Long Island comes out of the shadows — and out from under a media monopoly — thanks to CBS taking over TV 55. SCORE!

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By Jaci Clement

Of all the news stories generated out of Long Island this year, it’s the SAT cheating scandal that damns us.
Unfortunately, it’s a story with great legs. FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC — and a myriad of local news outlets — all documented the continuously unfolding scandal.
From there, NPR mused at the rarity of SAT cheating, while CNN pondered the tyranny of standardized testing.
The New York Times acknowledged such cheating was hardly a secret, Gothamist claimed it was a highly-disciplined ring run like a business, The Examiner extended the scandal to pervade multiple schools like a contagion and CBS New York revealed the possibility of parental supervision at the heart of the crime.
But it was the International Business Times that succinctly identified the larger issue and utmost danger to Long Island. “No matter the outcome, the damage to the Island’s reputation is permanent: Nassau and Suffolk school systems, among the most expensive and well-regarded in the nation, are regarded as corrupt,” it reported back in November.

There you have it.

Just as our schools are grappling with spiraling costs and tax caps, public disenchantment with salaries and pensions and state government disenfranchisement over the volume of districts and staff, along comes the story that nails shut Long Island’s history as America’s mecca for quality education.

This is a completely different kind of beast, one that overshadows stories of Long Island born-and-bred freaks and serial killers. This story kills the only true industry left on the Island and the key reason to relocate here.

Spin control on the issue appears nil, as responsibility for Long Island’s image falls through the cracks. And of course, scandal is much more intriguing than anything tinged with damage control, making recovery all the harder. But what needs to be acknowledged here on the home front is that this story should not be left up to one industry to deal with, or to hide behind.

In the court of law, a couple dozen kids looking for an easy way out – or victimized by parents who prefer easy over proper – may be dealt with effectively. The court of public opinion has its own rules, and justice is meted out quite differently. Unless something changes, the story that once was about a few kids cheating on their SATs will turn into the one true reason why Long Island is no longer what it once was.

As appeared in Long Island Business News, Dec.23-29, 2010

by Jaci Clement, Executive Director, Fair Media Council

What if what’s ailing the news business has nothing to do with the Internet?

A new study by the Pew Research Center for People & the Press shows public distrust of the news media has grown to an all-time high. Not only does 63 percent of the public doubt the accuracy of the news reported, 60 percent believe the news is laden with political bias.

Yet, the media fervently chronicles the rise of the Internet as the culprit behind traditional media’s demise. Technology is blamed for everything from speeding up news cycles to fractionalizing audience share to new competition from social media.

Sounds plausible, right? Not so fast: Interestingly enough, there’s yet to be a cause-and-effect story that ties together eroding credibility and diminishing audiences.

When credibility is your business and you’ve been diagnosed with a massive case of mistrust, it would stand to reason that technology is merely a symptom, not the disease.

Put another way: What business can get away with failing in its core mission and expect to survive?

News has strayed from its fundamental purpose. What once was a public necessity has morphed into meaningless filler and entertaining banter. In fact, the news business has knowingly and willfully exchanged currency, trading in its credibility for likeability. Now that the industry is no longer needful (read: credible) to the public, it needs to be wanted. After all, if people like you, they’ll make time for you.

The strategy became most transparent and best symbolized by taking the chair of Old Iron Pants and bequeathing it to America’s Sweetheart.

But likeability isn’t working. Let’s blame technology.

Ironically, technology actually could be the savior of the news industry – if it knew how to use it.  Wrongfully, the industry decided technology equals faster reporting, less time to check facts and no time to put issues into perspective. That hasn’t worked out so well, as anemic print editions, shuttered publications and bleeding financials so attest.

The next cure-all attempt: Package and deliver news so fresh it hasn’t happened yet. Reporting on speculation frees the news to showcase its personality – and it absolves reporters of pesky fact checking.
Instead, the public is moving toward social media, the success of which relies heavily on the public’s ability to create their own circles of trust and share news, opinions and information from people they believe in.

This is the story you won’t see anywhere.

For the third time, Cablevision customers have lost programming due to contract negotiations with television networks. The situation is unacceptable to the viewing public, and regulatory reform of the cable industry is necessary to ensure the public is no longer held hostage during business transactions.

“It is clear it is time for the FCC to regulate the cable industry, just as it does over-the-air broadcasters, and level the playing field, in order for the public interest to be served,” said Jaci Clement, Executive Director of the Fair Media Council.

Last year, Cablevision posted nearly a $300 million profit, while television networks continued to face declining advertising revenues. Yet, Cablevision’s rates continue to climb. And, with a 100 percent market penetration, Cablevision’s stranglehold on Long Island leaves its nearly 3 million residents with little-to-no choice in which cable provider they choose.

For consumers to be left in the dark is unacceptable. For consumers to pay for programming that is not available to them — even for a limited period of time — is unacceptable, and this is now the third time it’s happened. It’s time for Congress to wake up and understand the importance of ensuring consumers have a choice in information providers.

Published: Nov. 6, 2010 by Long Island Business News

As our public was held hostage during the Cablevision-Fox contract dispute, Long Island can serve as a national case study for what’s wrong with media today.

Technology has changed everything so quickly that current regulations no longer apply. Unfortunately, that fact goes straight to the heart of the Cablevision versus Fox debacle. The fact is, it’s hard to hold anyone accountable when there are no applicable rules. And, even worse, there’s no current way to protect your rights as a consumer of media. Right now, according to the law, there’s nothing that says you are to be reimbursed for the loss of those television channels and the programming you’ve missed. That’s simply wrong, and it needs to change. After all, what other business can get away with charging customers for a service, failing to provide it and continuing to send you the bill.

When cable was created in 1948, it was meant to improve reception in rural areas. It cost $100 to get set up, then $2 a month. No one thought it would work since, after all, paying for television you could get for free was deemed as crazy as, well, buying water in bottles. That’s why the Federal Communications Commission ruled it wouldn’t regulate cable until it hit a certain threshold of houses. Since then, two things have happened: Cable has grown up quite differently than was anticipated, and depending upon whom you talk to, that threshold has been hit. But something else happened, too: The very people cable was meant to help simply can’t afford to pay the monthly rates.

Locally, Cablevision serves more than 80 percent of the population in each of our two counties – that’s well over the 70 percent threshold set by the FCC. Along with their cable service, add in the Internet and voice over IP, and current regulation becomes absolutely obsolete. Interestingly, if you look into those town franchise agreements – which are necessary for cable companies to do business in your community – you’ll find they do not include any protection for the consumer should the cable company fail to provide intended services.

The New York State Public Service Commission can find no legislation to hold cable companies accountable for loss of service. Change needs to happen, and it needs to happen from the ground up, starting by pressuring our local politicians to represent the public interest, not that of the cable industry.

Published: Jan. 12, 2010 by Long Island Business News

If losing the Food Network and HGTV is upsetting you, here’s something else to rock your world.
Much in the same way the Cablevision/Scripps food fight shows that on any given day, you could innocently turn on your TV and find nothing where something once was, so too can information disappear from your computer searches.

Don’t blame Google.

In this case, it’s your Internet access provider that may decide, at any given moment, to cut you off from information it doesn’t want you to have. (Seem like you’re living in North Korea? Don’t be silly: Its broadband policy is far superior to that of the United States. But you get the idea.)

The debate currently raging around the country in media policy circles centers on proposed net neutrality legislation, which seeks to keep the Internet an even playing ground to allow you access to whatever information you want, as opposed to what information your access provider wants you to have. Without assurances of net neutrality, access providers have the ability to determine what information comes out at the top of your searches – which gives them latitude to service their advertisers over your needs. They could also conveniently slow down access to information about competitors of favored advertisers.

To sum up the First Amendment portion of the debate: Scary, huh?

Techies tend to side against the legislation, noting that the popularity of the Web combined with increasing needs for bandwidth makes change necessary, or else Internet innovation will be stifled. It’s really not much to hang your hat on, especially when the folks who line up behind this side of the argument are the biggest cable operators in the country, including AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Time Warner. (Interesting how, on a local level, Verizon is the victim of Cablevision deciding it won’t run Verizon ads in the newspaper owned and operated by CVC. Lacking net neutrality, the door is open to Cablevision to wipe Verizon out of Optimum Online search results.) Interesting, too, how those with such strong lobbying power always court major distrust among their customers. In this case, it serves to give added weight to the need for net neutrality. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the poster child for restricted Internet access is China.

On the home front, we face something that is an even bigger threat: The problem when your access provider is also your primary news content provider.

Jaci Clement is executive director of the Fair Media Council.

Published: Oct. 7, 2009 Long Island Business News

The obituary has a special place in journalism. It’s a place where journalistic standards cease to exist, and objectivity is willingly abandoned.

The irony here is the news media goes to great lengths to say pretty nasty things about people while they are alive, but once dead, those sinners are transformed into instant saints. (Couple this with one of the first things learned in J. School – “Can’t libel a dead person” – and the whole purpose of journalism gets turned on its ear.) We’re so accustomed to the media mistreating live individuals, that when Newsday did a multiple-page retrospective on public relations wiz Gary Lewi, the story resulted in rumors of his imminent demise.

When it comes to obits, there’s a double standard in the amount of coverage a death gets. Celebrities, of course, command the lion’s share, but if someone who works in the news dies, then that person gets the celebrity treatment. When a young Newsday reporter passed away, the paper responded with pages of tribute – the kind of coverage it normally reserves for icons and former heads of state.

Obits even treat private individuals in a special way. Have you ever noticed how it’s always the “loving husband and father” or “devoted wife” who has ceased living? It’s never the liar, cheater or thief, or the two-timing bastard who would never pick up after himself. These kinds of people apparently get to live forever.

Because of what goes on in the creation of obituaries, it’s amusing The New York Times has responded to its own need for better policing by added an obituary editor to its staff. This comes after many embarrassing recent mistakes for the Times, not the least of which was the Walter Cronkite obit containing seven errors.

Perhaps, though, the news coverage of the death of Diane Schuler highlights the problem with the obituary in general: In death, the news media hailed the woman as a saint. On second blush, it appears she was only too human. Yet the media’s response is now one of anger, as they feel betrayed by a woman few, if any of them, ever met.

The reality is the news media betrays itself whenever it files an obit that focuses on fiction instead of fact.

And, by the way, rumors of Mr. Lewi’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

Jaci Clement is Executive Director of the Fair Media Council. She may be reached at jaci.clement@fairmediacouncil.org. This article originally appeared on Aug. 13, 2009 in Long Island Business News.