KnightComm: Strengthening journalism, communities and democracy in the digital age

NPR’s Argo Project to Boost Local Journalism

KnightComm — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 22:18:30 +0000

NPR President Vivian Schiller

NPR Taps into Local Expertise with Argo Project

by Ron Mwangaguhunga, posted to eMedia Vitals, August 28, 2010, http://emediavitals.com/blog/1073/nprs-argo-project

Next week NPR launches its multi-platform digital initiative, the Argo Project. The project creates a dozen content verticals in subject areas ranging from Seattle-based KPLU’s Humanosphere, which covers issues involving the reduction of poverty as well as global health concerns, to WNYC’s hyper-targeted vertical The Empire, which covers New York politics.

The Argo Project aims to expand NPR’s coverage in where particular NPR member stations excel. Member stations run the blogs, which seek increasingly to fill the void where local newspapers are in decline with their own brand of non-profit journalism. “We feel that it is crucially important to the system as a whole for us to develop and deepen our local newsgathering capacity,” Kinsey Wilson, formerly the vice president and editor-in-chief of USA Today.com, presently overseeing digital operations for NPR told Current.

Room on the Dial: Group Wants Community Radio in Scranton

NewAmerica.net Blog Posts — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:27:06 +0000

The following post is by Jessica Durkin, founder of InOtherNews.us and a Knight Media Policy Fellow at New America Foundation, Media Policy Initiative. Durkin and MPI director Tom Glaisyer coauthored the study, An Information Community Case Study: Scranton, release 1.1, May 2010. This post is the second of a series that will document Scranton’s information ecosystem and how it is changing.

Room on the Dial: Group Wants Community Radio in Scranton

by Jessica Durkin, Sustaining Media in the Digital Age blog, New America Foundation, originally posted August 21, 2010

Logo for WFTE 90.3 FM: People's Radio for the Scranton Area

Scranton, Pa. — The FCC has granted Scranton a grassroots opportunity.

Armed with a temporary radio construction permit and guided by the Prometheus Radio Project, local non-profit organization Community Radio Collective, Inc. plans to launch full-power FM station WFTE 90.3 and they have five months to do it.

Community Radio Collective has begun a capital campaign to raise $15,000 to be on the air by midnight Feb. 10, 2011, when its construction permit expires. The money will pay for a 60-foot tower to be built 10 miles away in Mount Cobb, creating an FM signal strong enough to reach the city and its suburbs clearly—that is, an area of about 200,000 people.

MPI is studying Scranton’s news and information landscape and has published findings in a case study. The study is based on the recommendations outlined in the Knight Commission’s “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age” report.

Pointing to Knight Commission ideals, a community radio station could empower citizen participation in self-governance, ensure a local community information hub and expand individuals’ information capacity.

Studying Scranton, we found that while area residents have standard media choices, there is little diversity in media ownership and journalist layoffs have precipitated insufficient community coverage.

Those findings were confirmed Wednesday night by the 25 people who turned out for a discussion, “Scranton’s media problems and potential solutions,” hosted by WFTE founder Alex Allen and Community Radio Collective Chairman Jake Rosen. When asked what they want in local radio, the 25 participants said that they are looking for an antidote to the “sameness” of corporate radio music lists and a counterpoint to conservative talk shows.

Among their expectations: airspace for citizen journalism, ethnic communities, local progressive talk, regional bands and artists and radio theater. Many specifically asked to hear Democracy Now, a popular syndicated program hosted by Amy Goodman. Organizers said that show has pledged a free broadcast feed for one year to the station upon launch.

If WFTE 90.3 is successful, the volunteer- and donation-supported radio station will be a media outlet responsive to listeners and aimed at countering a corporate media environment that, the founders believe, is often disconnected from its audience.

As described by WFTE, the mission is to bring a “sorely needed” progressive movement to Northeast Pennsylvania.

“WFTE shall aim to create and provide high quality, innovative and community-oriented programming serving communities, information, and ideas that are ignored, suppressed, overlooked, or underserved by the mainstream media,” according to WFTE press materials.

About 30 radio stations across the region can be picked up on the dial in Scranton, and nine of those stations are based in or near the city. Times-Shamrock Communications, publisher of the Scranton Times-Tribune, owns three commercial radio stations that are broadcast to the region, operated by the company’s Shamrock Communications division.

Should WFTE raise the money it needs to go on air, it will join WVIA 89.9 FM, the region’s National Public Radio affiliate, the University of Scranton’s WUSR 99.5 FM, plus a number of Christian-themed stations on the noncommercial spectrum.

Beyond the station tower, a second campaign will seek to raise an additional $40,000 for operations and studio space in Scranton.

In October 2007, the Federal Communications Commission opened a one-week window for nonprofits to apply for noncommercial educational (NCE) radio station permits. WFTE was granted the radio construction permit through that offer.

An exact count of community radio stations in the country is difficult to obtain since “community radio” is a loose categorization that can include low and high power FM, noncommercial, and public radio, but the industry trade group National Federation of Community Broadcasters counts more than 200 members.

Prometheus Radio is also assisting the start-up Williamsport Community Radio WXPI 88.5 FM in Williamsport, Pa., in the north-central part of the state. According to its website, Prometheus has “supported hundreds of community organizations to apply for licenses and build their stations, touring the country to reach out to community groups and spread the word about LPFM. Prometheus organized 11 ‘radio barnraisings,’ where hundreds of volunteers gather to build a radio station in three days. These radio barnraisings have helped groups build their base while training a new generation of media organizers across the country.”

Source: http://mediapolicy.newamerica.net/blogposts/2010/room_on_the_dial_group_wants_community_radio_in_scranton-35857

Dutton: “A Renewed Focus on the Quality of Local News and Information”

KnightComm — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:42:51 +0000

“A Renewed Focus on the Quality of Local News and Information“ by William H. Dutton, Director of the Oxford Internet Institute and Professor of Internet Studies at Oxford University, posted to his blog, August 13, 2010.

The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program is organizing an event focused on News Cities: The Next Generation of Healthy Informed Communities on August 16, starting at 10:30 a.m. eastern time, which will be an interactive livestream. The Twitter hashtag for this event is #FOCAS10. Their aim is to ‘develop a set of actionable steps to improve the information health of communities.’ This builds on work of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, and renewed focus in the UK on the role of the Internet and the media in local communities…

It’s Time for a National Commitment to Digital Literacy

Amy Garmer — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 22:56:53 +0000

Having a computer in the home is widely considered a starting point for improving kids’ educational opportunities and learning environment today. Renee Hobbs points out in this recent op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer that, without good instruction in how to use the digital tools available, a computer in the home can actually have the opposite effect.

Hobbs cites a new study conducted at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy which found that students in grades five through eight, particularly kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, tended to post lower scores on standardized tests once computers and high speed Internet access reached their homes.

Hobbs, a national leader in the fields of digital and media literacy who founded and runs Temple University’s Media Education Lab, explains why home computer access could lead to a widening of the achievement gap:

In many homes, the computer is now primarily an entertainment device, for downloading music, watching videos, playing games and social networking.

While some people may assume that the computer is a research tool, used for exploring the world, keeping up with current events and learning new things, in many families, people lack the knowledge and skills to use it for these purposes.

Parents’ behavior and attitudes toward technology are a critical factor in predicting a child’s experience with various media. Research shows that students who have at least one parent with a graduate degree are significantly more likely to create content, online or off-line, than others.

So what can we do? How about a nationwide commitment to integrating digital and media literacy as critical elements of education at all levels, as the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy has recommended? And funding and supporting public libraries and other community institutions as centers of digital and media training for adults, another Knight Commission recommendation?

The Knight Commission has urged the federal government to launch a national initiative to assess the quality of digital and media literacy programs in the nation’s schools. If the Duke study’s findings hold true across the country, then such an initiative borders on necessity as federal officials at the FCC and elsewhere work to expand broadband and computer access and adoption (goals that the Knight Commission has also endorsed).

As the Knight Commission indicated, it will take collaboration among federal, state and local education officials to produce the reforms that are needed. Other community stakeholders have a role to play as well.

To promote a broader public discussion and explore what collaborations might work to achieve widespread digital literacy, the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program has commissioned Professor Hobbs to prepare an action agenda that addresses these needs. Hobbs’ recommendations will be released as a white paper in the fall. Her ideas will be previewed at this week’s FOCAS 2010 meeting.

FOCAS 2010 aims to advance Knight Commission Recommendations

KnightComm — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 23:08:42 +0000

Live webcast at www.aspeninstitute.tv

The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, with Senior Sponsorship from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, presents this year’s Forum on Communications and Society (FOCAS), to be held August 15-18, on the theme News Cities: The Next Generation of Healthy Informed Communities. The 2010 FOCAS, occurring on the campus of the Aspen Institute in Aspen, Colorado, will aim to develop a set of actionable steps to improve the information health of communities. In so doing, it will be advancing the recommendations of the Knight Commission.

Background:
In October of last year, the Knight Commission released its report, Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age, making 15 recommendations based on its three major objectives: maximizing the availability of relevant and credible information, enhancing the information capacity of individuals, and promoting public engagement. The Commission’s recommendations cover a continuum of information needs, from good journalism to digital and media literacy, from universal broadband and open networks to transparent government and public engagement. At the same time, the Commission envisioned eight elements of a “Healthy Informed Community.” Citing the Knight Commission report, the Federal Communications Commission in January 2010 launched a major inquiry into the Future of Media & Information Needs of Communities in a Digital Age. The Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute have commissioned white papers to suggest ways to move the recommendations forward. FOCAS 2010 will explore these strategies. Government officials, media and business executives, civic leaders, consumer and user representatives, and other thought leaders will meet in roundtables and working groups to arrive at specific action steps that communities can take to improve their information health.

FOCAS 2010 will be broadcast live at www.aspeninstitute.tv beginning Monday, August 16, at 8:30 a.m. Mountain Time (10:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time). Tune in and join the dialogue on our interactive livestream.

The full schedule of the event is available at the FOCAS 2010 webpage. The Twitter hashtag for this event is #FOCAS10.

FOCAS 2010 leaders and experts include:

Marcus Brauchli, The Washington Post
John Carroll, (formerly of) Los Angeles Times
Mark Contreras, The E.W. Scripps Company
Commissioner Michael Copps, Federal Communications Commission
Chairman Julius Genachowski, Federal Communications Commission
Patricia Harrison, Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Reed Hundt, Coalition for Green Capital
Alberto Ibargüen, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Paula Kerger, Public Broadcasting Service
Bill Kling, American Public Media
Marissa Mayer, Google, Inc.
Craig Newmark, craigslist.org
Donna Nicely, Nashville Public Library
Paul Sagan, Akamai
Vivian Schiller, National Public Radio
Paul Steiger, ProPublica
Ernest J. Wilson III, Annenberg School for Communication

The full list of FOCAS 2010 participants is available for download here.

Please tune in and join the discussion at www.aspeninstitute.tv starting Monday at 8:30 a.m. mountain time (10:30 a.m. eastern time).

The live schedule at www.aspeninstitute.tv is as follows:

Monday, August 16, 2010
(all times listed are mountain standard time)
8:30 a.m. – 8:45 a.m.________Opening of Forum – Introductory Remarks
8:45 a.m. – 10:15 a.m._______Plenary Roundtable I: Local Journalism 2010
10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.______Plenary Roundtable II: Public Media Reform

Tuesday, August 17, 2010
8:45 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.________Plenary Roundtable III: Universal Broadband Access
9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m._______Plenary Roundtable IV: The New Literacies
11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.______ Plenary Roundtable V: Public Engagement

Wednesday, August 18, 2010
8:45 a.m. – 10:15 a.m._______Plenary Roundtable VI. Recommendations from the Working Groups
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.______Plenary Roundtable VII. Moving Forward: Synthesis of Action Steps

For more information on this event, please visit the FOCAS 2010 webpage.

Last year’s FOCAS, Of the Press: Models for Preserving American Journalism, looked at the innovations, experimental business models, and evolving philosophies to preserve journalism as a critical instrument in American society. The report of the 2009 FOCAS is available here.

The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program addresses the societal impact of communications and information technologies, and provides a multi-disciplinary venue for considered judgment on communications policy issues.

Survey tells two tales about feds’ social media use

KnightComm — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:27:11 +0000

The following article was published at Federal Computer Week on July 27, 2010.

by Alice Lipowicz

Social media applications for government are becoming more popular, but significant numbers of federal employees and agencies are not making use of those tools, according to a new Market Connections Inc. research survey of government social media use.

In a recent survey of 321 federal employees, 60 percent said they use social media at home or work, while 35 percent said they were not using social media; 5 percent said they do not know about social media, John Kagia, research director at Market Connections, said at a conference in McLean, Va.

McLaughlin: Government Secrecy Worsens Info Divide

Amy Garmer — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:58:12 +0000

Sean McLaughlin, Executive Director of Access Humboldt

Impoverishing Democracy

by Sean McLaughlin, Special to AOL News, July 22, 2010 http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opinion-feds-meet-in-secret-on-national-communications-rules/19563441

Thomas Jefferson once observed, “Information is the currency of democracy.”

That’s never been more true than it is today. We live, after all, in an information age, one that’s seen a virtual explosion in new sources of information — ranging from newspapers and TV to talk radio, cable news, millions upon millions of blogs, even billboards. Today, particularly on the Web, openness is supposed to be the watchword when it comes to communication.

But, oddly enough, rules that govern much of our information currency are being written by regulatory agencies and lawmakers in closed private meetings, accountable to no one. Three recent examples:

The Los Angeles Times reported on the “redaction” of filings to the Federal Communications Commission by Comcast/NBCU in their move to merge the largest broadband media provider with one of the largest content producers. The full page of blacked-out text makes a clear statement about the information you will not see.

The Federal Communications Commission disclosed that they are convening closed, private meetings to broker a policy deal regarding future regulation of Internet service in the U.S.

Congressional leadership staff began convening closed-door meetings to outline plans for an overhaul of U.S. communications law. The public is not invited — until after the agenda has been set.

Secret meetings and redacted filings may serve private interests, which can be expected to look out for their own needs, even if it comes at the expense of the public good. But the real question is why federal communications agencies, and congressional committees charged with overseeing federal communications laws, are acquiescing to this.

Google to FTC: Business Problems Need Business Solutions

Amy Garmer — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:35:31 +0000

Googleplex, 1600 Ampitheater Parkway in Mountain View, CA, from Franco Folini on Flickr

The following article by Pablo Chavez, director of public policy at Google, was posted to the Google Public Policy Blog on July 20, 2010.

Google Vice President Marissa Mayer served as the co-chair of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy from 2008-2009.

Today we submitted comments with the Federal Trade Commission in reaction to the Staff Discussion Draft about the future of journalism in the age of the Internet.

We agree that the Internet has posed challenges as well as opportunities for publishers. Google works closely with publishers to find business solutions so journalism can thrive online, and we’re optimistic about the news industry’s future. But we strongly disagree with a number of policy recommendations set forth in the Staff Discussion Draft, such as the suggestion that Congress enact a federal hot news doctrine — something that would not only hurt free expression, but also the very profession of journalism that the proponents of hot news say they support.

Reinventing American Education Via Broadband

KnightComm — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:43:24 +0000

Blair Levin, Senior Fellow at the Aspen Institute

Blair Levin is a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute’s Communications and Society Program. J. Erik Garr is a partner at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants. Both were instrumental in leading the development of the National Broadband Plan at the Federal Communications Commission. The following op-ed, originally published on July 16, 2010 by The Washington Post, presents a vision for how new and creative thinking about broadband and other digital technologies can transform education through the creation of information-rich learning environments.

A New America Through Broadband

By Blair Levin and J. Erik Garr

The Texas State Board of Education voted in May to adopt a controversial set of guidelines for social studies and history textbooks. Countless hours of debate and indignation — and countless words in newspapers and on blogs — were dedicated to such questions as whether Texas schools should teach about the Contract With America and John Calvin.

These issues are important to get right. But the debate misses a more important question: Why are we still using ink-on-paper textbooks, when digital technology offers a much better way?

Today, Johnny opens his math textbook and reads a chapter. He understands parts of it, but not all. He does the 10-question homework on paper and hands it in. Later, he gets the homework back and sees that he answered seven questions correctly.

Envision this: Johnny pulls up a math chapter on his e-reader. When he doesn’t understand something, he clicks a link and watches a video of a great teacher presenting the concept, perhaps using a cool simulation. If Johnny still doesn’t understand, he can chat online with a tutor familiar with the material. When Johnny does his homework on his e-reader, he immediately learns what he got wrong and sees an explanation based on his particular mistake. Johnny’s parents receive a text or e-mail saying that he finished his math homework. The teacher receives a report that evening outlining what the class found straightforward and which problems puzzled students, along with suggestions on how to address the inadequacies. The school board receives data that lead to constant improvement in the effectiveness of course material.

Replacing textbooks with e-readers would create a platform that lets students learn as much as they can, as fast as they can. The teacher is freed from drudgery, such as correcting homework, and given the tools to teach more effectively. Parents and school officials get data that help them guide the educational experience.

And those improvements are just the beginning. Because the learning happens on a digital platform, everything about the experience can be captured. Teaching can be constantly analyzed and improved.

Equipment such as the iPad and technological developments such as 4G wireless and massive computing power mean that the technology needed for such a platform is available today, at costs cheaper than providing material that Gutenberg could have produced.

For the sake of our children, and for the competitiveness of the nation, America ought to be aggressively developing a new category of educational content, delivered using high-speed Internet access.

Unfortunately, America is not grasping the opportunity that broadband presents. As the leaders of the team that prepared the National Broadband Plan that was presented to Congress in March, we have seen that the public debate on broadband focuses too much on how our networks compare with those in other countries. Instead, the discussion should focus on how to use those networks here in America and rethink how we deliver key services.

And it’s not just education. Broadband networks can create ecosystems for health care, such as through remote, in-home monitoring, that can improve patient well-being while lowering costs. In public safety, emergency alerts delivered through mobile devices can be far more targeted and effective than many current practices are in providing critical information in a disaster.

The barriers to shifting the delivery of services to modern technology are many. Outmoded licensing and reimbursement rules create significant disincentives. Incumbent providers often throw up obstacles to new methods.

But perhaps the biggest barrier is the difficulty in shifting to a new type of thinking. In the 1997 business classic “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen showed that successful companies are usually late to employ more efficient, radically different approaches to meet their clients’ needs.

Still, however hard the problem of innovation, we must solve it — or U.S. leadership in the world will be threatened. America invented the Internet and is the leader in developing the applications the world uses to search, to connect to friends, to shop and to do many other things. Our country should also be the leader in using broadband to reinvent how we deliver education, health care, public safety and other government services.

Instead, we appear to be suffering from an innovator’s dilemma: spending all our time debating what to put in the history books, without rewriting history by questioning the need for the book in the first place.

Changing Hearts and Minds on Universal Broadband

Amy Garmer — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:12:58 +0000

Blackwater, Missouri Photo credit: KansasExplorer 3128 on Flickr

The New York Times recently ran an article (”High Speed for the Sparsely Wired,” July 9, 2010) reminding us that the September 30th deadline for awarding broadband stimulus grants is approaching. The Times article by Susannah G. Kim highlights the pending impact of federal stimulus money to extend high speed Internet access to rural areas.

Now that grant-winning projects are underway, residents in rural communities from North Carolina to Kansas to remote parts of Alaska are expressing optimism that broadband access will give them the tools they and their children need to compete and prosper in the future. I hope they succeed. To read several of the public comments in response to Kim’s article, there are people who don’t seem to care if they do.

One commenter from Troy, New York (recommended by 41 readers) wrote:

Boo hoo hoo. You live in a remote area, and can’t have high speed internet. I’m heartbroken. Have the government spend a few billion…..and send the bill to my grandchildren.

And from Cleveland, Ohio (recommended by 80 readers):

…These folks don’t need no stinkin’ internet to access their Higher Authority. We gave them dial up telephone service years ago, let them live with that until they sign onto the concept of paying for what they get. Ingrates.

And this one from Jersey City, New Jersey (12 recommendations):

Wait. High-speed internet is a widely-available service to anyone living in a city, the suburbs, or the exburbs. How did it become the federal government’s responsibility to provide this service to people who have made the CHOICE to live where the service isn’t available?

There’s no doubt that delivering meaningful affordable broadband access to every community in America presents a great challenge, especially in these tough economic times. But information is not a luxury and never has been, even if some forms of content seem frivolous and diverting. Information is a necessity, as vital to the healthy functioning of communities as clean air, safe streets, good schools and public health. Information is important to help citizens coordinate, solve problems, ensure public accountability and stay connected.

Reasonable minds will differ on how best to pay for the enormous investment that such an undertaking will require. Considering the magnitude of the need, it’s obvious that, like the interstate highway system, rural electrification, and universal childhood immunizations, it won’t happen without a combination of private and public investment (as the Knight Commission has observed). Nor should we discount government’s interest in promoting the diffusion of information technologies, given that information is often a public good and such investments do have significant beneficial educational and economic ripple effects.

The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation together are exploring public policies that can realize the Knight Commission’s recommendations to promote universal broadband access and adoption. We have commissioned a white paper by former National Broadband Plan Executive Director Blair Levin, who is looking at how existing funds already allocated for various telecommunications, information and community uses can be redirected to meet these needs (this is just one of several policy options Levin’s paper will address). In fact, we’ve commissioned eight white papers, to be published later this year, aimed at offering policy options at the local, state and national levels for implementing the Knight Commission’s 15 recommendations.

The information issue is everyone’s issue. If some of the public comments to the Times article are any indication, changing individual attitudes about the importance of information and information tools in supporting individual and collective community life may be as challenging in the long run as achieving universal broadband. But I hope not.

C.W. Anderson on Government’s Role in Saving News

KnightComm — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:38:34 +0000

Government can (help) save the news–but maybe not newspapers

C.W. Anderson, Knight Media Policy Fellow at New America Foundation, on government’s role in journalism, Ars Technica, June 14, 2010.,

A deep libertarian streak might be the only bridge uniting the perpetually feuding tribes of journalists and bloggers. So it’s actually not surprising that outlets as different as the Los Angeles Times and Buzzmachine blogger Jeff Jarvis expressed disdain toward the FTC “staff discussion draft” on “potential policy recommendations to support the reinvention of journalism.”

Civic Leaders Consider How to Meet Community Information Needs

Amy Garmer — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:18:25 +0000

The League of Women Voters took up the Knight Commission’s challenge to help meet the information needs of America’s communities during a workshop at its 2010 convention in Atlanta last month. The session, entitled “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy and Citizen Participation in the Digital Age,” provided an opportunity for LWV members to explore what role the national and local LWV organizations can play to bring about healthier, more informed communities.

The Knight Commission report’s Appendix I — Taking Stock: Are You a Healthy Information Community? — provided the framework for the group exercise at the workshop.

Following a welcome by LWVUS National President Mary G. Wilson, Charlie Firestone, executive director of the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, kicked-off the workshop with an overview of the Knight Commission’s findings and recommendations. A panel discussion and group exercise followed.

Other experts featured at the workshop included Leonard Witt, director of the Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University; Jim Walls, former head of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s investigative team who now runs Atlanta Unfiltered, his own online investigative blog; and Steven Clift, founder of E-Democracy.org, whose presentation focused on information needs to support open democracy and “Sunshine 2.0.”

Lenn Witt posted a video interview with Charlie following the workshop (”Firestone: Healthy Communities Need High Quality Information“) in which Charlie points out the importance of engaging community-focused organizations like the League of Women Voters in a broad, sustained effort to bring communities together around the issue of information health in the same way that community leadership has coalesced around urban renewal, education and other critical issues.

Knight Commission Presents Workshop on Information Needs

KnightComm — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 15:37:45 +0000

This article appeared in The Paper of Montgomery County’s (Crawfordsville, Ind.) online edition, thepaper24-7.com, on June 17, 2010.

“Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy & Citizen Participation in the Digital Age” was the opening workshop at the June 11-15 League of Women Voters National Convention in Atlanta Georgia attended by three members of the LWV of Montgomery County.

An overview of the conclusions and 15 recommendations by The Knight Commission on the “Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy” was presented by Charles M. Firestone, executive director of the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program.

The three major conclusions of the commission are: people need relevant and credible information to be free and self-governing; people need tools, skills, and understanding to use information effectively; and to pursue their true interests, people need to be engaged with information and …

Mike Fancher: Contemplating the Future of Local Journalism

Amy Garmer — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:02:04 +0000

Mike Fancher

As part of the ongoing work to promote the Knight Commission’s vision for healthy, informed communities, the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program has commissioned a series of policy papers to detail specific steps for implementing the Commission’s 15 recommendations. The research and writing of these papers is now underway, with publication slated for the fall.

We recently invited a small group of forward-thinking journalists, news entrepreneurs, analysts and community leaders to discuss and debate specific proposals for promoting healthy news and information flows at the local level. The half-day meeting centered around a “critique” of the first draft of a white paper on local journalism (recommendation 1) written by Mike Fancher, who for 20 years was executive editor of the Seattles Times.

Len Witt, who runs the Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University and participated in our “critique” session, interviewed Mike about the work that he is doing to identify specific actions that can promote the growth of local journalism through marketplace incentives. Here’s a short excerpt of the interview.

Fancher: The themes that I’m working on are essentially experimentation, collaboration, and engagement. Experimentation – nobody knows what’s going to work. So let’s try lots of things. Collaboration – it’s in the DNA of journalists to be very competitive and independent. But in this day and age, with fewer and fewer resources and journalistic organizations, and more and more startups, we need to collaborate a lot more than we ever did in the past. And engagement is that journalism is for the public, and we need to bring the public into this conversation and let them help us create the journalism of the future.

To watch video of the full interview and read the transcript, click here.

Improving Tax Treatment of Not-for-profit News Entities

Amy Garmer — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 23:03:04 +0000

"Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society." Oliver Wendell Holmes quote on IRS headquarters, Washington, DC. Photo credit: afagen on Flickr.

A couple of things became clearer at this week’s third and presumably final Federal Trade Commission workshop on the future of journalism (“How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?” June 15, 2010, at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C.). For a good summary of the meeting, see Fiona Morgan’s “A subtle victory for policy interventions in media at the FTC workshop” at New America Foundation.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz made it clear that the commissioners are not inclined to reach for new antitrust exemptions for the news industry or recommend changes to copyright. Leibowitz called the commission “allergic to antitrust exemptions, as well as changes to expand copyright law.” He also stated rather forcefully that the “FTC will not support taxes to subsidize journalism or to fund any particular medium of journalism.”

The commissioners and staff present seemed to agree with nearly all of the speakers participating in the workshop, the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, and critics and observers elsewhere, that they don’t want government picking winners or influencing content.

Speaking for the Knight Commission, Charles M. Firestone of the Aspen Institute observed that, for local journalism, we are in a time of considerable experimentation and will be for the foreseeable future. In this environment, he said, “the Knight Commission preferred market forces to develop new business models.”

So what role is left as the FTC considers how government might support journalism?

Firestone and other speakers encouraged the FTC to let competition run, but said the commission might consider content-neutral measures that can support an environment for competition. One such area relates to tax treatment of journalistic organizations.

While the Knight Commission did not endorse any specific tax proposals aimed at sustaining journalism, Firestone presented three possibilities for equalizing or otherwise improving the tax treatment not-for-profit journalistic enterprises. The proposals come from “Taxes, Local Journalism, and Transition to the Public Sector,” a discussion paper prepared for the Knight Commission by Ohio State University law professor Stephanie Hoffer.

1. Allow a full or partial (50%) deduction for the contribution of a journalistic enterprise to not-for-profit organizations. This would ease the transition of news businesses from a for-profit to a not-for-profit business model.

2. Allow deferral of gain in the acquisition of a for-profit journalistic enterprise by a not-for-profit. Currently, tax law prefers exchanges between corporations over donation to a not-for-profit by allowing significant tax advantages for trading ownership interest in a news organization for ownership interest in another organization (aka, a stock swap). Allowing a deferral of taxable gain if the news organization goes to a journalistic nonprofit would put nonprofits on the same footing as for-profits.

3. Allow tax exempt or reduced bond financing for the nonprofit acquisition of a news enterprise. Because a for-profit entity can deduct interest payments from its gross adjusted income, the overall cost of borrowing money is lower. Finding a way to lessen the cost of borrowing by not-for-profit news organizations would put them on more equal footing with their for-profit peers.

It’s not clear whether the FTC will include these or other proposals for tax changes in its final report, which is due out in the fall. And the issue of not-for-profit ownership of news enterprises should not downplay the vital role served by a vibrant, diverse and competitive for-profit journalism sector in American democracy, as the Knight Commission has recognized. However, addressing structural impediments in tax policy, through these or other measures, would recognize the growing role of nonprofits in the emerging media marketplace.

What do you think about these proposals? Would more permissive tax treatment for journalistic nonprofits have an appreciable impact on serving the information needs of communities? Is it a fair approach toward reforming media policy?