grand juries without answering pertinent questions, was held in contempt of court for two weeks last month but was released when that grand jury's term expired.

"Sometimes sitting in the cooler for a long time may have a therapeutic affect and may change his mind," U.S. District Judge William Alsup said during the rancorous, hourlong hearing, after which authorities whisked Anderson into custody.

"Maybe in 16 months he will change his mind," Alsup said, referring to the remainder of the grand jury's term.

Mark Geragos, the trainer's attorney, said he would appeal the judge's order.

The name of New York Yankees outfielder Gary Sheffield re-surfaced during Monday's hearing as an angry Alsup recited the questions Anderson refused to answer before the grand jury.

The questions included whether Anderson injected Bonds with steroids and "whether Anderson knows Barry Bonds or Gary Sheffield."

At issue is whether Bonds lied under oath when he told the grand jury investigating BALCO in 2003 that he did not knowingly use steroids and that Anderson gave him what he believed to be flaxseed oil and arthritic balm.

Anderson has refused to say whether he gave Bonds steroids. Alsup told Geragos jailing Anderson might test "how loyal your client wants to be."

Sheffield, who testified before the 2003 BALCO grand jury, has admitted using a cream he got from Anderson but said in a 2004 interview with Sports Illustrated that he did not knowingly use steroids.

In the book "Game of Shadows," however, two San Francisco Chronicle reporters wrote that Anderson put Sheffield on injectable testosterone and human growth hormone in 2002 and later sold him designer steroids known as "the cream" and "the clear."

Sheffield adopted Bonds' heavy training program when he visited the San Francisco star after the 2001 season and lived at his home in Hillsborough for two months, according to the book published earlier this year.

Although Bonds and Sheffield later had a personal falling out, Sheffield wanted to maintain a relationship with Anderson so he could keep getting the drugs, the authors wrote.

Rufus Williams, Sheffield's agent, did not immediately return calls for comment.

Anderson already has served three months in prison and three months of home detention after pleading guilty to steroid distribution and money laundering in the investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which allegedly supplied Bonds and other elite athletes with performance-enhancing drugs.

On Monday, Alsup rejected Geragos' plea that testifying before the grand jury would violate a deal Anderson struck last December to plead guilty in the BALCO case. Geragos said Anderson specifically stated he would not cooperate with the government as part of the deal.

---

Associated Press Writer Paul Elias contributed to this report.

California governor signs college student press freedom bill
Law passed in the wake of the Hosty v. Carter decision is the first of its kind in the country

© 2006 Student Press Law Center

August 28, 2006

CALIFORNIA - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today signed a bill into law that would explicitly prohibit prior restraint and other forms of censorship of the college press.

The bill's sponsor, assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, said in a press release the legislation makes California the first state in the nation to specifically prohibit censorship of college student newspapers.

"College journalists deserve the same protections as any other journalist," Yee said. "Having true freedom of the press is essential on college campuses and it is a fundamental part of a young journalists training for the real world. Allowing a school administration to censor is contrary to the democratic process and the ability of a student newspaper to serve as the watchdog and bring sunshine to the actions of school administrators."

The bill passed the state Senate by a 31-2 vote on August 10 and was unanimously approved by the California Assembly in May.

The free-press bill was drafted in response to the Hosty v. Carter decision out of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said Jim Ewert, legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association, a supporter of the bill.

The appeals court decision held that the Supreme Court's 1988 Hazelwood decision limiting high school student free expression rights could extend to college and university campuses in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in February not to hear the Hosty case, letting stand the June 2005 decision out of the 7th Circuit.

Ten days after the 7th Circuit decision, the general counsel for the California State University system sent a memo to university presidents saying the Hosty decision could impact California.

"[T]he case appears to signal that CSU campuses may have more latitude than previously believed to censor the content of subsidized student newspapers, provided that there is an established practice of regularized content review and approval for pedagogical purposes," wrote CSU general counsel Christine Helwick at that time.

Although the 7th Circuit's ruling is only applicable in the three Midwestern states covered by the appeals court, Ewert said the memo raised some concerns amongst student press advocates.

Ewert said he is thrilled with the governor's decision to sign the legislation.

"This law sends a very strong message to administrators that the student press is just as deserving of strong free press protection as professional media," said Ewert.

-by Evan Mayor, SPLC staff writer

August 7, 2006

Update for RTNDA Members on NFL Ban
on Local Television Cameras from Sidelines During Games

As the 2006 professional football season begins, RTNDA would like to take this opportunity to update you on communication we have had with the National Football League over the past few months concerning its new policy to ban local television cameras from the sidelines during games this season.

Despite strong objections from RTNDA and individual stations, the NFL has persisted in implementing the policy, which was unanimously approved last March by the NFL owners. RTNDA immediately complained to NFL executives and team officials that the ban would unfairly hurt local coverage of NFL teams. State broadcasters associations and some local stations, among others, later followed suit.

RTNDA urged the NFL not to engage in behavior that impedes the media’s right to gather and disseminate public information such as information about sporting events that define our national culture, and argued that the policy has the potential to damage the bonds between the NFL’s franchises and their local communities.

The NFL sent RTNDA a letter in response, stating that its policy is consistent with the policies of other sports leagues and major events (e.g., NCAA Final Four, Olympics). The NFL claimed that the relationship between NFL teams and local stations would continue to be strong and mutually beneficial because:

Local station crews will continue to be allowed to shoot on the field at NFL games during the pre-game, halftime, and post-game periods and will have access to post-game interview sessions.
Network footage of every play of every game will be available for free to local stations to use in their newscasts.
Custom footage will be available upon station request through NFL Films at a nominal charge.
During the preseason, clubs can allow local station crews to shoot game action from the sidelines of locally produced preseason games (but not of nationally televised pre-season games).
Clubs may continue to allow players and coaches to be interviewed by local stations as they are coming off the field at the conclusion of games.
Local station sportscasters will be able to do stand-ups in the end zone or on the field before or after the games.

Despite continued pressure, the NFL has maintained its position, and there does not appear to be any chance that it will be retracted this season. RTNDA suggests, however, that stations continue their dialogue with local franchises to work toward mutually acceptable solutions, and to highlight any negative impact the ban has on local coverage.

It is our understanding that some teams have decided to make available to local stations a pool feed of low-angle game video, and the NFL has endorsed this practice. According to guidelines issued by the NFL, at the option of each home and away club, one of the club or local station crews may be designated by the club to produce a pool feed of low-angle highlights for local station newscasts. At each game, the home team and the visiting team will make separate decisions about whether or not to grant this access. No home club can prevent the visiting club from having one pool camera crew on the sideline. There are no NFL-issued restrictions on the content of the pool feed, including game action.

While not an optimum solution and left to the discretion of individual teams, stations may wish to discuss a pool feed with your local franchise, and urge that any resulting video be immediately available. Given the discretion the NFL has granted local franchises about this and other coverage issues, you should obtain a thorough understanding of how the rules will apply to your market and your station before deciding on any further course of action. Certainly, you should attempt to work your relationship with your local team to your advantage. RTNDA members may also wish to:

Continue to request from your local NFL franchise the same access you have always had.
When a print photographer is given access you do not have, respectfully ask for the same access. Make a note when access is denied and if photographers for print publications shoot video.
Continue to communicate with your local franchise. Let your local club know the specifics of how your ability to provide coverage was compromised by the station’s inability to obtain its own footage from the sidelines. If it is the case, be specific about how lack of sideline access diminished specialized focus on the home team beneficial to the franchise, and undermined the quality of production standards and attractiveness of NFL coverage to local audiences. Note any increased costs. Ask your local franchise to voice concern to the NFL.

In some cases, stadiums are publicly owned. In those cities, members have asked if there are extenuating circumstances that would entitle them to access greater than what the NFL and the local franchise has allowed. In those cases, you may wish to discuss the issue with local lawmakers, and ask if there is an appropriate protocol for access requests. Generally speaking, when municipally owned property is operated in a commercial rather than governmental capacity, the media have no special right of access beyond that afforded to the general public. As a matter of public policy, however, lawmakers may be concerned that the NFL’s sideline restrictions discriminate against local television stations and interfere with constituents’ ability to get information from a wide variety of sources.

Please notify RTNDA about individual team rulings and your experiences with the ban so that we can continue to make our case to the NFL Commissioner’s office. You can contact me at president@rtnda.org or 800.80.RTNDA.

Thank you.

Barbara Cochran, RTNDA

Rep. Harris: Church-state separation 'a lie'

Adjust font size:

MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is "a lie" and God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws."

The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will "legislate sin," including abortion and gay marriage.

Harris made the comments -- which she clarified Saturday -- in the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention, which interviewed political candidates and asked them about religion and their positions on issues.

Separation of church and state is "a lie we have been told," Harris said in the interview, published Thursday, saying separating religion and politics is "wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers."

Electing non-Christians allows 'legislating sin'

"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," Harris said.

Her comments drew criticism, including some from fellow Republicans, who called them offensive and not representative of the party.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, who is Jewish, told the Orlando Sentinel that she was "disgusted" by the comments.

Harris' campaign released a statement Saturday saying she had been "speaking to a Christian audience, addressing a common misperception that people of faith should not be actively involved in government."

The comments reflected "her deep grounding in Judeo-Christian values," the statement said, adding that Harris had previously supported pro-Israel legislation and legislation recognizing the Holocaust.

Harris' opponents in the GOP primary also gave interviews to the Florida Baptist Witness but made more general statements on their faith.

Harris, 49, faced widespread criticism for her role overseeing the 2000 presidential recount as Florida's secretary of state.

State GOP leaders -- including Gov. Jeb Bush -- don't think she can win against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in November. Fundraising has lagged, frustrated campaign workers have defected in droves and the issues have been overshadowed by news of her dealings with a corrupt defense contractor who gave her $32,000 in illegal campaign contributions.

EDITORIAL

Airbrushing Cartoon History

Today, Tom and Jerry lose their smokes. Tomorrow, Bogart and Bette Davis?
August 23, 2006

LIKE THEIR ANIMATED BRETHREN, Tom and Jerry were long thought to be invulnerable. But the cat-and-mouse team — the inspiration for "The Itchy and Scratchy Show," the much bloodier cartoon-within-a-cartoon on "The Simpsons" — has been brought low by a force even stronger than Acme dynamite: PC, which stands for physiological as well as political correctness.

In response to a complaint passed along by Britain's version of the Federal Communications Commission, a children's cable channel in that country has decided to excise short scenes depicting the use of tobacco from two vintage "Tom and Jerry" cartoons. Both cartoons are more than 50 years old. In one, Tom drags on a cigarette to impress a female cat. In the other, he plays tennis against a cigar-smoking opponent. (Presumably it isn't an exploding cigar, or the scene could be excused as anti-smoking propaganda.)

Although it was an ordinary viewer who took exception to the smoking scenes, Britain's nanny state also did a bit of tail-pulling. The Office of Communications, known as Ofcom, passed along the complaint to the Boomerang network, and it welcomed the network's subsequent decision to snip out scenes in which smoking "appeared to be condoned, acceptable, glamorized or where it might encourage imitation."

The bowdlerization of "Tom and Jerry" has created a sensation in Britain, partly because smokers there are less browbeaten than they are in the United States and partly because "Tom and Jerry," though an import, is a television tradition there.

Boomerang's deletion of the smoking scenes already has boomeranged. Its decision was denounced as "totally absurd" by a pro-smoking group called FOREST. (That's an acronym for Freedom Organization for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco, not a reference to the forest fires often caused by stray cigarettes.)

FOREST has a point. Although one can imagine an argument for editing old cartoons — some of them feature hurtful racial stereotypes, for example — it's a reach to suggest that a tobacco-abusing feline would turn children into chain-smoking copycats. And if vintage cartoons can be turned into smoke-free zones, what about classic movies from the same period in which humans light up? Today, Tom and Jerry; tomorrow, Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis?

There's something about this crusade that seems, well, cartoonish.

LA TIMES August 23, 2006

Wall Street Journal

ABC Sells News Clips on iTunes

By DAVID KESMODEL
August 23, 2006; Page D3

ABC has begun selling archived news clips on Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store, betting that users will pay $1.99 to watch the network's coverage of such news events as the O. J. Simpson car chase and President Nixon's resignation.

The move expands ABC's video offerings on iTunes beyond entertainment programming such as "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost," which it began selling last October. It also puts the network into competition with NBC News, which began selling some archived news content on iTunes in May.

Walt Disney Co.'s ABC is offering footage of historic events, including the Challenger space-shuttle disaster. The clips range from about 18 minutes to 40 minutes, and, like other iTunes downloads, they can be viewed on a computer or an iPod portable player. In addition, ABC is selling celebrity interviews and programs created by its news department, including specials on UFOs and extreme snowboarders. Although this is the first news content ABC is selling through iTunes, it has offered free, ad-supported video clips from its news programs since January.

The move is part of a wider effort by media companies to capitalize on their old TV shows and other archived material as a source of revenue amid an explosion in online video. "What ABC is trying to do here is not be No. 1 on the download list on iTunes, but to take old content and make a little bit of money off it," said Joe Laszlo, an analyst with Jupiter Research, a technology-research firm in New York. It is unlikely that "people in large numbers are going to use iTunes to educate themselves or reminisce about the biggest news from 10 years ago," he said.

ABC views the new offering, which began Tuesday, as "an experiment to see what people will pay for," said Bernard Gershon, senior vice president with the digital-media division of ABC News. The network expects news and music junkies to be drawn to such programming as archived interviews with Grace Kelly, the Rolling Stones and Steven Spielberg, he said.

General Electric Co.'s NBC in May began selling archived news content for $1.99 per download, including a 1957 interview with Martin Luther King Jr. and episodes of its Sunday news program "Meet the Press" featuring Presidents Kennedy and Nixon, and others. A spokeswoman for the network declined to say how many programs it has sold through iTunes, but said NBC "is pleased with the numbers so far."

The networks are also aggressively expanding Internet broadcasts of their nightly news programs, aiming to reach a broader -- and younger -- audience. CBS Corp., which offers free podcasts featuring clips from news reports, recently said it will simulcast the "Evening News with Katie Couric" live on CBSNews.com. The Webcast, which will be free and carry ads, will begin when Ms. Couric debuts on Sept. 5. Since January, ABC has offered a free 15-minute news update, hosted by Charles Gibson, that is posted on its Web site each afternoon. NBC, meanwhile, posts a free Webcast of its "Nightly News with Brian Williams" on its Web site after each evening's television broadcast.

Write to David Kesmodel at david.kesmodel@wsj.com1

from the August 21, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0821/p03s01-ussc.html

Why cable news pursues the JonBenet Ramsey case

While broadcast networks offer traditional journalistic fare, their cable rivals are now more like the Daily News than The New York Times.

By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

NEW YORK

"SOLVED!'' read the Daily News headline. "BREAKING NEWS" flashed the MSNBC graphic: "JonBenet Ramsey Case Solved?"

Almost a decade after a flood of media speculation about the unsolved murder of the child beauty queen essentially convicted her parents in the court of public opinion, critics say they were at it again last week.

This time the new suspect was John Mark Karr, an Alabama man arrested in Thailand on child pornography charges, who had allegedly confessed to the 1996 killing.

But media critics note that within a day or so of the initial rush to judgment, a more skeptical tone took hold. News organizations that 24 hours before had only footnoted inconsistencies in Mr. Karr's account suddenly were scrutinizing them.

The trajectory of the JonBenet story highlights a new stratification of television news. The major broadcast networks that once set the nation's news agenda have settled into a less powerful evening niche offering more traditional journalistic fare while their cable rivals have matured into a kind of 24-hour tabloid broadcast, more like the Daily News than The New York Times. As such, they're more likely to focus on the sensational to keep their ratings up.

"The funny thing is that you can help your ratings and erode your reputation," says Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project on Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) in Washington. "The [broadcast] networks came to understand that, but the cable networks just can't seem to resist."

Tabloid sensationalism has been part of American media since the mid-1800s, and its formula hasn't changed: It involves a crime, the downfall of the innocent, and some kind of social deviance. But its dominance of the news agenda has come in waves. The "yellow journalism" of the 1880s cultivated by William Randolph Hearst's and Joseph Pulitzer's papers eventually died out, in part because the staid, uptown The New York Times proved to be a more lucrative economic model, says Mr. Rosenstiel.

The latest outbreak started during the O.J. Simpson case in 1994 and 1995 where the major media and the tabloids obsessed over the celebrity murder trial. In 1996, the Ramsey murder case marked the first time a local story that didn't involve a celebrity or a truly bizarre crime became a staple of the cable channels. While 9/11 "somewhat put an end to the OJ-ification of network news," Rosenstiel says, cable networks still thrive on local crimes like the Ramsey case, the Laci Peterson murder trial in 2004 and the Natalee Holloway disappearance last year.

"After 20 years, we have to conclude that cable is more of a tabloid broadcast," he says. That's because it has to attract people's attention by the moment. Since it's not "an appointment medium" like an evening newscast, cable values stories such as the JonBenet case, which can spike ratings.

"[Ratings] will fall off, but you'll still have a story that's big enough to move the needle and attract people who like this kind of stuff," says Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Center for the People and the Press in Washington. "That's what keeps cable news in business at times when there's not real breaking news."

In its 2006 survey on the state of the media, PEJ found that cable "is thinly reported, suffers from a focus on the immediate, especially during the day, is prone to opinion mongering and is easily controlled by sources who want to filibuster." The findings could put cable at risk of losing viewers to the Internet and other news outlets, PEJ concluded.

That now seems to be happening. A Pew Research Center study found that the number of people who say they regularly watch cable news has dropped from 38 percent in 2004 to 34 percent today.

Some point to cable's tabloid nature and a constant focus on stories like the Ramsey case.

"It clearly is a lead story," says Bob Steele, senior ethics faculty member at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. "But it still requires us to be sure that the words we use in a headline, that the language we use to describe what's taking place, are measured and thoughtful.

That's a sentiment that John Ramsey, JonBenet's father, emphasized when the Karr development broke, urging the media not to repeat its mistakes and convict the man before he's even charged.

"The problem is that one can never get one's reputation back," says Clay Calvert, a professor of communications and law at Penn State University and coauthor of "Press Coverage of The JonBenet Ramsey Murder and Its Legal Implications." "No amount of coverage could ever make up for the harms that were done to the Ramsey family."

w w w . b r o a d c a s t i n g c a b l e . c o m

CBS Evening News To Be Shown Live on Internet

By Anne Becker and P.J. Bednarski -- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/17/2006 9:56:00 AM

The new CBS Evening News With Katie Couric will be simulcast live on the Internet every evening, starting with its premiere Sept. 5. The move, announced this morning, makes CBS News the first of the network newscasts to use the Internet for simultaneous transmission of the news.

CBS, with the oldest viewership of all the networks, and with the lowest-rated evening news, hopes Couric will help lower the demographic; moving the news to the Internet would likely help overall. CBS News President Sean McManus, in a statement, called it "a groundbreaking development in making the program available to the largest possible audience."

The simultaneous news streaming is one fruit borne out of the agreement that CBS hammered out with its affiliates in June to share the revenue from distributing content on digital platforms. CBS declines to give details on the deal’s terms, but stations will receive a cut of the revenue from such ad-supported streaming endeavors, including incentives for driving traffic to CBS’ Website.

For now, the affiliates will not be able to stream the Evening News themselves but rather link to CBS’ main site, where the news will run.

CBS is further bolstering its Evening News on the Web with Couric & Company, a blog; Eye to Eye, a daily, five-minute, afternoon on-demand Web/iTunes program with extended interviews hosted by Couric; CBS News First Look With Katie Couric, a weekday, early-afternoon ,on-demand Web program previewing the nightly newscast; and Katie Couric’s Notebook, a minute-long Web/iTunes podcast in which Couric reports on a top issue.

Neither NBC nor ABC simultaneous streams their nightly newscasts online, although each posts the programs after they run. Both networks also offer Web-only news programs.

NBC streams a free, ad-supported its Nightly News with Brian Williams after 10 p.m. ET. and offers a free, daily, Web-exclusive newscast, The Early Nightly.

ABC offers World News Tonight’s newscasts at 6 a.m. the next day as part of a $4.95 subscription package. The network, since January 2006, has also produced a unique World News Webcast for the Internet. In June, that Webcast was downloaded 7.6 million times on ABCnews.com and iTunes, ABC says.

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© 2006, Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Adviser Soapbox
Old Media Grow Richer On The Net
Clem Chambers, ADVFN.com 08.15.06, 11:35 AM ET

When a new medium like the Internet comes along, it is very easy to predict the doom of the old. Exciting new media dynamics certainly cast a shadow over the incumbents, but the advent of new technology has always caused people to predict the demise of the seemingly obsolete established players.

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The invention of radio was going to kill newspapers; the advent of television was going to kill radio, cinema and newspapers. The older among us will remember that the computer was going to banish paper from the office and replace textbooks and so on. Yet in all instances, there has never been more apparently "obsolete media" around than today.

Today, the Internet is going to kill newspapers, TV and destroy the music and movie businesses. It seems obvious that much of the content that used to be handsomely charged for is now, in one form or another, free on the Web. This neo-communist "everything for free" model can surely only eviscerate the old capitalist media paradigm and ultimately wipe it off the map.

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Yet history suggests differently. It tells us that we can simply expect more music, more movies, more TV, more print media--and the companies that make it will do better than before. Business models will have to change, and prices will fall while new innovations will be made; this will ultimately drive more consumption and greater diversity. The "old media" businesses will adapt, and change will drive more consumption and create a bigger overall pie.

TV is an interesting example. Without a doubt, this is a dire medium facing big problems. Young people--its most treasured audience--are drifting away from the offering, and can you blame them? How many programs can deliver, in their allotted 30 minutes, what can't be found on the Web in five? How can TV compete with the Internet when it offers little other than an infinite choice of advertising-slathered, content-free nonsense?

TV has plenty of time to adapt, though, and plenty of new distribution channels to morph into. Audiences have huge inertia when it comes to swapping from existing patterns to new ways of doing things; it takes years for significant changes to bite.

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Meanwhile, a computer may as well be a TV, and soon your mobile phone will be a TV, and in a few years any surface, public or private, can--and most probably will--become a TV (and likewise a net-enabled device). The Internet and TV will become one, and with that, TV and Internet companies will be in the same industry.

The word "multimedia" has, since its inception, been a huge conceptual millstone, as what we are experiencing is the opposite--not "multi-" but "uni-." The changes in media are being brought about by the effect of a "unimedia": one medium able to encapsulate and deliver content from all other media. With unimedia, it is clear that most types of content are going to be delivered on digital platforms and that these platforms are compelling.

On a unimedia platform, such as a PC, we are already watching TV broadcasts, listening to the radio, watching films and reading news--and pretty much the same companies that produce and distribute this material will do so in the future. Old media will change their business models and retain their audiences, and few will perish.

In music, for instance, the question is not how to make music but how to distribute it for a profit. Sites like News Corp.'s MySpace and SoundClick sport millions of free tracks for download, so much so that no one should ever need to pay to hear a good song ever again. What business model can there be in a marketing environment where millions of legitimate songs are available for nothing, even without potential customers spending ten minutes to download software that will allow them to steal the rest at the click of a mouse?

Yet people love Internet radio, and online music distributors like MusicNet or RealNetworks' Rhapsody will pay one cent per user per play of a song--that's 12 cents to 24 cents per user hour to a record company. Is the music industry doomed if it can give music away and capture $2 to $5 per listener per day of royalty stream, especially when that stream of revenue can be supplemented by radio station advertising?

More likely than economic doom, the answer to this crisis is the return of the three-and-a-half-minute catchy pop song. This bodes well for the advertising industry and the new-breed advertising networks of Google, Yahoo!, MSN from Microsoft and smaller denizens like AdBrite. Likewise, the tech companies caught in hiatus by the passing of the Windows/Intel hegemony can look forward to a new era of building the infrastructure of all-pervasive digital delivery.

Meanwhile, there will be yet more books and newspapers, and one day, you will be able to click on them and watch TV.

Clem Chambers is CEO of stocks and investment Web site ADVFN. For free real-time stock prices go to www.advfn.com. E-mail: clemcham@advfn.com

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Beijing Might Issue Regulations
Aimed at Censoring Online Videos

By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER and JUYING QIN
August 17, 2006; Page A6

China may issue new regulations to censor online videos, extending the government's efforts to control the Internet into a burgeoning new type of Web content.

But it remains unclear exactly who would be targeted by the regulations -- service providers or individual video creators -- and how the rules would be implemented.

China's official Xinhua news agency yesterday reported that the country would "issue new regulations against Web sites which broadcast short films without state permission," citing the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, or Sarft, as its source.

A Sarft spokesman didn't answer the phone yesterday, but on Tuesday said the agency didn't "have such a regulation yet."

Staff at several Chinese Web sites that feature video content said yesterday that they hadn't been briefed on the regulations and that Sarft hadn't answered their questions on the matter.

Xinhua, which issued the report only on its English-language service, said the regulations would be unveiled this month or in September.

Analyst Duncan Clark, of telecommunications-research firm BDA China Ltd., said the potential regulations may be part of a turf battle between different parts of the government. Sarft, which typically controls TV and film, may be trying "to extend offline controls to online media," he said.

In the U.S., Web sites such as YouTube.com are thriving on the popularity of short online videos. In China, similar videos, usually made by amateurs, have in recent months become a hit among the country's 123 million Internet users. Many of the videos are parodies and pass among friends via email or content-sharing sites such as Mop.com and Uusee.com.

Some videos have provoked outcry over their content. This year, bloggers went on a virtual manhunt for a woman who appeared in an online video apparently killing a kitten with her stiletto heels. Other videos contain lightly veiled political commentary.

China's censorship system blocks citizens from seeing certain Web sites based outside the country and sometimes filters phrases including "freedom of speech" and "human rights." Authorities may be taking action now because new types of Internet content such as video aren't as easy to control.

It isn't clear how the new regulation would be enforced and whether it would require the registration of individual videos, creators or online-service providers. In 2004, Sarft published regulations requiring audio and video programs on the Internet to be certified, but the rules weren't heavily enforced.

The Xinhua report said popular Web portals Sina, Sohu and Netease will be "authorized providers of online video programs" under the new regulations, while other sites "face an uncertain fate as the administration will inspect the online video contents they release."

At an informal industry gathering in Beijing Tuesday organized by the Internet Society of China, attendees from several sites that feature video clips shared concerns about the supposed new regulation, first mentioned in Chinese newspapers on Monday. "No one knows what the regulation will be like," said Wan Zhihua, a business-development director at Uusee.com, who was at that meeting. His site broadcasts videos it has licensed from content producers.

The new regulations won't necessarily bring business woes to these Web sites, said William Bao Bean, an equity analyst with Deutsche Bank Securities. "Generally, nobody makes money off videos yet" in China, he said.

Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com1

Reporters must testify over Bonds leak

August 15, 2006 From the Associated Press

DAVID KRAVETS
Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge told two San Francisco Chronicle reporters they must comply with a subpoena and tell a grand jury who leaked them secret testimony of Barry Bonds and other elite athletes ensnared in the government's steroid probe.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White means reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada must appear before a grand jury investigating the leak unless a higher court blocks the ruling. The pair have said they would not testify and would go to jail rather than reveal their source or sources.

"Lance and I are firmly standing behind our sources," Fainaru-Wada said shortly after the decision.

The two reporters published a series of articles and a book based partly on transcripts of testimony by Bonds, Jason Giambi and others who testified in the grand jury investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. Known as BALCO, the Burlingame-based nutritional supplement company was exposed as a steroid ring.

The criminal conduct being investigated in the Bonds leak case includes possible perjury and obstruction of justice by government officials, defendants in the BALCO probe and their attorneys. All of them had access to the documents, but have sworn they weren't the source of the leak.

The government told White that its investigation has turned up empty, and that Williams and Fainaru-Wada are the last hope of finding the culprit or culprits.

In his ruling, White said his hands were tied by a 1972 Supreme Court precedent that no one, including journalists, was above the law and may refuse to testify before a federal grand jury.

White added that Congress has not adopted a shield law to protect journalists from testifying before grand juries. Most states have shielded reporters from testifying on behalf of the government in state criminal probes.

"The court finds itself bound by the law governing this case to subordinate (the reporters') interests to the interests of the grand jury," White ruled.

The Hearst Corp., owner of the Chronicle, argued that the reporters should be immune to testifying because of a combination of factors, including the First Amendment.

Hearst said it would appeal the ruling.

"We believe we will ultimately prevail and that is clearly what is in the public's best interest," said Eve Burton, the company's general counsel.

Hearst argued that the leak doesn't involve national security and that a lot of good has come from the writers' reporting.

As a result, it said, Major League Baseball toughened its steroids-testing policy, as did track and field. Sentences for steroid distribution were strengthened, and the public awareness of the dangers of steroids was raised.

The government discounted that the pair's reporting on the topic was cause for such results.

Williams and Fainaru-Wada reported, among other things, that Bonds denied knowingly using steroids when he told the BALCO grand jury that his trainer had given him what he thought was flaxseed oil and arthritic balm. That trainer, Greg Anderson, was convicted of steroid distribution charges in the BALCO probe.

Another grand jury is investigating whether Bonds committed perjury during that 2003 testimony.

Williams and Fainaru-Wada are the latest reporters ordered to testify before a federal grand jury investigating government leaks. New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for 85 days last year for refusing to testify in an investigation into the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name.

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are handling the leak probe and declined to say when they would order the pair before the grand jury.

The case is United States v. Fainaru-Wada, 06-90225.

Senate votes to protect college newspaper

First Amendment rights

Associated Press
August 10, 2006

Without debate, the Senate on Thursday sent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a
bill that would make California the first state to prohibit college and
university administrators from censoring student newspapers.

Sen. Debra Bowen, a Democrat from Redondo Beach, said the bill would give
college journalists the same free-press rights as high school reporters and
their professional colleagues. The measure passed on a 31-2 vote.

The bill is in response to a ruling last year by the 7th U.S. District Court
of Appeals in Chicago. The court said administrators at Midwest universities
could review student articles before publication if their student-run
newspapers are published under the auspices of the college.

The California Newspaper Publishers Association and free-speech advocates
argued that state college administrators might try to apply the ruling to
campuses in other states.

Bowen referred specifically to a memo from Christine Helwick, general
counsel for the California State University system, suggesting that campus
presidents may "have more latitude than previously believed to censor the
content of subsidized student newspapers."

California in 1992 adopted a law protecting high school students from
censorship, except for material that is obscene, libelous or slanderous.

Bowen said students at CSU, University of California and community college
campuses should be given the same protections as professional journalists.

Under the bill, campus administrators still could discipline students for
publishing hate speech. Campus newspapers also would be subject to libel and
slander laws.

The Assembly approved the bill 76-0 in May.

Big Media on Campus

College Papers Around the U.S.
Are Drawing Young Readers

And Luring Major Advertisers By EMILY STEEL
August 9, 2006; Page B1

It's not breaking news that the newspaper industry is losing the attention of young readers. But one sector of the industry is defying the trend: college papers.

Hip, local, relevant and generated by students themselves, college newspapers have held steady readership in recent years while newspapers in general have seen theirs shrink. Big advertisers are going on campus to reach these young readers. Ford Motor Co., Microsoft Corp., Samsung Electronics Co., and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. have all placed recent ads in college newspapers.

Now, media giants are jumping in. Last week, Gannett Co.'s Tallahassee Democrat acquired Florida State University's FSView & Florida Flambeau, one of the nation's few for-profit college newspapers. The same day, Viacom Inc.'s MTV, which already runs a network targeted at college campuses called mtvU, agreed to buy Y2M: Youth Media & Marketing Networks, a company that hosts the Web sites for 450 campus papers. MTV executives hope the deal will give mtvU credibility in the college community, providing its advertisers with easy access to college students.

While the newspaper industry suffers through a funk, college newspapers are keeping the attention of coveted young readers.

"College newspapers are the most relevant brand on any campus," says Stephen Friedman, general manager of mtvU. "It immediately gives our advertisers another visceral connection with this audience."

It's an audience that reads regularly, despite the conventional wisdom. According to a 2005 survey by market research firm Student Monitor, 71% of college students read at least one of the last five issues of the college paper. By contrast, 46% of students (down from 49% last year) read the print version of at least one national newspaper in a typical week, according to Student Monitor.

College teens and twentysomethings also have money to spend. Seventeen million people are now enrolled in U.S. colleges, the largest number in history, spending $182 billion a year -- $46 billion of which is discretionary spending, up 12% from last year, according to market research firm Harris Interactive. "There is a lot of money here," says Kathy Lawrence, director of Texas Student Media for 23 years. National advertisers "didn't recognize for a long time what a valuable asset this is for them."

Meanwhile, off-campus print publications aimed at teens are struggling. Both Time Inc.'s Teen People and Hachette Filipacchi Media's Elle Girl magazines recently decided to kill their print editions. Time Inc.'s Sports Illustrated last year abandoned a two-year-old effort to distribute a spin-off for college students, SI on Campus, at 150 universities. The three magazines now are published online.

But most students still pick up the college paper present on almost every campus, and feel a special connection to it. College students often live in walled communities with their own specific shared interests. Campus newspapers offer news that is unique, about students, faculty, administrations, and, for the most part, free. And running the occasional Sudoku doesn't hurt. A recent issue of University of Texas at Austin's the Daily Texan included stories about the upcoming football season and a dispute between University shuttle bus drivers and their employers.

"As one group of students leaves, another comes in and the tradition of reading the college paper continues. There is no other way to get the local campus news and the entertainment provided by the fellow students," says Joey Powell, who oversaw a $1.5 million local advertising budget as student advertising manager for the University of Georgia's paper, the Red and Black.

Campus papers are not completely immune from problems facing big metropolitan papers. Most have seen weakness in local advertising, a result of flagging local economies in small towns as well as a shift among local advertisers to the Web. But national advertising, after falling sharply in the wake of 9/11, has been rising steadily at many big college papers in the past couple of years. For example, the Lantern, Ohio State University's 28,000-circulation student paper, has seen national ad revenue rise 27% in the past five years while local ad revenue has grown 4%, according to Ray Catalino, the Lantern's business manager. Overall ad revenue is up 21% since 2004, although it is still a little below the peak it hit in the 1999-2000 school year.

Among the big marketers running ads in college papers last school year was Wal-Mart, which says it plans to do so again this coming year. Some of the company's ads promoted merchandise for back to college goods, like dorm-room supplies. "Advertising in college newspapers is highly targeted and comparatively efficient way to reach these students," says Linda Blakely, senior corporate communications manager for Wal-Mart.

College papers are also becoming increasingly sophisticated at extending their franchise to lure in more ad dollars. The Daily Texan (28,000 circulation), and its Web site (10,600 daily users) is the core of what has evolved into a $2.3 million multimedia operation which also includes radio and TV stations, a humor magazine, and an online search tool for apartments. "We're not just selling a newspaper anymore," says Brian Tschoepe, student ad director of Texas Student Media.

Most college newspapers are nonprofit organizations, with missions to inform the university community and provide a training ground for students. Their revenue is funneled back into the operation, supporting trips to journalism conferences, professional staffs and the latest technology systems. Some college newspapers, like the University of Iowa's the Daily Iowan, receive a portion of student fees. Others, like the Daily Pennsylvanian, are financially independent from the university.

Very few campus papers are for-profit businesses, like Florida State's FSView & Florida Flambeau, which has a 25,000 twice-weekly circulation and an annual budget and sales volume estimated in the top 5% of college newspapers. Patrick Dorsey, president and publisher of the Gannett-owned Tallahassee Democrat, would not disclose the terms of the acquisition. Robert Parker, the college paper's former publisher, who now serves as a consultant for Gannett, says the deal provides the student newspaper with long-term financial stability and training opportunities for young journalists. Student editors will still control the twice-weekly publication's independent, student-generated content, which recently included headlines like "Oh crap, World War III" and "'Tis the season...to party."

Gannett spokeswoman Tara Connell says the company doesn't rule out buying another student newspaper. "Would we do it again if the circumstances were right? Sure," says Ms. Connell.

Write to Emily Steel at emily.steel@wsj.com

University of California Libraries
Join Google's Book-Scanning Project

By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter
August 9, 2006; Page A12

SAN FRANCISCO -- The University of California said it will let Google Inc. digitize millions of volumes in its libraries as part of the Internet-search firm's book-scanning program.

The California public-university system joins a handful of institutions, including the University of Michigan and Stanford University, which are allowing Google to scan at least parts of their collections.

Under the Google program announced in late 2004, the Mountain View, Calif., company takes digital pictures of the books' pages and allows consumers to search for keywords in their texts. Google displays short excerpts for books that remain in copyright. But several publishers and an authors' trade group separately filed still-pending suits against Google last year claiming the book scanning violates copyrights.

The University of California already is digitizing a portion of its collection through its membership in the Open Content Alliance

25 Years Down the Tube

By Hank Stuever
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 1, 2006; C01

MTV turns 25 today, which is still a few months younger than Justin Timberlake.

The typical way to go from that sentence would be to bemoan -- in snarkabratory fashion -- what MTV has become since it first transfixed some lucky cable-ready teenagers on Aug. 1, 1981. (Those of us first labeled "the MTV Generation" would now like to apologize to all the parents with basic cable who hired us as babysitters in those days. You should know this: Your small children went unsupervised, unless they happened to pass between our eyeballs and Adam Ant's.)

But for real? MTV has never been better.

You get older, while MTV happily and wisely regresses. You watch in slack-jawed horror as it takes you into the details of a $200,000 16th-birthday party for another irreparably spoiled spawn of the baby boomers or, after that, stay tuned as MTV takes you on a bus with five 19- or 20-year-old women, all with tramp-stamp tattoos on their tailbones, as they find themselves "Next"-ed by a finicky, shirtless, overmuscled dipwad. You watch the entire "Making the Video" with Jessica Simpson's new video and feel a combination of loathing and rapt fascination. MTV guarantees you a lifetime pass into someone else's spring break.

What, after all, would be the point of being MTV if it were still pleasing to the Gen-X eye? I need now for MTV to disgust me even as it lures me in. I rely on it now as the cleanest, surest path to the American teenage id. The worst that could happen to MTV is also the best that could happen: Everyone older than 30 finds it boring, or too different, or irrelevant, or a barrage of immaturity. And whenever MTV reaches a milestone, people whine that it lost its juice long ago by abandoning its original format -- music videos day and night, eased along by VJs wearing bigger and bigger shoulder pads, with higher and higher hair. "Remember when MTV played videos?" asked the front page of Friday's USA Today, waving its cane.

For those reasons, the network is understandably cautious about nostalgic reflection or cutting much cake; its publicists are unhelpful about digging up archival photos, claiming even that no such history exists, that at MTV, it is always about the now. Its only nod to the occasion was to begin airing last week as "A.D.D. Videos," showing just a glimpse of iconic music clips from each year of its history, in five-year chunklets. ("A.D.D." for attention-deficit disorder, which is one of MTV's proudest legacies.)

There, in a sort of cuneiform recitation of the ancients, are "Rock the Casbah" by the Clash representin' 1982; "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" by Whitney Houston for 1987; "One" by U2 for 1992, and so on. If you would like to see more old videos, in their entirety, and also see a lot of new videos and a lot of short commercials for Toyotas, Tampax, video games and acne creams, you must do what MTV wants all its viewers to do now: Go online, to MTV Overdrive. There are more videos to watch now than ever, on your laptop. Go to iTunes, go to YouTube, go to the artists' Web sites, go to this one site where some guy is obsessively archiving videos from the 1980s. Gorge yourself on music videos, past and present. Over at VH1, which debuted Jan. 1, 1985, as an adult-oriented music channel, they would love to bathe you in their fountain of endless flashback.

But do relieve MTV of the burden of being its old self. It has now been around long enough for its first generation of viewers to forsake it, only to have some of us frequently and curiously return, this time as voyeurs.

* * *

Mother, forgive me, but I still waste a lot of time watching plain ol' basic-cable MTV.

Not all adults can do this, and I sympathize with parents who struggle to know how much of it to let in, and how much of it is just too much. A certain moral clarity sets in about media, and part of the longing for the days of Billy Idol is, on some level, because Billy Idol merely cavorted with dark-sided imagery, zombies and smoke. Billy Idol did not kick a girl back on the "Next" bus because he deemed her too fat. Billy Idol said it was a nice day for a white wedding; Billy Idol did not rent an elephant, a helicopter, a stripper and a foul-mouthed rapper for his daughter's velvet-rope birthday party.

The other grown-up in my household has a claw-the-walls response to just a few minutes' exposure to "Laguna Beach," MTV's enhanced-reality series about rich kids in Orange County. Why do you watch it? Turn it down. Turn it off. This is a refrain heard from the saner people in my childhood, and now. I cannot exactly say how or if my life is enhanced by knowing about Kristin and L.C. and Talan and Jason, but I do know them now, and there it is -- nothing. If you needed a stack of photos of "Real World" cast members sorted by city and year going back to 1992, I could probably handle it unassisted, and that also means nothing.

The answer has always been nothing, even when my mother begged me to get up off the den floor and do something, go somewhere, get up; MTV means nothing. "I hate television," Orson Welles told the New York Herald Tribune in 1956. "I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts." I've always leaned on these words when describing my inseparability from MTV.

I turn it on in the mornings, while getting ready, instead of the news. I watch it especially in summertime, for some aural-aesthetic reason I can't exactly explain -- what comforting solace some men find in the sound of a baseball game on television on a summer Saturday, I find in moving about the house while MTV blares in the background. Perhaps because so many of my youthful, endless (but ended) summers were spent watching too much MTV, in between mowing yards or floating in a pool or working at the mall or simply ignoring everything. Summer with MTV was about beach-house parties (the ones MTV had) and Live Aid and "120 Minutes" in the waning hours of the weekend; later, "Real World" chapters and "Beavis and Butt-head" cartoons echoing through my first apartments and group houses. The sound of MTV means you are home from college no matter how long ago college was; it's a sound that says that life has stopped, for a moment.

Somewhere between VJ Julie Brown's incantations of "wubba, wubba, wubba" every afternoon on the dance party and the 1994 death of AIDS activist Pedro Zamora, one of the San Francisco "Real World"-ers, MTV embarked on its much-criticized metamorphosis from music channel to lifestyle arbiter. This was when Bill Clinton showed up and talked about his underwear. You had to rock the vote, vote or die, get tested, free your mind (and the rest will follow). The partying vibe seemed to intensify, although the target age by now would never be able to legally drink. Having spent its first decade immersed in fictional, visual narratives of the rock star life (music videos), MTV set about making it all come true.

To watch MTV now without disdain is to understand oneself as the primary celebrity. It's about your friends and your party, your body, your tattoos, your gizmos. Of all the warnings sounded by cultural worrywarts in early-MTV times, this is the one that came the most true: Kids would emulate it.

Did they ever.

* * *

The attentive, lifelong watcher of MTV also can intuit something most critics never have -- a kind of basic moral grounding. Yes, a moral center in MTV.

For all its noise, the network is a very good listener. Recall that teenagers are most hungry for narrative about one another's lives. MTV goes to wars and disasters and elections; some of its least-heralded shows embrace the core values of documentary journalism. "True Life" routinely introduces viewers to other people's beliefs and motivations and gastric-bypass surgeries. "Room Raiders," though vulgar, literally rummages through the drawers and closets of college students, which must seem terribly fascinating to a 15-year-old who is anticipating life at 20. "Made," now in its seventh season, acts on a teenager's desire to improve on (in some cases, completely reinvent) himself -- which, I duly note, gets to the very thing my mother was imploring me to do: Get off the couch. Turn off the MTV. Live your life. Very often, for a teenager to be "Made," she or he has to simply get up and see what's around her.

MTV abhors close-mindedness, intolerance; it also likes to expose liars, whether they are Alpha girls in high school hallways or, in a way, Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson. Although the "Newlyweds" starred in a reality show where final editing control rested with her father/manager, in MTV's realm, the couple became nothing if not a cautionary tale about what marriage really means, and whether you're ready to balance it with everything else. And those episodes of "My Super Sweet 16" come more from a place of tut-tutting than their participants will ever know, a casual dissection of misplaced, consumer-driven values. "The Osbournes," which now exists dimly in MTV's characteristic failure to recall its past, provided fresh data on the plusses and minuses of millennial-age, loose-rules parenting.

"The Real World" went from exploring how to get your adulthood started (remember that its earliest housemates were trying to do something on their own -- one was a doctor, one was a journalist, one was an AIDS activist) to a recurring drama of sloth, ill tempers, wasted days and wasted nights. "Real World" producers quickly surmised that people prefer to watch other people do nothing with their immediate futures. The ratings were better if the housemates were dopier, prettier, drunker -- and willing to come back season after season to compete in obstacle courses against one another for relatively little cash reward, as if living in some kind of MTV indentured servitude. Is there not some desperate moral at the bottom of all that? For all the tens of thousands of college students who apply each season to be on "The Real World," aren't there millions more who tune in and see them ultimately as dupes?

No? Well, I've never been able to make a complete case for MTV, whether arguing with my mother in 1980-something or giving it a sideways glance in 2006.

But I can recall a blazing hot afternoon in New York a few summers ago, walking from Central Park to Penn Station to get a train home. I hit Times Square just when teenagers, waving signs, were screaming up at the plate-glass windows of MTV's studios during the day's live taping of "Total Request Live." I didn't stop, but I took some brief solace at crossing MTV's path.

More and more, it feels as if there is no longer such a thing as mass culture. MTV, for good or bad, still reassures me that there is.

August 7, 2006

Cable and Satellite TV Set Their Sights on Airwaves

By MATT RICHTEL and KEN BELSON

In the telecommunications business, it seems everyone wants to do everything. Now the biggest names in cable and satellite television are poised to get into mobile phone and wireless data services.

On Wednesday, Time Warner, Comcast, Cox Communications, EchoStar Communications and DirecTV, a unit of the News Corporation, will be among the 168 qualified bidders in the government’s multibillion-dollar auction of radio spectrum, that precious commodity that allows voice calls and data to be sent over the airwaves.

But these companies are not necessarily planning to use those frequencies for TV signals. Rather, they appear to be preparing to battle AT&T, Verizon Communications and other companies that sell traditional phone lines, broadband connections and wireless services — and are now diving into television.

Though the cable and satellite providers declined to discuss their strategies, many analysts expect them to buy at least enough spectrum to build networks that will allow them to sell wireless Internet connections and mobile phone services.

That would let the cable companies and, to a lesser degree, the satellite companies, complete a decade-long transformation: instead of just selling packages of TV channels, they are becoming one-stop shops with a full line of communications products.

“The nontraditional players will be the main bidders,” said Sharon Armbrust, an analyst at Kagan Research. “It’s a hole in their game plan they need to fill.”

An alliance that includes DirecTV and EchoStar has put the most money into a deposit for the bidding, more than $972 million. Another alliance, led by Comcast, Cox, Time Warner Cable and others, has put down $638 million. T-Mobile, Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless have made separate deposits.

To counter the cable and satellite companies, cellphone companies are expected to add to their stores of spectrum, particularly in cities where their networks get the most use. They may also bid up the price of some of the 1,122 licenses on sale to make it more expensive for their rivals to gain a foothold in an already intensely competitive market, analysts said.

Whoever wins the auctions, the mobile phone industry is at a crossroads. Now that nearly three out of every four Americans have cellphones, new subscriber growth is starting to slow and competition to retain customers and find new ones is intensifying.

As one indicator, newcomers like ESPN Mobile and Helio — which run over the Sprint Nextel network rather than operate their own — have so far found it tough to gain traction, analysts said.

Their challenges have raised questions about whether new entrants can survive in an already crowded market. They have also cast doubt on whether sophisticated data plans that let users download music, send e-mail and watch television are worth the investment.

Verizon Wireless, which has spent years and invested billions of dollars in its data services, is just starting to see the benefits. It brought in more than $1 billion from such services in the second quarter, nearly twice as much as in the second quarter of 2005. Cingular and Sprint have similar services up and running, making it tough for new entrants. It also means that adding more spectrum is a luxury rather than a necessity for the three largest wireless carriers.

“We will always look at spectrum,” said Doreen A. Toben, chief financial officer at Verizon Communications. “But we are in good shape through 2010, so there is no gun to our head to buy now.”

Verizon and other big carriers may tread lightly in this auction and instead focus on an auction scheduled for 2008, analysts said. That spectrum, now used by broadcasters, is better suited to the types of video services mobile phone carriers are keen to offer.

However, T-Mobile, the No. 4 player in the mobile market and a unit of Deutsche Telekom, does not offer many of these so-called third-generation services. It is expected to be an eager buyer of spectrum in this round so it can introduce services to catch up to its larger rivals.

“T-Mobile is quite spectrum-constrained in quite a few markets,” said Roger Entner, a telecommunications analyst at Ovum Research. “They desperately need that spectrum.”

The outcome of the auction is not likely to be known for weeks because the format allows for many rounds of bids. But it is unusual for its size and scope. The blocks of spectrum for sale — many of which were reserved for the military and other government agencies — stretch across the country, so they represent a rare chance for newcomers to quickly offer nationwide service.

Analyst estimates of how much the auction could raise for the Treasury vary widely, from $7 billion to $21.5 billion, which means it has the potential to surpass the $16.8 billion worth of bids in 2000 and 2001. The average paid per license, though, is unlikely to surpass the prices paid during the height of the dot-com boom, when some companies overbid and went bankrupt.

Some analysts also said the bidding might be tempered by the slumping values of wireless stocks and fears that the industry is already overcrowded.

Still, dozens of smaller and regional companies are expected to bid as they try to cover rural areas and expand into potentially lucrative services offering ultrahigh-speed wireless Internet connections, particularly in less-populated areas of the country.

But the risks for them are high. Even after buying spectrum, they will need to build cellphone towers and other network equipment, work with handset makers to develop phones and products, and market their services — all while giants like Cingular and Verizon counter their moves.

“This is not a mom-and-pop business,” Mr. Entner said. “You need billions of dollars to play this game. It’s quite likely that a few of the bidders of this auction will go out of business and the spectrum will be reallocated.”

Still, the auction could be good for consumers because new companies might get into the game and offer new services, increasing competition and bringing down prices, said Ranjan Mishra, a telecommunications industry analyst with Mercer Management Consulting.

“Given you have so many new players, you’ll have at least one new infrastructure player in each of the major markets,” he said.

The impact of giving consumers another choice for wireless service is unclear, though. The amount customers spend each month on cellphone plans has leveled off, even as carriers have introduced new services on networks that cost billions of dollars to build.

“There’s always a limit to how many guys can survive,” said Bret Sewell, chief executive of Venturi Wireless, which helps carriers offer multimedia services. “Some more competition will be good, but the incumbents are in the strongest position after many years of figuring out mobility.”

Despite the questionable economics, cable and satellite companies feel they have no choice but to participate in the auction. Cellphones are clearly a favorite with consumers, and companies that do not offer wireless services — even money-losing ones — risk losing customers to the Bell companies and their wireless units, Cingular, owned by AT&T and BellSouth, and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone.

For their part, the satellite companies, which have limited broadband services and no phone products, are expected to use any spectrum they buy to offer wireless broadband access, Mr. Mishra said.

“If EchoStar and DirecTV get the spectrum, they’re likely to build broadband networks and compete head-to-head with fiber,” the ground-based networks owned by cable and phone companies, he said. The cable companies now offer cellphone service only by piggybacking on Sprint’s network. Cable companies and Sprint have been working for months to develop products that will, say, let customers program their digital video recorders from their wireless handsets.

In the auction, an alliance of cable companies that includes Comcast, Cox and Time Warner Cable has joined with Sprint to bid for spectrum. Analysts say Sprint could provide expertise in operating wireless networks, while the cable companies could focus on how to combine their existing products with mobile phones without having to rely on Sprint’s network.

Poynteronline
Everyday Ethics: Updates on ethical decision-making in newsrooms big and small, assembled by Poynter's Kelly McBride and colleagues.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Front-Page Ads: How to Protect the Journalism in the Pursuit of Profit? When The Wall Street Journal announced last week that it will begin placing ads on the front page of the Journal, the news prompted a good deal of chatter in journalism circles. I was among those with some thoughts, thoughts that had to do with both business values and journalism values.

The New York Times wrote about this development and that article quoted me as saying, "As a traditionalist, I'm not thrilled by the idea." To be sure, I did say that, and I meant it. I'm not thrilled by the idea of advertising on the front page of the newspaper. But that quote did not fully capture my views on this matter. My abbreviated quotes in that story offered fodder to critics such as Business Week columnist Jon Fine.

As I told the Times, I was not surprised by the announcement, since you can already find ads on some section fronts of The Wall Street Journal, as well as on the front page of the Journal's international edition. And as I pointed out to the Times, "Gannett has changed the equation considerably in the last few years with section-front and front-page ads, and now the Internet has presented a whole new table top." Examine the home page of just about any news organization Web site, and you will find a mixture of news content and advertising, with the ads increasingly bold in placement, style and tone.

Photo by Bill Mitchell/Poynter The New York Times began selling ads on the front page of its business section earlier this month.

I recognize and accept that news organizations must continually develop new revenue streams to fuel the engines that make the enterprise viable. Simply put, a news organization won't have a strong journalism product unless the business side is healthy. I understand why front-page ads can make good business sense. The front page is primo territory and the sales side can command big bucks from those who want their brands and messages out front.

I also recognize that front-page ads are not new. Spend some time looking at newspapers of generations past and you will find many examples of advertising on the front page. Heck, even Nelson Poynter, the venerable and principled owner of the St. Petersburg Times, championed this concept.

If you grab a copy of Robert Pierce's book, "A Sacred Trust," and go to page 269, you will see the evidence: "Poynter would not permit pressure from the advertising department on the editorial side," Pierce wrote about Nelson Poynter. "But his view of ad placement was strangely incongruous. He believed in maximum use of newsprint, and long before the [executive editor Don]Baldwin era he insisted on selling the ears -- the space on each side of the page-one nameplate. To many news staffers this was a gross journalistic indignity, and although Baldwin also detested it, he got nowhere in trying to dissuade Poynter."

I'm sure I, too, would have made no progress in debating this matter of front-page ads with Nelson Poynter. (Poynter founded the Poynter Institute, which owns the St. Petersburg Times.) And I doubt that that I would get much traction in debating the issue with the executives at The Wall Street Journal.

But I hope that there is a healthy discussion going on in every news organization about the tensions that exist between business values and journalism values. That's where the tradition comes into play.

It's not a tradition that absolutely rejects front-page advertising, for no such tradition exists. Rather, it's a tradition that speaks clearly about the public service role of journalism.

This tradition emphasizes the belief that journalism has a very special responsibility in our society. The journalism -- both in process and product -- should be protected from out-of-proportion commercial interests.

If we are to keep moving toward more advertising content that competes with the premium news space, we must make sure the journalism does not suffer. If we keep cutting the news hole on the front page, the section fronts and throughout the paper, we must find ways to make the journalism all the stronger.

And, importantly, if we are to make more bucks by selling the out-front space, let's make sure that some of the increased revenue goes right back into the commitment to journalism.

For more thoughts on this issue, I commend to you the thoughts of Seattle Times' executive editor Mike Fancher. He devoted his Sunday column to the tensions that can exist between the news and business sides of a newspaper. He is a wise man and a good leader who has a lot of respect for his colleagues in other departments at the paper. He wrote about the importance that all the stakeholders at The Seattle Times -- representatives from news, advertising, circulation and marketing -- share "the same commitment to journalistic and business excellence."

Fancher's words are worth pondering and discussing in every news organization across the land.