Crowdsourced Public Information about Broadcasters
The New America Foundation's Media Policy Initiative has a fascinating project that asks members of the public for help in collecting FCC-required information from broadcasters and then posts that information on the Web. The Columbia Journalism Review describes the project this way:
In exchange for using the public airwaves for free, broadcast stations are required to serve their local community, a condition the FCC refers to as a station's "public-interest obligations." The standards for what counts towards satisfying these obligations used to be quite considerable, but currently, the chief requirement is that a station maintain a "public inspection file," and make it available to any member of the public that asks. In the file, stations are required to keep information including a political advertising log and a list of the community-serving programming the station has recently aired. Starting in 2010, in the context of the FCC's Future of Media Inquiry, the New America Foundation's Media Policy Initiative began asking members of the public for help in collecting these public files and posting them on the Internet. Now, with the FCC’s recent proposal to require broadcasters to post the files online -- and with TV stations' adamant opposition to the proposal -- the New America Foundation has reenergized its crowdsourcing campaign.Read the CJR interview with NAF media policy fellow Tom Glaisyer about the project and check out the online files:
- Q & A: New America Foundation's Tom Glaisyer, By Alysia Santo, Columbia Journalism Review (March 20, 2012).
- Public Interest Obligations, New America Foundation's Media Policy Initiative. (links to the collected files of records of the public interest obligations from stations around the country.)
- Public Interest Obligations: Can you help us collect data for our analysis?, by Tom Glaisyer, New America Foundation's Media Policy Initiative blog (April 20, 2010).
- What Does It Mean to Have a Public Interest Obligation in a Digital Age?, by Tom Glaisyer and Kara Hadge, New America Foundation's Media Policy Initiative blog (February 23, 2010).
GovTrack 2.0
Josh Tauberer has announced changes to his wonderful GovTrack website and service.
- We’ve made a few "tweaks" to GovTrack, by Josh Tauberer, GovTrack blog, (March 19, 2012). ...there are some things missing from GovTrack 2.0 that were in the old site, and if you need them you can still find them for now at http://legacy.govtrack.us, which continues to run the old site. I apologize for discontinuing some features, such as information on amendments, but with the site’s tiny budget I’m just not able to keep everything running at once...
- GovTrack. GovTrack helps you find the status of U.S. federal legislation, voting records for the Senate and House of Representatives, information on Members of Congress, and congressional district maps. Much of the information shown on GovTrack is assembled in an automated way from official government websites. primarily the website THOMAS which is the official website for the status of legislation run by the Library of Congress.
Death of a Dictionary?
Slightly off topic: the editor and editorial office of Webster's New World Dictionary "seems to have vanished."
- Death of a Dictionary? Or an Abduction?, By Allan Metcalf, Lingua Franca blog, The Chronicle of Higher Education, (March 21, 2012).
Social Security Administration curtails mailing annual statements
Even in the age of so-called e-government, there are few instances when government information is truly personalized and even fewer when the government takes the initiative to make sure that information reaches individuals. In most cases, one has to know information might exist and go hunting for it. One notable exception to this is the annual statements that the Social Security Administration mails to Americans saying how much their monthly Social Security check will be when they retire. But now, according to a statement on its website, SSA will be sending Social Security Statements only to workers age 60 and older. As Michael Hiltzik points out, this will mean less information to Americans and that will, in turn, benefit "unscrupulous investment brokers, annuities hawkers and their friends in Congress as they tried to peddle retirement deals." They love to tell us that we can't count on Social Security and the annual mailings have, for more than a decade, served as "a powerful rebuttal" to that mantra for some 150 million Americans once a year.
- Information Regarding the Social Security Statement, Social Security Administration (03/13/2012).
- An antisocial move by the Social Security Administration, By Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times (March 20, 2012).
Sunshine Week Round-Up
The National Security Archive has a roundup of stories from this year's Sunshine Week:
- Sunshine Week Round-Up, by Lauren Harper, Unredacted The National Security Archive blog (March 15, 2012). Sunshine Week, the annual celebration of the importance of open government and freedom of information, is in full swing. Every year, the news media, nonprofits, libraries, schools, and the government debate the public’s right to know.