By Teresa Watanabe and Hector Becerra, L.A. Times Staff Writers
March 28, 2006
He's one of the hottest Spanish-language radio personalities in the
nation. So when Los Angeles deejay Eddie Sotelo joined hands with his
radio rivals to urge listeners to turn out for a pro-immigrant rally in
downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, organizers hoped for a big turnout.
But many said Monday that they were stunned by how many responded to the
call to march against federal legislation that would crack down on
undocumented immigrants and penalize those who assist them.
As a result, what was initially expected to draw fewer than 20,000
ballooned into a massive march that police estimated at 500,000 and said
was one of the largest demonstrations in Los Angeles' history. The march
topped a wave of protests drawing hundreds of thousands of participants
in cities around the nation, which organizers said influenced the U.S.
Senate Judiciary Committee's approval Monday of legislation that
includes legalization for undocumented immigrants.
Rally supporters, including immigrant-rights activists, churches, and
labor and community groups, agreed that the active advocacy of the
region's top Spanish-language radio personalities was critical in
drawing the enormous crowds, who marched more than 20 blocks along
Spring and Main streets and Broadway to City Hall, wearing white "peace"
shirts and waving American and Mexican flags.
The promoters included such on-air celebrities as KHJ's Humberto Luna,
KBUE's Ricardo "El Mandril" (The Baboon) Sanchez, Renan "El Cucuy" (The
Boogeyman) Almendarez Coello . whose often risque show has cast him as a
sort of Latino version of Howard Stern . and Sotelo, better known to
listeners as "El Piolin," or Tweety Bird. Coello's and Sotelo's morning
talk shows are among the highest-rated programs in any language in Los
Angeles.
"They were the key to getting so many people out," said Mike Garcia,
president of Local 1877 of the Service Employees International Union.
"If you listened to Spanish-language media, they were just pumping,
pumping, pumping this up."
For his part, Sotelo said he decided to promote the cause . by calling a
summit of his rival deejays to encourage them to do the same . after
rally organizers told him about the ramifications of the legislation
passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last December. The bill, by
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), would make undocumented
immigrants and those who assist them felons and erect a 700-mile fence
along the U.S.-Mexican border.
"I told God that if he gave me an opportunity as a radio announcer, I
was going to help my people," said Sotelo, who himself illegally crossed
the border in the trunk of a car in 1986 and gained legal status a
decade later. "I think we have to make sure the message went through to
Washington, to let them know we're not criminals."
The idea for the march first sprouted in February in the oldest church
in Los Angeles: Our Lady Queen of Angels, which has historically served
as a sanctuary for undocumented migrants.
The church near Olvera Street has become one of the city's organizing
hubs against the House bill, playing a leading role in promoting the
Roman Catholic Church's national "Justice for Immigrants" campaign.
Cardinal Roger M. Mahony last December appointed a committee to promote
the national campaign throughout the 5-million-member Los Angeles
Archdiocese.
The coalition of religious, community and civil rights activists meeting
at the church had begun planning several small-scale events: news
conferences, a petition drive and protest marches to Republican and
Democratic party offices.
But when two visitors joined the group in January, the vision suddenly
expanded.
Jesse Diaz, a doctoral candidate in sociology at UC Riverside, had
worked with day laborers in Pomona and organized marches against
Proposition 187, the 1994 state initiative that cut public benefits to
undocumented immigrants but was struck down in federal court. Javier
Rodriguez, a journalist, had also worked with immigrants and organized
black-Latino political alliances.
The two men called for something dramatic: a massive protest march.
"It was time," Diaz said. "The Sensenbrenner bill had passed. We have 10
[million] to 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country, but
their voice can't be heard at the ballot box. We felt a march would be a
way for them to speak out."
The coalition was initially wary, he said. The group had little money or
organization. At the time, none of the big labor or civil rights
organizations had yet signed on, such as the service employees union or
the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. At the table,
aside from the Catholic priests and some Spanish-language journalists,
were such groups as the Central American Resource Center, Hermandad
Mexicana Latinoamericana, the Pomona Day Labor Center and the Southern
California Human Rights Network.
But Diaz and Rodriguez kept pushing. On March 2, the group held a news
conference at the church to announce the march and call for political
and Spanish-language media to get involved.
On March 13, the group got extensive coverage from KMEX-TV Channel 34,
including promos, leading up to a "media breakfast" the next day. Later
that day, Rodriguez and other leaders spoke to a producer on Sotelo's
program. The day after that, they were on "Piolin Por La Mañana" for
four hours, Rodriguez said.
"That was it, man!" Rodriguez said. "They gave us four hours and we went
at it. We talked about the need for people to come out."
The next day, Rodriguez and other leaders went on the air with Sanchez
of KBUE-FM (105.5) "Que Buena." During that show, Rodriguez said, he
proposed that the deejays join together for the cause.
Sanchez called Sotelo and they had an on-air conversation during their
programs, Rodriguez said. Later that day, Sotelo would make the calls
that would bring the other deejays together on the air.
By March 20, all of the major Spanish-language disc jockeys got together
on City Hall's south steps to promote the big march.
"From there, it just blew up," Diaz said.
The deejays did more than publicize the march. Working with the
organizers, they also helped develop some ground rules: Marchers had to
be peaceful and clean up after themselves.
They were also encouraged to wave American flags.
"We wanted them to show that we love this country," Sotelo said.
"Bringing the U.S. flag, that was important. There are so many people
who say, 'I'm glad my parents came here and sacrificed like they did for
us.' "
By this time, other organizations had begun to join the effort.
Local 1877, which represents janitors, took care of security. The union
trained nearly 500 people in how to deal with conflicts and herd
marchers along the route, posting nearly two dozen on each block in
orange T-shirts donated by an L.A. apparel firm, according to union
organizer Ernesto Guerrero.
The union also coordinated the more than 100 buses that dropped off
marchers from throughout California, Las Vegas and a few Southwestern
cities, he said.
All of the planning paid off. The "Great March of March 25," as some
dubbed it, was peaceful.
"I was saying, 'Man, we did it, we did it!' " Sotelo said.
The strong advocacy of the disc jockeys and other Spanish-language media
contrasted sharply with other outlets, said Felix Gutierrez, a
journalism professor at USC's Annenberg School for Communication.
"The Latino media played it more as how will this affect you, how will
it affect your job, how will it affect your kids," Gutierrez said. "They
were much closer to their audience, in terms of the direct effect."
Gutierrez lauded the organization behind the event and contrasted it
with the angrier assemblies of the Chicano movement of the 1960s, in
which he was a media liaison.
By comparison, Saturday's rally was festive, featuring kazoos, mariachi
music, cotton candy and families with children. "The messages I heard
last week was show up, bring your family, bring your children, don't get
pulled into violence, there may be people trying to provoke you,"
Gutierrez said.
Meanwhile, Diaz and Rodriguez planned to announce today their next major
action: a call to boycott work, school and all consumer activities May
1. They are calling it "The Great American Boycott of 2006."
Times staff writer Scott Martelle contributed to this story.
By Jeff Chester, Center for Digital Democracy
March 24, 2006 - The Nation Magazine
The digital gold rush is on across America, as cities scramble to develop free or low-cost Wi-Fi zones. These public on-ramps to the Internet are designed to provide every citizen with a form of always-on, high-speed Internet access--at the playground, in the office or at home--at low or no cost.
Dozens of communities large and small, in red states and blue, are either planning or currently constructing Wi-Fi systems. Community leaders--from Philadelphia; Houston; Columbia, South Carolina; and San Francisco, to name a few--recognize that creating a citywide Wi-Fi zone is not only vital for economic development and public safety but helps insure that Americans who can't now afford digital communications on their own can also tap in to the riches and convenience of the Internet. But there is no such thing as a free digital lunch.
Consumers and public officials should have no illusions that what is being touted as a public benefit is also designed to spur the growth of a mobile marketing ecosystem, an emerging field of electronic commerce that is expected to generate huge revenues for Google, Microsoft, AT&T and many others. Soon, wherever we wander, a ubiquitous online environment will follow us with ads and information dovetailed to our interests and our geographic location.
Unless municipal leaders object, citizens and visitors will be subjected to intensive data-mining of their web searches, e-mail messages and other online activities are tracked, profiled and targeted. The inevitable consequences are an erosion of online privacy, potential new threats of surveillance by law enforcement agencies and private parties, and the growing commercialization of culture.
Mining Your Data
Consider the application submitted to the City of San Francisco in February by search giant Google and its partner, the Internet service provider Earthlink. One of six Wi-Fi bids being considered by the City of San Francisco, the Google/Earthlink plan has attracted the most attention. Under this proposal, Google would provide a free but relatively low-speed Internet service available throughout the city (Earthlink would operate a higher-speed service on the same system charging users $20 a month). The costs of operating the "free" service would be offset by Google's plans to use the network to promote its interactive advertising services.
Everyone who uses the Google network would first be directed to a portal page, where they would be offered an array of what Google terms "personalized consumer products." Through those products and other technologies, Google plans, according to its proposal, to "target advertisements to specific geographical locations and to user interests."
What this means is that Google and Earthlink plan to use online files (known as cookies) and other data-collection techniques to profile users and deliver precise, personalized advertising as they surf the Internet. (Earthlink is working with the interactive ad company DoubleClick, which collects and analyzes enormous amounts of information online to engage in individual interactive ad targeting.)
Not everyone is enthused by the Google/Earthlink model. San Francisco was advised by a trio of privacy advocates to develop policies that would respect personal privacy. In letters to the city, the ACLU of Northern California, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) urged the adoption of a "gold standard" for data privacy, insuring that its Wi-Fi system would "accommodate the individual's right to communicate anonymously and pseudonymously." The groups also suggested that the city require any Wi-Fi company to allow users to "opt in" to any data-collection scheme. [Full disclosure: I rent office space in Washington, DC, from EPIC].
Scary Syllables
These two syllables--"opt in"--strike terror in the hearts of Google, Microsoft, AOL and everyone else in the interactive marketing field. Opting in requires users to affirmatively give permission before any data can be collected. Individuals would be fully informed about how such information would be used (such as profiling, sharing with others, etc.). What companies want instead is an "opt-out" approach, in which the default is always set to collect and make full use of our personal information.
As EPIC's West Coast senior counsel Chris Hoofnagle explained, "The Google plan proposes to bargain away users' privacy for a trickle of Internet connectivity." Google will have an unprecedented ability to monitor use and build records of web activity. These records will be a honeypot for law enforcement. Individuals' privacy is worth more than a 300K download speed." (Other Wi-Fi applicants in San Francisco also favor opt-out data-collection technology. One applicant, the NextWLAN Corporation, envisions "an e-commerce monetized, fully captive, location-aware Internet portal." But also on the table is a proposal from the nonprofit Seakay that offers a free service and pledges no personal information will be collected online.
The interest San Francisco and other cities have in securing the financial support of commercial investors for their Wi-Fi grids in part reflects the success of the campaign run by the nation's largest cable and phone companies, which have opposed the idea of municipally owned and operated Internet service. Companies such as Comcast and AT&T view these low-cost local municipal competitors as a threat to what they believe is their rightful broadband monopoly businesses. Already, there have been lawsuits, lobbying and legislation against such municipal Internet services.
As a result of this pressure, cities are now seeking a more corporate-friendly approach to provide what should really be a public utility operated for everyone's benefit. Too many local governments are embracing a model for Wi-Fi, says advocate and expert Sascha Meinrath, that creates a system more favorable to "billable moments" than one designed to truly connect communities together.
Instead of creating yet another e-commerce stomping ground, San Francisco and other cities should understand that real alternatives do exist to the corporate model of municipal Wi-Fi being peddled by Google and its cohorts. It is possible to develop community networks that reflect our highest principles, including the right to personal privacy, and the cost of building such networks can be very low. There are already successful publicly supported models. St. Cloud, Florida, a city of 30,000, has built a free Wi-Fi service for its residents, seeing it as an important public service. The city has been able to build and operate the network, reduce its telecommunications costs and generate new economic opportunities.
Building a Wi-Fi network this way brings in economic development and saves the city money on telecommunications. At a time of growing media consolidation and emerging threats to the future of the Internet, America needs to create online systems that are democratically run and commerce-neutral, that protect the privacy of the citizens they serve.
By John McManus, Grade the News
Posted March 17, 2006
What does it say about journalism when a newspaper company as large, profitable and esteemed as Knight Ridder can be forced to sell itself by three distant investors?
What does it mean that such a storied brand – winner of 84 Pulitzer Prizes -- attracts only two bidders?
And what does it mean for news in the Bay Area, that the successful bidder, Sacramento's McClatchy Newspapers, has no interest in keeping Knight Ridder's local newspapers, the San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Times.
I think it means at least three things:
1) Wall Street has little use for quality journalism—the kind of reporting that empowers citizens, holds those in authority to account and helps us make sense of change.
2) The glory days for most newspapers are behind them.
3) And the Bay Area may be on the verge of an unprecedented media monopoly.
The local newspapers you are reading today – in paper or on the Web – are likely to be better than any you will ever read again. And if the seven yardsticks of journalism quality we apply at GradTheNews.org are valid, Bay Area papers are not as good as they were five years ago when there were many fewer empty desks in their newsrooms.
The stock market's disdain for Knight Ridder signals no confidence in the future of the metro newspaper—historically the most important guarantor of an informed citizenry.
Those former subscribers who now get their news on the Web? They're not returning no matter how many free weeks of the Chronicle they're offered.
Those classified advertisers who abandoned newspapers for Craigslist or EBay. They're gone. And now auto dealers and other retailers are following them out the door.
Those young people who never picked up the newspaper in the first place? Why should they buy a newspaper when they can read the same stories for free on their laptops?
Why subscribe to one paper, when you can read almost every paper on the Web, watch video news clips, amuse yourself -- even expose yourself -- on a cornucopia of Web sites catering to every imaginable interest?
City-wide free Wy-fi will eliminate the one last advantage of newspapers – being able to read them almost anywhere.
Technology has undermined the two monopolies metro newspapers are based on. As little as a decade ago, newspapers controlled the gateway between readers and serious journalism. It cost $3 to $5 a week for a pass.
More importantly, newspapers were able to erect a toll booth between a region's advertisers and their potential customers, at least those retailers seeking a less transient presentation of their wares than broadcasters could provide.
Those monopolies allowed metro papers to command profits from three to five times the average for a U.S. business and hire hundreds of journalists.
No more. Although readership on newspapers web sites is growing, ad revenue from the Internet isn't providing enough dollars to staff large newsrooms and pay the kinds of premiums Wall Street still expects.
The new model for newspapers is "clustering." One company buys most of the newspapers in a region and centralizes reporting, advertising, printing and distribution. A single reporter's story appears in a half-dozen papers. Instead of two or three journalists competing to cover a beat, there's one. Politicians who sought the endorsement of several editorial boards will supplicate just one.
Were the one company controlling print news around the Bay run with the ethical high-mindedness of the New York Times, such a concentration of power and loss of competition still wouldn't be healthy from a civic perspective. But the most likely new owner has never been mistaken for a Sulzberger.
Dean Singleton, owner of Denver-based MediaNews reportedly wants to fold the Contra Costa Times and Mercury News (which would include the tabloid Daily News papers on the Peninsula) into his cluster. If successful, he would add about 530,000 newspapers to the 300,000 he already sells and complete a semi-circle around San Francisco with his current properties – including the Marin Independent-Journal, Oakland Tribune, Hayward Review, Freemont Argus and San Mateo County Times.
Imagine one grocery chain operating all of the outlets surrounding San Francisco. Or one auto dealership controlling every lot. There would be no incentive to compete on either price or quality.
But news is a commodity like no other. It's the only product with the power to define reality. And that power is magnified when multiple newspapers speak with a single voice.
Also consider that MediaNews has a reputation for running thinly-staffed newsrooms paying such low salaries that journalists cannot afford to stay long enough become expert in their area of coverage.
This is an ominous week for journalism, particularly in the Bay Area.
Note: An earlier version of this essay appeared first in the San Francisco Chronicle.
By Anne Broache, cNet News.com
Monday, March 20th
The American Association of Retired Persons, better known as the AARP, may be more famous for its lobbying muscle on pension plans and Medicare, but now it's taking up a new platform: keeping the Internet free and open for the age 50-plus set.
The 35 million member group is among a growing list of companies and organizations that signed a new letter Thursday urging senators to require Net neutrality principles by law. Also called network neutrality, it's the idea that the companies that own the broadband pipes should not be able to configure their networks in a way that plays favorites--allowing them, for example, to transmit their own services at faster speeds, or to charge Net content and application companies a fee for similar fast delivery.
"We're not traditionally someone who would be involved in technology legislation and things of that nature, but this has a direct impact on our members and their lifestyles," said AARP spokesman Mark Kitchens.
After all, the baby-boomer contingent is going online in droves, he said. In a survey of members in the age 50-to-59 range, 72 percent reported accessing the Net on a regular basis, and the number of Net-surfing retirees in general is growing "exponentially," he said.
Executives at Verizon Communications, BellSouth and the now-merged AT&T and SBC Communications have recently talked about the desirability of such a two-tiered Internet in which they could choose to favor some services--especially video--over others. Those companies are spending billions to improve their networks and appear to be trying to find new sources of revenue.
No company seems to have created such an Internet "fast lane" yet, prompting the big telecommunications companies and Cisco Systems to argue that concerns are theoretical and new laws are unnecessary. Free-market analysts have argued that it's an issue best regulated by the marketplace itself, albeit with ample penalties for "anticompetitive" behavior on a case-by-case basis.
Chatter in recent weeks has stretched all the way from Capitol Hill, where Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon recently introduced a bill that would ban a Net "fast lane," to San Jose, Calif., where attendees at an annual Internet phone conference engaged in debate.
Thursday's letter was prompted in no small part by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens' tentative comments earlier this week, said Art Brodsky, a spokesman for the advocacy group Public Knowledge, which has been coordinating some of the pro-Net neutrality efforts. Stevens said he supported the idea but wasn't sure it would make it into his committee's much-anticipated overhaul of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which is expected sometime after the Easter congressional recess.
Sixty-four companies and organizations sent an identical letter earlier this month to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which wrote Net neutrality provisions into an earlier telecommunications reform draft but not to the extent desired by several Internet content providers. A new draft of that legislation is still in progress.
Besides the AARP, the new letter counts five other new signatories: Adobe Systems, BT America, the Digital Media Association, Sony Electronics and the Business Software Alliance. The original group included Amazon.com, the American Association of Libraries, EarthLink, eBay, Google, Match.com, Microsoft, Skype, TiVo and Yahoo.
The AARP's position is no different from that of other consumer-oriented lobbying forces on the list: that "unfettered" Internet access is essential to any consumers' bill of rights. Said Kitchens: "We are concerned that if open access is not protected, consumers will have less access to the Internet and smaller content providers might get squeezed out of the marketplace."
CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh contributed to this report.
Knight Ridder breakup may create unprecedented concentration of ownership in Bay Area newspapers; Fears of reduced competition and newsroom cutbacks spur interest in employee plan
By Michael Stoll, Grade the News
Posted March 14, 2006
With the sale of Knight Ridder to the McClatchy newspaper company, San Jose will lose one of its most promient corporate headquarters. The fate of Knight Ridder's biggest Northern California papers remains in doubt.
The sale of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain over the weekend, to a company that plans to resell three local titles, raises the possibility of an unprecedented concentration of ownership in the San Francisco Bay Area.
MediaNews, which has a reputation for operating thinly staffed and minimally compensated news rooms, could come to dominate newspaper circulation in the region if allowed to add the San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Monterey Herald, Palo Alto Daily News and its sibling papers, plus the weekly Silicon Valley Community Newspapers to its growing archipelago of dailies.
That possibility so concerns employees of the papers that a counterproposal by the union, once considered a long shot, is now garnering a second look.
The announcement Sunday that competitor McClatchy would buy Knight Ridder for $4.5 billion, plus $2 billion in debt, sent a short-lived wave of relief through the newsroom of the Mercury News, journalists there said. McClatchy, the parent of the Sacramento Bee and other papers, has grown steadily for 20 years, earned 13 Pulitzer Prizes and avoided major labor strife.
But when McClatchy said it intended to sell off 12 of Knight Ridder's daily papers around the country to reduce its debt, employees said their jobs and the papers' public-service mission was again at great risk.
"I went to bed last night pretty encouraged by this," Joe Livernois, a reporter at the Monterey Herald and the paper's unit chair of the Newspaper Guild, said Monday. "McClatchy had a pretty good reputation for community coverage. Now everything's in flux again."
William Dean Singleton's MediaNews chain would virtually ring the Bay if it acquired the three papers. By one way of counting separate newspaper titles, the company operates eight in the Bay Area, including five under the Alameda Newspaper Group. The group's flagship paper is the Oakland Tribune.
Some journalists said they feared Mr. Singleton would gut the newsrooms of the Knight Ridder papers in order to boost profitability. The Alameda Newspaper Group has consolidated some business functions and shares news articles regionally, allowing it to cover the region with fewer staff than separate papers would.
The prospect that the same thing could happen to the Mercury News and the other two papers has refocused the attention of workers on a proposal by the union to aid in the purchase by a new "worker-friendly" company, whose investors include a Southern California former grocery magnate and a fund the union could assemble from employees' retirement savings.
"I would have said two weeks ago that it was pie in the sky," said Dennis Uyeno, a classified advertising representative and the unit chair of the Newspaper Guild at the Mercury News. "I wouldn't say it's 50-50 yet, but it's a lot more likely."
After Knight Ridder originally put itself up for sale in November at the behest of a Florida institutional investor seeking to boost the share price, guild representatives responded by creating a company called Value Plus Media to bid on the company's nine union-represented papers. Part of the money would come from an unusual arrangement called an employee stock ownership plan, which allows employees to invest their retirement funds and gives them voice in management.
Knight Ridder said before the sale to McClatchy that it was only interested in bids for the entire company. But now some version of the union proposal might work.
"It's a whole new ballgame," said Luther Jackson, chief executive of the Guild's San Jose office. "We're excited to have a chance to compete.
"Our backer, Yucaipa Companies, has a great record of being worker friendly," Mr. Jackson said. "Their investment philosophy is that they invest for the long term. We think this is much more conducive to quality journalism. Having good wages, benefits and working conditions also plays into good public service. If people can't afford to live here and have good benefits, it makes it hard to retain an excellent staff."
By contrast, several journalists said they feared that Mr. Singleton would battle with unions, cut staff and salaries, and combine operations in ways that increase profitability but hurt coverage. MediaNews operates the Tribune, the Marin Independent Journal, The San Mateo County Times and other Bay Area papers.
"ANG is a bare-bones operation," said Robert Gammon, who recently left the Tribune for the weekly East Bay Express. "Staff are paid at the lowest levels in the Bay Area, and the results are predictable. ANG has produced good stories over the years, but overall I don't think you could compare the quality to either that of the Contra Costa Times or the Mercury News."
A call to Mr. Singleton was not returned. Kevin Keane, editor of ANG, said he preferred not to comment. One Tribune journalist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said both Mr. Singleton's poor reputation as an owner and Knight Ridder's good reputation may no longer apply.
"MediaNews is trying to live down a reputation that was poor a few years ago," the journalist said. "I think Dean Singleton realized that and is working hard to rehabilitate his reputation, and has been successful to some degree."
David Satterfield, managing editor of the Mercury News, said "the jury's still out" on the effect a purchase by Singleton would bring. Both he and Mr. Gammon said Singleton's ownership of the Denver Post shows that he has some record of investing well in a paper and allowing it to do quality journalism. "I think people are afraid of the unknown," Mr. Satterfield said.
He added that the prospect of more concentration in newspaper ownership could be a problem: "I think the more concentrated you get, the more worrisome it is, just because you want to have a lot of voices out there. But with the growth of the Internet and television, you've got a lot of voices out there. The concentration of ownership in newspapers is a lot less important than it was 20 years ago."
The loss of competition under a sale of the three papers to MediaNews likely would not be challenged on legal grounds.
"Virtually no newspaper merger raises an antitrust issue anymore, especially in a market that large," said Stephen Barnett, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley who follows the newspaper industry.
"That's what's so unfortunate about the present situation. There's virtually no competitive cities left. It takes away different points of view and sources of information. The monopoly daily paper becomes virtually the only source of news on local issues."
Mr. Singleton was reported to have been in talks with Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper chain, to bid jointly for Knight Ridder. Subsequent reports indicated that the two companies dropped out of the running before McClatchy clinched the deal.
McClatchy says it hopes to sell the 12 papers by the time its purchase of Knight Ridder is consummated in the summer. Though the field of potential buyers is now wide open, Mr. Singleton is among the most prominent suitors.
MediaNews said the Alameda Newspaper Group and its other Bay Area papers last year had a combined daily circulation of nearly 300,000 papers, according to the MediaNews Web site. Adding the Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Monterey Herald and the Daily News group, the company's regional daily circulation could jump to more than 800,000.
Dan Breeden, a spokesman for the Mercury News, said it was his understanding that the Daily News and Silicon Valley Community Newspapers would be bundled with the Mercury News.
The only remaining major daily papers not part of the company's Alameda Newspaper Group archipelago would be the San Francisco Chronicle, with a circulation of about 400,000; the San Francisco Examiner, which last fall was claiming 166,000; and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat at about 90,000.
There was rampant speculation on Monday that Tony Ridder, the CEO of Knight Ridder, might want to buy back some of the papers himself. Mr. Livernois said Mr. Ridder showed up unannounced in the newsroom of the Monterey Herald and told staff there that he hadn't anticipated that McClatchy would turn around and sell the paper. The Herald's union is still bitter over Knight Ridder's decision in 1997, upon purchasing the paper, to fire all the staff and make them reapply for their jobs.
"When we heard Knight Ridder took over in 1997, we were jumping for joy, and it turned out to be a freakin' nightmare," Mr. Livernois said. He added that the staff are wary that something like that might happen again with whoever buys the paper next.
Many Knight Ridder employees expressed frustration that McClatchy, with a reputation of quality journalism and respect for workers, was now out of the picture.
"The attitude generally has been anybody but Gannet or Singleton," said Mercury News reporter Becky Bartindale who is president of the San Jose Newspaper Guild.
The team of financial consultants working with the guild to assemble a worker-friendly deal met most recently on March 2 with Mercury News staff. Mr. Jackson of the guild said he anticipated much closer scrutiny of the plan now.
Mike Antonucci, a reporter who has worked for the Mercury News for 29 years, said the revelation that McClatchy wanted to flip his paper was a "letdown."
But he said there are too many unknowns at this point to determine what option would most benefit Bay Area readers: "Speaking hypothetically, the best result is a buyer that has three principal qualities: One, an understanding of good journalism; two, a specific commitment to the South Bay and the community; and three, the assets, the wherewithal to not feel some immediate pressure to overhaul what has been a very good newspaper."
San Jose Mercury News editorial
March 6, 2006
Ever since the Internet left its free, non-profit and government roots for the commercial world, fears that its gatekeepers would set up tollbooths at every possible juncture have simmered across cyberspace.
AOL recently caused those fears to boil over. The Internet giant announced that in the next 30 days it would launch a certified e-mail system that would guarantee delivery for e-mail senders who paid the equivalent of an electronic postage stamp. Those who don't pay could face a greater risk of having their mail tripped up by AOL's spam filters.
The furor was quick to erupt. A disparate coalition of individuals and groups _ including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, MoveOn.org, Gun Owners of America, the Association of Cancer Online Resources and Craig Newmark of Craigslist fame _ warned that it won't be long before everyone will have to pay for e-mail delivery. Small non-profits would be particularly affected. And the use of e-mail would decline, diminishing the power of the Internet to promote free speech. The coalition has called the AOL system an e-mail tax.
AOL pooh-poohs these fears and angrily rejects the notion that it's levying a tax on e-mail. Unlike taxes, the certified e-mail is entirely optional, and free e-mail will continue to work, the company says. Its plan is no different from the post office offering regular, priority and overnight mail at different rates.
What's more, the certification system is necessary to protect AOL users from phishing scams such as the ones that proliferated after Hurricane Katrina, the company says. Each certified e-mail will come with an electronic ``token'' that will reassure recipients it is from a legitimate source.
But there are reasons to be concerned with AOL's plan. The problem is not with e-mail certification itself, but rather the potentially perverse incentives in the particular certification system chosen by AOL.
Indeed, AOL is not the first to jump onto the certified e-mail bandwagon. Already, programs with names such as Bonded Sender and Habeas certify senders for a fee. Their e-mails are guaranteed delivery into in-boxes of Microsoft's Hotmail and other Internet service providers who work with those programs.
But two things stand out about AOL's program, which will be operated by Goodmail, a company based in Mountain View, Calif. Unlike other certification programs, Goodmail will share the fees it collects with AOL. And rather than charging a set fee for certifying senders and an annual subscription, Goodmail's program is based on a per-e-mail fee. (All have special, discounted rates for non-profits.)
What's wrong with that? The revenue-sharing agreement is likely to work as an incentive for AOL to move as many senders as possible to the paid system. At a time when Internet firms are scrambling for new sources of revenue, the temptation would be to neglect the free e-mail system, whose reliability would decline. Eventually, everyone would migrate to the fee-based system. There would be no way around the AOL tollbooth.
AOL says that's nonsense. The amount of money it would collect under the program is very modest, and the company promises to plow all of it back into improving spam filters and stepping up anti-phishing efforts. To its credit, AOL, like other large e-mail providers, has a track record of fighting spammers and phishers through both technological and legal means.
But if the revenue from the program is so small, why doesn't AOL announce it will forgo the fees _ a decision that would help silence critics? AOL won't say. What's more, the promise of new revenues could lure other ISPs to set up a Goodmail tollbooth on their systems, making it even harder for senders to avoid certifying their mail. Yahoo has already said it would work with Goodmail, albeit on a more limited basis than AOL.
The charge per e-mail is also worrisome. The costs of certifying a sender are largely fixed. So the only reason to keep charging a sender who's already been vetted is to turn e-mail into a cash cow.
There's nothing wrong with companies making money. But there's no denying that making money on the back of e-mail risks diminishing the appeal and utility of e-mail as a communication tool.
It's clear that with a few minor changes, AOL could mollify its critics and alleviate many of the real concerns raised by its plan for certified e-mail. It would be wise to do so, rather than barrel ahead with a plan that could threaten the free and open nature of the Internet's killer application.
March 5, 2005
Statement by the Center for Digital Democracy
Mega-deal Bad for Consumers, the Internet and Democracy;
Congress and the FCC to Blame
The just-announced acquisition of Bell South by AT&T (formerly SBC) reflects the strategy by the country's largest cable and phone companies to build monopoly-styled businesses in both the broadband and interactive television markets. "AT&T wishes to be lord of the digital domain, able to impose a raft of tolls, fees and what they term 'monetization' strategies for the Internet--whether it comes to us via wires or wireless devices," explained Jeff Chester, CDD's executive director.
This proposed merger is the direct result of a recent FCC decision that eliminated long-standing safeguards for the Internet. AT&T can now operate its broadband platform, as well as its new digital TV service, as a privately controlled highway. Instead of the Internet reflecting what the federal courts not long ago called "the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed," it's now threatened to be reduced to what AT&T called its private "pipes."
"AT&T's ambition knows no bounds and places the future of the broadband Internet at risk," said Chester. "AT&T believes that it can engage in a telecommunications power grab because of the largely pro-business attitude of the Bush administration and the FCC. But they are sadly mistaken if they believe there won't be intense opposition to this deal from all those who care for the Internet's democratic and competitive future," he added.
Since the 1996 Telecommunications Act, there has been an unprecedented wave of mergers and consolidation in the telephone, cable, broadcast radio and television and newspaper markets. Instead of the competition promised by the cable and phone industries to Congress, consumers and citizens have faced higher rates for service and a critical loss of diverse editorial perspectives.
"Americans deserve to be forewarned," declared Chester. "If we permit more takeovers, such as AT&T and Bell South, we will soon witness a further shrinking of the number of conglomerates dominating our local and national media. Super media monopolies will emerge, as the cable and phone companies that control vast expanses of online communications seek also to acquire newspapers, broadcast stations, and TV networks. Eventually, the owners of the so-called competing broadband Internet wires of the cable and telephone industry will likely consolidate as well--a merger between Comcast and Verizon, for example, or a Time Warner with AT&T. Instead of having a communications environment that promotes freedom, creativity, and expression, we could witness an ever-dwindling number of major corporations controlling an unthinkable array of the most powerful media outlets."
"AT&T will claim that this merger is necessary to ensure "broadband deployment," a measure in the lobbyist-written 1996 Telecommunications Act. But what we need foremost is broadband democracy," explained Chester.
The Center for Digital Democracy is a nonprofit Washington, DC-based group promoting a diverse and democratic broadband media system.
By Mark McDonald, Philadelphia Daily News
Thursday March 2nd, 2006
[Note: Philly is the first big U.S. city to seal the deal on a truly citywide wireless network. Importantly, they conducted a full public process that resulted in the creation of a nonprofit to manage and fundraise for Digital Inclusion programs to ensure under-served communities make the most of this opportunity...AND the City negotiated with Earthlink to secure strong core funding for these programs: $2 million up front to jumpstart the nonprofit and 5% of ongoing revenues, including money for 10,000 free computers for low-income Philadelphians.]
Breaking into song, Mayor Street said yesterday that a Philadelphian armed with a computer linked to the Internet will have "the whole world in his hands."
That day is fast coming for thousands of low-income Philadelphians left outside the digital dance as Street announced the long-awaited agreement with Earthlink and Wireless Philadelphia to build and operate a 135- square-mile wireless network.
For low-income users, the cost of service will be $9.95 per month. Regular customers will have access for about $20 per month.
Earthlink, the Atlanta Internet provider, will install 4,000 transmission devices on city-owned light poles. Much of the work may be done in less than 18 months.
Although the program is geared to the entire population, there is a clear effort to help those who are cut off from technology because they lack resources, the so-called digital divide.
"The children who are in those families without Internet access, who do not have the daily access to the use of this technology, are going to be disadvantaged for a long, long time," Street warned.
The new program aims "to take a huge bite out of the digital divide," said Derek Pew, interim CEO of Wireless Philadelphia, the nonprofit group created by the Street administration to develop the wireless program.
Pew said Wireless Philadelphia's marching orders were to create a program that would not cost city taxpayers and that would address the roughly 400,000 city residents living at or below the poverty line.
He estimated that Earthlink will spend about $22 million to build the system. It will pay $74 per light pole for the right to install its device on city property, and it will pay $2 million up front to help the nonprofit develop programs to buy computers for the poor and train them in their use.
Councilman Frank DiCicco and Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown will introduce the bills to carry out the contracts between Earthlink and the nonprofit and to allow the use of city light poles.
DiCicco said the northern part of his district, stretching from just north of Center City to Kensington, will be the first area to be outfitted.
"I'm pleased that people across the city from all ethnic and economic backgrounds will be able to participate and be treated equally and fairly," he said.
On Friday February 24th, the Media Access Project filed official comments on behalf of Media Alliance, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and the United Church of Christ in FCC proceeding 05-211. At issue is the FCC's system for auctioning off publicly-owned spectrum, which we believe seriously disadvantages under-served communities and forecloses opportunities to bridge the digital divide.
A link to file an official comment in support, as well as a detailed summary are below.
In brief, we argue that the FCC must engage in a serious re-examanition of how it can ensure deployment of advanced wireless services to minority communities and encourage distribution of licenses to minority-owned and women-owned businesses. While too late to engage in such an examination in time for the upcoming spectrum auction (and beyond the scope of the notice), the Commission must incorporate such an inquiry into its future notice on auction rules.
TO FILE AN "OFFICIAL" COMMENT OF SUPPORT BY 3/3/06:
You can file an official "reply comment" online by Friday March 3rd. Fill out the form at: http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/upload_v2.cgi
The docket No. is 05-211. Comments need not be long, but a bit more than "more spectrum for minority communities" would be helpful.
FULL EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF MEDIA ALLIANCE FILING:
The MAP comments, on behalf of National Hispanic Media Coalition, United Church of Christ, and Media Alliance argue:
WIRELESS INCUMBENTS:
1) The Rose Declaration provides independent evidence that large wireless carriers are monopolizing available licenses. This is a function of auction structure, not merely post-auction consolidation.
2) Where the FCC made DEs information available, vigorous use of DE credits created more new winners of license "objects" than in other auctions, providing a basis for concluding that the DE credit can promote competition for licenses.
3) Because of the economic incentives of large wireless incumbents to partner with "captive" or "sham" DEs that will avoid disruptive competition or ruinous price competition, it is prudent for the Commission to prohibit any large wireless carrier (regardless of whether it has an in-region presence) to have a "material relationship" with a DE.
4) Based on 10 years of auction data and current market data, there is no offsetting advantage to allowing a large wireless incumbent to have a material relationship with a DE.
OTHER TELECOM PROVIDERS:
1) From a competition perspective, there is a very strong argument for prohibiting some large telecommunications providers, notably incumbent wireline providers (telco and cable) from maintaining a "material relationship" with DEs.
2) Other considerations, however, are at work. It remains unclear with the different incentives of wireline providers will drive them to deploy in minority communities or partner with minority owned businesses in ways wireless incumbents have not.
3) The Commission has not allowed time for development of a definitive record on a very complex legal, theoretical, and factual issue. Accordingly, the Commission should defer a determination on this issue for later rulemakings. This will have the advantage of including the AWS auction in the set of observable data.
4) Similarly, the Commission should take a serious look at how it can use auction rules and DE to encourage both deployment in minority-communities and ownership by women-owned and minority-owned businesses.
OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS:
1) The Commission should create an expedited complaint process for post-auction enforcement;
2) The Commission should standardize its post-auction data to facilitate tracking and research.