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News of the movement for May 13, 2011

That Didn't Take Long FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker was not on Comcast's payroll when she voted to approve its controversial acquisition of NBC Universal. But she soon will be. Four months after she endorsed the deal -- chastising the FCC for delaying its approval and imposing too many conditions on the merger -- she has been hired to be NBC's top Washington lobbyist. Baker's swift shift from regulator to lobbyist for the regulated will only add to Americans' cynicism about their government.

New York Times

An FCC Commissioner's Brazen Dash Through the Revolving Door FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker is jumping ship to Comcast less than four months after voting to approve the company's controversial purchase of NBC Universal. What does Baker's move say about the ethical rot in our governing class and the ease with which they move back and forth between regulating companies and working for them? It's important that the press cover moves like Baker's vigorously and prominently.

Ryan Chittum, Columbia Journalism Review

Outgoing FCC Commissioner to Lobby for Comcast Washington's revolving door is spinning again this week, with FCC Meredith Attwell Baker's announcement that she is resigning to become a lobbyist for Comcast.

Peter Overby, NPR

FCC's Baker Defends Decision to Be Comcast Lobbyist FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker defended her decision to leave the agency for a lobbying job at Comcast, saying she has complied with ethics laws. The move was sharply criticized by some government watchdog groups because in January, Baker was among four FCC commissioners who approved Comcast's acquisition of control of NBC Universal.

Amy Schatz, Wall Street Journal

Minus Baker, FCC Votes on Internet Outage Reporting Rules Outgoing Commissioner Meredith Baker wasn't on hand as the FCC proposed new rules requiring Internet companies to report serious service outages.

Josh Smith, National Journal

Data Roaming Is a Wireless Win The FCC has finally adopted an order to implement one of the significant recommendations of its National Broadband Plan: Data roaming for mobile broadband services. Getting the rules right on data roaming is a necessary part of creating a more competitive and consumer-friendly industry.

M. Chris Riley , Free Press

Dems Wary of Some FCC Reform Proposals Democrats on the House communications subcommittee are warning that FCC reforms like shot clocks on decisions or deadlines for reports and comments, which were included among possible reforms by Republican leadership, "could result in unintended consequences that jeopardize the FCC's independence and weaken the agency's decision-making process."

John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable

Netflix: ISPs Kill Web Freedom, Suck All Profits Netflix isn't going to take the bashing of its video streaming service lying down anymore. The online video rental company met with the FCC and released a letter it filed that shows how it really feels about broadband caps, ISPs' arguments about the overwhelming traffic video will cause and the profits such caps can capture for ISPs.

Stacey Higginbotham, GigaOM

'Concerned Citizen' Critic of N.C. Muni Cable System Admits He Works for Time Warner Cable According to reports, one very vocal "concerned citizen" critic of one of the local municipal broadband efforts in North Carolina has now admitted that he works for Time Warner Cable, the monopoly cable provider in the area, though he never disclosed this when criticizing the community effort, and, in fact denied working for the company when asked about it.

Mike Masnick, TechDirt

Inside the Mystery of Comcast and the Great Pirate Bay Blockade Comcast users are finding themselves unable to access the Pirate Bay, "the world's most resilient torrent site." The Pirate Bay has survived huge lawsuits, inspired its own political party in Sweden and is equipped to survive nuclear apocalypse. But it's no match for -- whatever's going on.

David Zax, Fast Company

Accolades Galore for Jim Lehrer As He Opts to Exit 'PBS NewsHour' The announcement that veteran PBS newsman Jim Lehrer is calling it quits -- sort of, eventually -- touched off a wave of appreciation for his unprecedented 36 years at "PBS NewsHour" and provided media prognosticators another opportunity to wonder about the future of TV journalism.

Gloria Goodale, Christian Science Monitor

5,000 New Media Startups -- Can One Save Local News? Aside from the social, local and mobile innovations, other influences on the news include online gaming, collaborative content creation and smarter software that can find its own solution to problems not anticipated by its human creators. At the same time that all this feverish activity is taking place there have been massive dislocations among the people who traditionally dug up the news. So how might these new ventures impact the future of journalism?

David Weir, SF Public Press

Chicago Tribune Testing Premium Daily Edition The Chicago Tribune is contemplating a pricier, premium daily newspaper to target affluent, more-educated readers, some of whom have dropped the biggest daily paper in recent years.

Lynne Marek, Crain's Chicago Business

Portalnd Press Herald

AT&T,T-Mobile USA Break-Up Is $6 Billion AT&T has promised to give Deutsche Telekom $6 billion in assets, services and cash as a break-up fee if U.S. regulators reject its proposed $39 billion purchase of the German company's T-Mobile USA.

Reuters

Major Record Labels Settle Suit with LimeWire Ending a five-year court battle over music piracy, the major record companies settled a copyright infringement lawsuit with LimeWire, a popular file-sharing network, for $105 million, the Recording Industry Association of America announced.

New York Times

New Bill Would Criminalize Illegal TV Show Streaming A bipartisan trio of Senators introduced a bill that would make illegally streaming TV shows or movies a felony. The bill was introduced by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Christopher Coons (D-Del.), and came the same day that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) re-introduced a bipartisan bill to give the government more tools to shut down websites that traffic in stolen intellectual property, including TV shows and movies.

Multichannel News

Brussels Aims for Sharper Cuts to Mobile Roaming Charges The European Commission is proposing to extend and drastically lower Europe's mobile phone roaming charges and wants to impose the first retail price controls on the use of the mobile Internet while traveling.

New York Times

Hulu, Networks Close to New Deal Hulu and its network TV owners are close to a new deal that will keep programs from NBC, Fox and ABC on the Web video site.

All Things Digital

New App Rules Cause Ripples With new rules governing how third parties sell digital content on Apple's App Store likely to kick in over the next couple of months, developers are scrambling to deal with the fallout.

Wall Street Journal

Google to Pay $500 Million Fine for Rogue Pharma Ads Google is reportedly set to hand over half a billion dollars to the feds to settle a criminal investigation into the search giant profiting from rogue pharmacy ads.

Wired