Future of the Internet

Sweeping Effects as Broadband Moves to Meters

Cable executives would have you believe data caps are good for consumers and makes pricing more "fair." But others say that the marketplace lacks sufficient competition, which keeps the price of broadband -- a high-margin product -- higher than it otherwise would be. And the caps will tamp down consumer demand for new products, which will slow innovation.

Brian Stelter, New York Times

An Old Plan for New Media

Cable giants like Comcast and Time Warner have come to dominate information access in the United States. And they're using this new power to squeeze out competitors and remake new media in their old image. For anyone online that means a future of fewer choices among broadband providers and less control over the digital diet that's fed across their networks.

Timothy Karr, Huffington Post

Data Caps, SpectrumCo Key Future of Video Issues

Not surprisingly, the Democratic staffers of the House Communications Subcommittee have a slightly different to-do list than their Republican counterparts. While over-the-top video, retrans rules and Dish's ad-skipping DVR are on both lists of key topics that might come up in the June 27 future of video hearing, Democrats have a couple more on their list: data caps and the the sale of spectrum from cable operators to Verizon.

John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable

How College Towns Could Lead the Way to Gigabit Broadband

For the first time since the dawn of the commercial Internet, there are few plans in the works for major network upgrades. Most American households have no reason to expect that they'll see another order-of-magnitude increase in broadband speeds any time soon. One man who is trying to change that by demonstrating the potential of high-speed Internet service by promoting the construction of privately financed fiber networks in American college towns.

Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica

State Department: Human Rights Exist in Digital Realm

With the Arab Spring's aftermath being felt around the world, the State Department is continuing to emphasize the importance of Internet freedom, both home and abroad. Building off Secretary Hillary Clinton's ongoing speeches of the last two years, Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe -- currently serving as the U.S. Representative to the United Nations Human Rights Council -- writes that "human rights and fundamental freedoms are not eroded simply because they are being exercised in the digital realm."

Ross Gianfortune, Nextgov

Verizon/Cable Deal

T-Mobile, Verizon Agree on Spectrum Deal

Once a fierce opponent, T-Mobile is now backing the controversial spectrum transaction between Verizon Wireless and SpectrumCo after cutting a deal for a share of the bounty. Public interest groups, which have just lost a key ally in fighting the deal, remain concerned about SpectrumCo's potential anti-competitive effects.

Eliza Krigman, Politico

Verizon, T-Mobile Deal Not a Fix, Say Opponents

Challengers to Verizon Wireless' purchase of nationwide AWS spectrum say the operator's agreement to swap spectrum with T-Mobile USA won't fix the competitive harms of the transaction.

Maisie Ramsay, WirelessWeek

Verizon-Cable Deal Gains Steam

By agreeing to a spectrum swap with T-Mobile, Verizon won over one of the leading critics of its proposed deal with a group of cable companies. T-Mobile had warned that the cable deal would allow Verizon to dominate the wireless market, but the company pulled its opposition after striking the deal.

Brendan Sasso, The Hill

Rupert Murdoch Scandal

The Newsonomics of the News Corp. Split

If Murdoch's empire cleaves in two, his newspapers will no longer be able to count on the latest blockbuster to disguise their financial woes. And the next Murdoch generation has made it abundantly clear it wants to focus on the global entertainment business.

Ken Doctor, Nieman Journalism Lab

News Corp. Ponders a Split

Shareholders have been carping for years that Rupert Murdoch should get rid of his newspapers and focus on the real moneymakers. So word that he's seriously considering that sent the company's shares up sharply yesterday. It's worth noting that this is a financial move that will leave Murdoch's political power intact. Rupert and family will continue to control both companies and he will continue to leverage the power of one for the benefit of the other.

Ryan Chittum, Columbia Journalism Review

Journalism and Beyond

Who Owns the News Media Database - A Summary of Findings

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism has compiled a new interactive database to help users make sense of the changes in the news media companies at the highest levels. Who Owns the News Media provides detailed statistics on the companies that now own our nation's news media outlets, from newspapers to local television news stations to radio to digital, and this accompanying summary highlights the major changes of the year.

Want to Save Local Newspapers? Break the Chains that Hold Them Back

The economies of scale that once helped place the journalism business among the economy's most profitable now threaten to help sink the industry. America's newspaper chains missed their moment of opportunity to use their scale to dominate the information business online. Now, it's time for those chains to break up, in a last-ditch effort to save many of their newspaper titles.

Robert Niles, Online Journalism Review

It May Not Be Televised, but the (Journalism) Revolution Will Be Hacked

What a weird weekend for journalism. On Sunday, a day once reserved for fat feature-laden newspapers, a new television show and a San Francisco hackathon brought the future of the media into the limelight in very different ways.The TV show was HBO's "The Newsroom," the newest project of "The Social Network" scribe Aaron Sorkin. The hackathon was NewsHack Day, an ambitious attempt to bring self-proclaimed "hacks and hackers" -- journalists and coders -- together for a mad weekend of learning, brainstorming and creating.

Eric Johnson, All Things D

How Do You Tell When the News Is Biased?

Many people have tried to define what media bias is and attempted to measure it. But maybe we should ask a different question: not how we can decide if the news is biased, but how each of us actually does decide -- and what it means for journalists.

Jonathan Stray, Nieman Journalism Lab

Out of the Local News Business

KSAX-TV in Alexandria, Minn., has dropped its local news programming and shuttered its website. The station is the sister of the Hubbard Broadcasting flagship KSTP in the Twin Cities.

Minnesota Public Radio