New NTIA Broadband Map Exposes Expensive, Patchy US Broadband

from the deregulate-ALL-the-things! dept

We've noted for a very long time that despite a lot of lip service about broadband, the U.S. government still doesn't have a very good idea of where broadband is or isn't available. There's a long line of reasons for this, including political pressure by regional monopolies that very much don't want a lack of competition and high prices to be apparent (somebody might get the crazy idea to try and fix the problem!). The FCC has also long been criticized for methodology that declares a census block (which can be hundreds of square miles) "served" with broadband if just one home can theoretically get service from an ISP.

The problem is made fairly apparent if you spent a few minutes with the FCC's $350 million broadband availability map, which just outright hallucinates available competitors and speeds, and can't be bothered to include an essential metric: prices.

Telecom mono/duopolies like AT&T and Comcast want policymakers looking at the problem through rose-colored glasses. The illusion protects up a broken US telecom subsidization process that mindlessly throws money at them for projects that make no coherent sense or often don't materialize. All propped up by zero accountability, and this belief that if you "deregulate" telecom, magic happens. But deregulating a broken captured industry dominated by natural monopolies doesn't result in magic. It results in those dominant monopolies behaving worse than ever. There's thirty years of evidence to that point.

It's a very profitable mess that a select group of large companies work very, very hard to keep intact.

Enter the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which earlier this month put a stick in the front wheel of this dysfunction by releasing a new broadband map that tracks both median speeds and affordability, the latter being a subject big ISPs and captured regulators never want to talk about. The map integrates data from a wide variety of sources including Ookla, M-Lab, Microsoft, and the FCC. The red in the shot below represents places where the median broadband speeds fall below 25 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up (the FCC's current definition of broadband). It's not pretty:

There's a button on the left of the NTIA's map that lets you overlap lower income areas and see how ISPs like AT&T have routinely neglected marginalized communities, something also documented by several past reports. This is the net result of what countless billions in poorly managed subsidies and rampant, often mindless deregulation delivered. Basically, a US broadband market dominated by regional monopolies and overseen by captured, feckless regulators. The data is the data, and for decades those who've coddled entrenched monopolies have tried very, very hard to pretend that this problem doesn't exist.

One amusing bit: if you zoom in and look at North Dakota, you'll find that it breaks the national trend of substandard, sluggish broadband:

Why? Because a group of communities grew tired of the apathy of their regional monopolies and bought up their networks to form a massive, interconnected group of cooperatives. Like many community broadband networks, it was a project born out of frustration, resulting in fiber networks that deliver faster, cheaper speeds. Studies keep showing that locally-owned community projects like this routinely offer better, cheaper, faster service at more transparent price points. Such networks often tend to be more accountable because they're owned and operated by people who live in those communities.

Yet instead of embracing these niche solutions as a creative way to drive an essential service to more people for less money, these projects are routinely demonized by those (like recent FCC boss Ajit Pai) who'd prefer broadband remain monopolized and expensive. There's an entire cottage industry funded by the telecom sector singularly tasked with pretending that US broadband is perfectly healthy, and attacking absolutely any effort to do anything differently. And they've been dominating telecom policy for decades. It's this monopolization and corruption that results in the "digital divide" still being a problem in 2021.

Community broadband isn't some mystical panacea. Like any other business plan they're dependent on the quality of the planning and people involved. But these networks do frequently drive better, cheaper broadband to underserved parts of the United States, and they repeatedly force apathetic regional monopolies to try a little harder. It doesn't have to be an either/or equation. There's room for various solutions and players, and numerous ways these home-grown efforts can be integrated into adult broadband policy (cooperatives, piggybacking on existing utilities, private/public partnerships).

But instead of doing that, we let entrenched monopolies write shitty state laws that ban such efforts entirely. We let captured regulators demonize an organic, grass roots response to market failure as "government run amok" or "socialism." It's a stupid, self-defeating mess we can fix with enough momentum, but only once people recognize that it's happening. But when you read most major news reports and hear most politicians talk about "the digital divide," regional monopolization (and the state and federal corruption that protects it) is bizarrely and routinely never even mentioned.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband maps, coverage, maps, ntia

Inventor Of The Cell Phone Marvels At Entirely Avoidable US Broadband Gaps

from the it-doesn't-have-to-be-this-way dept

One the one hand, you have wireless carriers telling anybody who'll listen that 5G will soon create the incredible, smart cities of tomorrow and no limit of incredible innovation. On the other hand, you have 42 million Americans without access to broadband during a plague, and tens of millions more stuck paying high prices for slow services thanks to monopolization and a lack of competition. It's a discordant reality gap that isn't lost on Martin Cooper, who invented the first cell phone (the Motorola Dynatac 8000x) in 1973. In an interview at CNET, Cooper pointed out how despite a history of innovation, the United States still somehow can't make broadband both universal and affordable, which is why 40% of US students struggle to get online:

"Just imagine what that means over the long term," he said. "That's unacceptable." Cooper said the technology exists to deliver wireless broadband to students for as little as $5 to $10 a month, and that the government needs to be more proactive in convincing carriers to offer such services.

"It's as essential as water and food," he said. "We need to have 100% accessibility to broadband services not just for students, but everyone."

Of course that's largely because we've historically viewed broadband as a luxury good that should be exploited and barely regulated, not an essential utility, overseen by the dual guiding hands of both competent regulators (what's that?) and functional competition (huh?). That's proven to be notably problematic during a pandemic, given broadband is essential not just to online learning, employment, health care, and connection, but also to even sign up to get vaccinated. As such, he's damn right we need more "innovation" in universal and affordable broadband access policy, and less hype surrounding emerging technologies like 5G.

Cooper also shared some thoughts on the fact that the nation's largest companies tend to dominate spectrum auctions, resulting in valuable spectrum being hoarded by a select number of companies that aren't always interested in equitable use of that spectrum (especially by competitors):

"There's plentiful spectrum," he said, noting that his unofficial "Cooper's Law" states that spectrum capacity doubles every two and a half years. Cooper railed against Federal Communications Commission's spectrum auctions like the one that wrapped up in late February. Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile spent $81 billion on radio airwaves for 5G services.

"Someone that has paid billions of dollars for radio airwaves would not appreciate the idea of plentiful spectrum," he said, adding that spectrum should be only allocated to companies that can deliver services that take care of human needs..."We haven't finished the internet of people yet, and the industry is already emphasizing the internet of things."

COVID-19 is placing a lot of pressure on lawmakers to finally do something about America's spotty, expensive, and sluggish broadband. But it remains a concern that all the focus will be on innovative ways to throw more subsidies at industry, and less innovation when it comes to finding ways to drive more competition to market and dismantle massive US telecom monopolies (the cause of the problem in the first place). Especially at a time when "big telecom" gets a free pass, and "big tech" is busy sucking all the policy discourse oxygen out of the room.

Filed Under: 5g, broadband, coverage, internet access, martin cooper

Comcast/NBC Tone Deafness, Not 'Millennials' To Blame For Olympics Ratings Drop

from the we'll-adapt-when-we-damn-well-feel-like-it dept

Olympics watchers repeatedly begged Comcast for live opening ceremonies, more live events, less host prattle, and fewer ads ahead of the recent games in Rio. What did Comcast deliver instead? A smorgasbord of abysmal bloviation, tape delays, and so many advertisements that many people stopped watching in disgust. As a result, the Rio Olympics were the lowest rated Summer Olympics since 2000, with average viewership down 17% and an overall audience that was 25% smaller than 2012 in the 18-to-49 demo.

We've already noted how a big reason was Comcast/NBC's absolute refusal to actually listen to paying customers and heed lessons from the cord cutting era. But a Bloomberg headline this week proudly crowed that Millennials were somehow to blame for the slide. Amusingly, the piece cites a comment from NBC exec Steve Burke, who last June described a scenario he said would be a "nightmare":

"We wake up someday and the ratings are down 20 percent,” the chief executive officer of NBCUniversal said at a conference. “If that happens, my prediction would be that millennials had been in a Facebook bubble or a Snapchat bubble and the Olympics have come, and they didn’t know it."

That is, so we're clear, an NBC exec predicting that if NBC's Olympics ratings dropped, it would be the fault of Millennials living in a bubble -- not possibly due to anything NBC did. And with ratings dropping from 17 to 25%, Burke's nightmare scenario effectively came true. NBC is quick to point out that streaming was actually up, but that wasn't able to help an overall dive in ratings. And while Comcast/NBC is quick to insist it's adapting to consumer demand, people young and old found Olympic streaming to be an annoying and cumbersome experience littered with paywalls, delays, authentication issues, and other headaches:

"I’m sure NBC were patting themselves on the backs for how easy it would be to watch online this year, but that’s only true for cable subscribers, a slowly shrinking percentage of the US population, especially for Millennials. The reason NBC is losing Millennials to other platforms for entertainment is because all of those platforms have lowered the barriers to enjoy the programming. I can sign up for Hulu, Netflix, and HBO nearly in an instant. Oh, and did I mention they’re all ad free (with a premium on Hulu)?

Had NBC offered the entire Olympic Platform for a small fee (less than $10), they probably would have seen their Millennial numbers skyrocket. Hell, they could have charged $5 more for an “Ad Free” presentation and padded their pockets even more. But instead, they relied on the old dying models of traditional broadcast network and revenue models of years past, and it bit them in the ass.

Why is streaming so clunky and difficult? Because most cable industry streaming efforts are designed to give the illusion of innovation, flexibility and adaptation, without actually providing any of these. Why? Because offering a truly easy, inexpensive online streaming service (Olympics or otherwise) would cannibalize the traditional cable TV cash cow. As such, easy, flexible and inexpensive streaming remains an intentional afterthought, and will until cord cutting finally reaches critical mass. In short, like so many legacy industries, pay TV won't truly adapt until the house is fully engulfed in flames.

Filed Under: coverage, millenials, olympics, ratings, time delay
Companies: nbc universal

Every Kill A 'Good' Kill: How Police And The Media Cooperate To Disparage The Dead

from the 'past-performance-ALWAYS-indicative-of-this-thing-that-just-now-happened' dept

Cops kill a lot of people. Depending on who's counting, they've already killed between 385 and 470 people this year. This isn't to say that some of these killings weren't justified, but when details begin leaking out about the those killed, the amount of force in relation to the threat posed is often questionable.

Because no PD wants to look like the home of trigger-happy thugs, the media spin begins almost before the "suspect" has expired. Usaamah Abdullah Rahim, shot by Boston cops, was instantly memorialized by law enforcement and a compliant press with the following:

"allegedly radicalized by ISIS social media"

"may have been planning to attack police"

"preparing to launch an ISIS-inspired attack"

"wielding a machete"

"under 24-hour surveillance by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force"

The "machete" turned out to be just a knife, albeit a "military-style black knife," because black knives are inherently more evil and dangerous than those in any other color. #blackknivesmatter

What appeared to be a mishandling of a potentially-dangerous situation is now a fully-justified kill of a terrorist. Everyone is just supposed to take these claims at face value, despite the assertions raising more questions than they actually answer.

If Rahim was so dangerous, why didn’t the constant surveillance result in any charges? If — as the media spent all day claiming — he was on the verge of executing a horrific terror attack, why didn’t law enforcement agents have an arrest warrant or even search warrant? What was their intention in approaching him this way? Were they wearing uniforms, and — supposedly believing he was an ISIS operative eager to kill police — did they do anything to make him feel threatened?

Notably, none of the media outlets regurgitating police assertions bothered to probe the issues raised by these statements.

This, unfortunately, is all too common. Disparaging the dead is the national pastime, in terms of police-press relations.

A suicidal man wielding a knife is shot in his bed by police officers responding to a call to a non-emergency line at a local hospital -- in which his girlfriend stated he was threatening to hurt himself. Completely unprompted, this is what police had to say to the victim's mother:

Denise said [Detective Mike] Smith then told her about “this new trend in law enforcement now—it’s called suicide by cop.” She said Smith explained “suicide by cop” is when suicidal people provoke the police in an effort to end their own lives.

She said Smith wouldn’t tell her family where or how many times their son was shot.

Just like that, the dead man was posthumously awarded the department's "He Was Asking For It" award. Further details on the shooting were withheld, because a bloodstained bed with bulletholes in it hardly portrays the shooting victim as a "threat."

Akai Gurley, shot in the stairwell of a New York City apartment complex, was committing no crime when he was shot. Rather, the officer who shot him was patrolling the stairwells with his gun out and needed little more than a startling noise to justify opening fire. What did the media lead with?

Gurley has 24 prior arrests on his record, police said.

As if that mattered. The officer didn't recognize Gurley and assume he was looking for number 25. The officer couldn't even see who he was shooting at, because the stairwell was unlit. The unprompted rap sheet delivery by police sources was CYA in the form of presumed guilt.

When a Ferguson police officer shot an unarmed Michael Brown, the press led with what it had been fed: Brown had participated in a "strong arm robbery" (which was actually just shoplifting combined with an altercation with the owner). When an NYPD officer choked Eric Garner to death, the airwaves filled with mentions of his previous arrest record (for minor things like selling untaxed cigarettes) and even extended so far as to implicate the person who recorded the incident, who had "previous arrests" and the coincidental misfortune of a post-recording arrest for possession of a handgun.

Feast your eyes on this aggressive spin attempt:


But the (lack of a) devil is in the details. The sentence under the headline implying the takedown of a dangerous, police-targeting thug shows the "history" wouldn't even fill the unused space on a detective's business card.

The man killed by Pasco Police Tuesday evening had a past run-in with officers that resulted in an assault conviction.

A past run-in. Singular. Hardly a "history."

Can you possibly smear a 12-year-old who was shot to death within seconds of a patrol car arriving on the "scene?" You can certainly try.

Tamir Rice's father has a history of violence against women.

Relevant how?

People from across the region have been asking whether Rice grew up around violence. The Northeast Ohio Media Group investigated the backgrounds of the parents and found the mother and father both have violent pasts.

[Police and police supporters] from across the region have been [trying to spin this shooting of a 12-year-old]. The Northeast Ohio Media Group [has obliged them].

We're already skeptical of FBI claims that someone is "involved" in terrorist activities or has been "radicalized." The FBI has no one to blame for this perception but itself. The recent shooting that quickly turned an armed male into a terrorist on the prowl, operating at the behest of ISIS, is another in a long line of post-shooting justification attempts. In most cases, the officers involved know little to nothing about the person they've just killed. But that changes swiftly when an incident turns deadly. Suddenly, there's a killing to defend and every public record and every law enforcement database must be scoured to find that "justification." Somehow, a past conviction becomes current guilt, even if the victim was doing nothing illegal at the time and did little to justify the use of deadly force.

Sometimes -- very, very rarely -- there are exceptions. A Madison, Wisconsin cop shot an unarmed man during an "altercation." The police chief refused to play the "smear the victim" game.

The police chief refused to comment on Robinson’s criminal history or run-ins with police.

“I could but I choose not to,” he said at a press conference Saturday.

“I frankly think it is, for our purposes today, wholly inappropriate and I am not going to blemish anyone’s character, particularly someone's as young as his.”

This was backed up by the mayor of Madison.

Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, who said he met with Robinson’s family the night of the shooting, said officials aren’t going to put the teen on trial.

“That’s not what this is about. What this is about is finding out exactly what happened that night and to determine, then, responsibility,” he told CNN’s “AC360.” “We know that he was not armed, and as far as the police chief and I are concerned … the fact that Tony was involved in any kind of transgression in the past has nothing to do with this present tragedy.”

Unfortunately, the media refused to join the police chief and mayor on the high ground.

As much as Koval and Soglin conducted themselves admirably, the media is so bound to the gutter that it couldn’t bear the idea of not throwing dirt on the body.

"Wisconsin Circuit Court documents indicate Robinson pleaded guilty in December to an armed robbery that occurred last April."

Because the cops refused to smear Robinson, the media had to do its own dirty work and dig up whatever nastiness “court documents” might offer. And if CNN’s smear isn’t bad enough, try ABC’s:

"Inside, Kenny found Tony Robinson, a 19-year-old who had previously pleaded guilty to armed robbery charges in 2014."

They could have described Tony Robinson as “a 19-year-old who was loved by his family, who saved kittens from a tree, who had a lovely smile and joy for life, who appeared to have had an unforeseeable psychotic breakdown,” but no. Instead, they described him as a guy who was guilty of armed robbery charges.

Even if law enforcement officials bite their tongues when faced with the opportunity to clear themselves and disparage victims, media outlets can't seem to help themselves. Too many media outlets ingratiate themselves with local law enforcement -- not only by rebroadcasting questionable assertions, but by digging up any potentially damning fact that law enforcement left untouched.

Filed Under: boston, coverage, deaths, killing, police, usaamah abdullah rahim

Cable News Networks 'Grant' Manning Verdict A Whole Five Minutes Of Coverage

from the pardon-the-interruption...-here's-more-Weiner dept

Bradley Manning's verdict was delivered yesterday but if you were expecting to see any coverage on the 24-hour news networks, there's a good chance you missed it, possibly by leaving the room momentarily, channel surfing, or enjoying one of the many hundreds of blinks that provide your eyes with much-needed lubrication.

According to Buzzfeed's stopwatch, the average time the major cable news networks spent on covering the Manning verdict was about 5 minutes. MSNBC topped the charts with 5 minutes and 54 seconds of Manning verdict coverage before moving on to more pressing issues (Weiner sexting presumably, if the pre-roll splash is any indication).

Can't say I blame them. There's no exciting angle to pursue, being completely devoid of partisan wrangling, sexting, royal births, or any other populist "hook." Instead, it's just a run-of-the-mill example of an embarrassed government lashing out at someone who hung a bit of its dirty laundry out to dry.

In general, these sorts of stories are only provided will-this-do minimal coverage by mainstream media outlets, many of which have become satisfied with lending credibility to administration talking points or presenting a garish caricature of the "opposing viewpoint." These roles rotate as needed, depending on the administration's party affiliation.

Manning exposed a lot of wrongdoing and questionable behavior, something that should have forced our government and military-industrial complex to take a long hard look at themselves. Instead, the administration has made every effort to shoot the messenger -- any messenger.

But screw 'em. It's not as if those seeking better coverage of events like these don't have hundreds or thousands of other sources to choose from, most of which don't feel compelled to play softball in order to protect their access to the Beltway. The downside is that those seeking new voices will be deterred by the mainstream media, which frequently paints the internet as a the world's largest Mom's basement, filled with bathrobe-wearing bloggers spouting off conspiracy theories and Tweeted banalities, bereft of tact and deference.

I'd argue that the mainstream media is the world's largest Old Boy Network, filled with shiny vacuous objects spouting off round-the-clock banalities and regurgitated talking points, bereft of skepticism or a functioning conscience.

But, you know, maybe that's just me.

Filed Under: bradley manning, cable news, coverage

No, Freak Gross Injuries Shouldn't Mean Media Outlets Can't Show Them

from the ouchy dept

Perhaps it's time we codified this, but it appears that for every horrible occurrence there will be an unequal, disproportionately large reaction to it. I humbly suggest we refer to this as Geigner's Law, because why the hell should Mike and Godwin be the only people with their name's attached to things? Regardless, it seems to me that this odd rule has been more greatly followed in the age of the internet. Terrorism got you down? Well, then obviously everyone should censor all things even remotely terrorist. A bunch of people lost their marbles and went on shooting rampages? Surely this means protected speech like videogames should face the consequences.

And, now that anyone remotely interested in college basketball had to spend Sunday evening figuring out how to get their previously eaten Easter dinner out of their carpeting thanks to Kevin Ware's disgustingly awful injury on live television, it's apparently time to call out any news outlet that showed the injury in the aftermath.

Don’t give me the Deadspin “Warning: Very Gross” alert either, as though that somehow absolves you from any sin; hell, the video embedded in that Deadspin post is stuck on a preview frame that pretty clearly shows Ware’s shin bone sticking through his leg. Even if you don’t want to watch the video, you don’t really have a choice.

Sites like The Big Lead may have one-upped even the freeze frame preview; by initially including a fully animated GIF on their immediate blog post about the injury before pulling that GIF in favor of just the reaction shot of the Louisville bench, TBL managed to not only generate thousands (and possibly tens of thousands) of hits, but then were able to play the high and mighty, “we’re not going to show that anymore” card a couple hours later – presumably after searches for “Kevin Ware Injury” had died down. It’s hypocrisy of the highest magnitude.

Look, let me be super clear here: the Ware injury footage is brutal. The guy's shin bone snapped in half and the angle of the shots show it with cookie-tossing clarity. In my opinion, you shouldn't watch it, unless you've ingested some kind of poison and you're looking to throw it up. I wouldn't even think of embedding the video here. It's that bad.

And that it's that bad is also my opinion. The simple fact of the matter is that sports is news, this injury is news, and the footage of it is news. We can argue all we want about whether that footage has value for the news consumer, and I'd argue it does as a matter of public inquiry, but that it's news cannot be doubted. There really is no argument to the contrary, as the article's author themselves note.

I don’t care that it’s “newsworthy” – write the story, and let the gawking onlookers go find the video for themselves.

Follow the two logical problems in these statements. First, don't show the footage, because everyone can already find it everywhere else. Surely calling on the media to censor themselves would never result in calls for similar censorship elsewhere, eventually disappearing this and perhaps even more newsworthy footage altogether. What could possibly go wrong? Secondly, if uncomfortable but newsworthy footage can be buried for something like sports under the notion that nobody should be getting "clicks" or money as a result of someone else's pain, does that also hold true for news items about war, gun-violence, murder, drugs, etc.?

The fact is that the original premise was right, just pointed at the wrong target. Yes, in the age of the internet, people have choices in how they consume the news. What that means is not that the media should self-censor upsetting footage. It means that anyone, like me, who wants the news without that footage can indeed get it elsewhere.

Filed Under: basketball, censorship, coverage, injuries, journalism, kevin ware, news

Study Confirms: News Networks Owned By SOPA Supporters... Are Ignoring SOPA/PIPA

from the but,-of-course dept

While the debates about SOPA/PIPA have been raging all over the internet, and appearing regularly in all sorts of mainstream newspapers, they still have been almost entirely absent from TV news. We've discussed this in the past, noting that the major TV news players are all owned by media conglomerates who have been major backers of SOPA/PIPA. There was some indication that cable news was starting to pay attention... but things have gone quiet since then (perhaps upper management sent out a memo...).

The folks over at Media Matters decided to check in on this and have confirmed that the big TV news players have almost entirely ignored it, despite the widespread controversy found elsewhere in the mainstream press:

As the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) makes its way through Congress, most major television news outlets -- MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC -- have ignored the bill during their evening broadcasts. One network, CNN, devoted a single evening segment to it.

The report does note that there have been articles online... but very few TV segments. It also discusses how much attention SOPA/PIPA is getting, concerning all the companies who have come out against it, the media coverage in the NY Times among other places, and the big GoDaddy flip-flop -- to highlight that this is a big story making waves.

Despite all of this, the response from American television news outlets has been to almost completely ignore the story during their evening programming. The lone exception was a segment on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer in December, during which CNN parent company Time Warner's support for the legislation was not disclosed. (Though Fox News Channel has apparently not touched the story during evening programming, conservative/libertarian host Andrew Napolitano has run several segments vocally opposing SOPA on his program, which runs on the separate Fox Business Network.)

It's postulated that perhaps the issue is the fact that SOPA/PIPA don't fall along easily scripted left vs. right lines:

The fight over SOPA does not fit into the usual left vs. right narrative that occupies so much of the political horserace coverage with which TV news outlets fill their schedules. The cosponsors of SOPA come from both sides of the aisle. Likewise, the most vocal opponents of SOPA in Congress are an ideologically diverse bunch, including Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX) and Darrel Issa (R-CA).

Either that... or the corporate folks upstairs don't want to allow this to become an even bigger story.

Of course, as I was writing this up, Tim Cushing was writing up the same story (coordination, people, coordination!), with an alternate theory -- which makes sense too. So, everything below the line is his read on the situation:

---

Tim Cushing's analysis: Gray areas seldom make compelling news, especially when there's no political angle to take. Beyond that, I think the mainstream media silence is also explained by the outdated thought process that still believes that the Internet Is Not Real.

First and foremost, the evening news is generally a broad overview of the days' happenings. Not only do they not have the time to delve into an issue that mainly affects an "ethereal" service like the web, but they also (ignoring any corporate bias for the sake of argument) have no interest in doing so. The cliche that "if it bleeds, it leads" likely eliminates a war that involves a bloodless dismantling of the internet. The internet is generally trotted out only as an example of how things are bad (online bullying, etc.) or how things are cute/weird (any crossover meme that can be easily brought up, discussed and dismissed forever in less than 60 seconds).

Even though many news teams invite you to follow them on Twitter or Facebook, the connection seems to go no further than that. The percentage of the population that still relies on the evening news to get them caught up on the world is unlikely to care about legislation that affects the internet.

In essence, the internet is still treated like some sort of fad infested with tech-y nerds and thus can be safely ignored when dealing with Real Issues on the nightly news. This attitude is pervasive, both within content companies and among our representatives. The gatekeepers pushing the legislation need the internet as much as it claims it needs them, but they want their own internet, one closer in spirit to The Village than the Wild West.

Our legislators are still amused by their own lack of internet prowess, indicating that they still believe the web to be some sort of "outlier" whose opinions can be easily dismissed. It's a cognitive gap, but it explains why the mainstream TV news so willingly ignores SOPA and the building momentum of its opposition: it's just the internet. It can be either humored or feared, but never respected.

Filed Under: copyright, coverage, journalism, networks, pipa, protect ip, sopa, tv