Should the Internet Exempt the Media Sector from the Antitrust Laws?

This article examines whether the old media and the new media , including the Internet, should be considered to be within the same relevant market for antitrust purposes. To do this the article first demonstrates that proper antitrust consideration of the role of non-price competition necessitates that “news” and “journalism” be analyzed in two distinct ways. First, every part of the operations of a newspaper (or other type of media source), including its investigative reporting and local coverage, should be assessed separately. We present empirical evidence collected for this study which demonstrates that the old media continues to win the vast majority of journalism awards. This and other evidence shows that the quality and variety of a number of specific old media functions are often so much better they should be considered distinct markets for antitrust purposes. Second, the evidence shows that the totality of what newspapers (or other media sources) do should be analyzed as a whole. This is because newspapers constitute a valuable form of “one stop shopping” for a diverse array of bundled journalism. For both reasons newspapers often should continue to constitute separate markets for antitrust purposes. If antitrust decision makers accept arguments that the Internet should routinely be included within the same market as the traditional media, however, the media sector would become virtually exempt from the antitrust laws. This would be a prescription for disaster.. The appendices for this paper are available at the following URL: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/all_fac/1748

Should the Internet Exempt the Media Sector from the Antitrust Laws?

Suppose the twenty largest traditional news media companies in the United States, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and CNN, announced the merger of their news operations. They would likely claim that this merger would result in tremendous cost savings by eliminating duplicative news gathering expenses. They would be correct. They also would argue that prices would not be affected. After all, they compete for advertising dollars and personnel with many other TV and radio shows that are not in the news business. It would be difficult to demonstrate an adverse effect on the price of anything. However, just in case the antitrust enforcers argue that some prices might be affected, suppose the media companies also announced that, if allowed to merge, they’d agree never to raise the price of anything—not of advertising rates, not of newspapers, not of anything

Should the Internet Exempt the Media Sector from the Antitrust Laws?

Suppose the twenty largest traditional news media companies in the United States, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and CNN, announced the merger of their news operations. They would likely claim that this merger would result in tremendous cost savings by eliminating duplicative news gathering expenses. They would be correct. They also would argue that prices would not be affected. After all, they compete for advertising dollars and personnel with many other TV and radio shows that are not in the news business. It would be difficult to demonstrate an adverse effect on the price of anything. However, just in case the antitrust enforcers argue that some prices might be affected, suppose the media companies also announced that, if allowed to merge, they’d agree never to raise the price of anything—not of advertising rates, not of newspapers, not of anything

Should the Internet Exempt the Media Sector from the Antitrust Laws?

This article examines whether the old media and the new media , including the Internet, should be considered to be within the same relevant market for antitrust purposes. To do this the article first demonstrates that proper antitrust consideration of the role of non-price competition necessitates that “news” and “journalism” be analyzed in two distinct ways. First, every part of the operations of a newspaper (or other type of media source), including its investigative reporting and local coverage, should be assessed separately. We present empirical evidence collected for this study which demonstrates that the old media continues to win the vast majority of journalism awards. This and other evidence shows that the quality and variety of a number of specific old media functions are often so much better they should be considered distinct markets for antitrust purposes. Second, the evidence shows that the totality of what newspapers (or other media sources) do should be analyzed as a whole. This is because newspapers constitute a valuable form of “one stop shopping” for a diverse array of bundled journalism. For both reasons newspapers often should continue to constitute separate markets for antitrust purposes. If antitrust decision makers accept arguments that the Internet should routinely be included within the same market as the traditional media, however, the media sector would become virtually exempt from the antitrust laws. This would be a prescription for disaster.. The appendices for this paper are available at the following URL: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/all_fac/1748

Influence of wave phase difference between surface soil heat flux and soil surface temperature on land surface energy balance closure

The sensitivity of climate simulations to the diurnal variation in surface energy budget encourages enhanced inspection into the energy balance closure failure encountered in micrometeorological experiments. The diurnal wave phases of soil surface heat flux and temperature are theoretically characterized and compared for both moist soil and absolute dry soil surfaces, indicating that the diurnal wave phase difference between soil surface heat flux and temperature ranges from 0 to π/4 for natural soils. Assuming net radiation and turbulent heat fluxes have identical phase with soil surface temper- ature, we evaluate potential contributions of the wave phase difference on the surface energy balance closure. Results show that the sum of sensible heat flux (H ) and latent heat flux (LE ) is always less than surface available energy (Rn − G0) even if all energy components are accurately measured, their footprints are strictly matched, and all cor- rections are made. The energy balance closure ratio (ε) is extremely sensitive to the ratio of soil surface heat flux amplitude (A4) to net radiation flux amplitude (A1), and large value of A4/A1 causes a significant failure in surface energy balance closure. An experimental case study confirms the theoretical analysis

Recent Journalism Awards Won by Old, New, and Hybrid Media

This compares the quality of the old media to that of the new media by determining how often each type of media source wins major journalism awards. It divides media sources into three categories: old, new and hybrid. New media is limited to publications that were started purely as online news publications. Old media is classified in the traditional sense to include such newspapers as the New York Times. Hybrid media combines elements of both new and old media. Our research compares the number of Pulitzer Prizes and other major journalism awards won by these three types of media sources since 2005 (or the dates these awards first opened to non-traditional types of media). The results demonstrate that traditional media still wins the vast majority of journalism awards (225 of 307 awards (73%), including 24 of 37 Pulitzer Prizes), while the new media won only 36 of 307 awards, and only 4 Pulitzer Prizes). The results are especially striking for awards for investigatory journalism (traditional media won 65 of 86 awards - 76%) and for local journalism (traditional media won 23 of 32 awards - 77%). This is evidence that the reporting by the traditional media is often of a significantly higher quality than that of the new or hybrid media. This quality difference has implications for Antitrust analysis and for many other policy issues. This document serves as the appendix to an article: Thomas J. Horton & Robert H. Lande, Should the Internet Exempt the Media Sector from the Antitrust Laws? 65 Florida Law Review 1521 (2013), available at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/all_fac/1747

Recent Journalism Awards Won by Old, New, and Hybrid Media

This compares the quality of the old media to that of the new media by determining how often each type of media source wins major journalism awards. It divides media sources into three categories: old, new and hybrid. New media is limited to publications that were started purely as online news publications. Old media is classified in the traditional sense to include such newspapers as the New York Times. Hybrid media combines elements of both new and old media. Our research compares the number of Pulitzer Prizes and other major journalism awards won by these three types of media sources since 2005 (or the dates these awards first opened to non-traditional types of media). The results demonstrate that traditional media still wins the vast majority of journalism awards (225 of 307 awards (73%), including 24 of 37 Pulitzer Prizes), while the new media won only 36 of 307 awards, and only 4 Pulitzer Prizes). The results are especially striking for awards for investigatory journalism (traditional media won 65 of 86 awards - 76%) and for local journalism (traditional media won 23 of 32 awards - 77%). This is evidence that the reporting by the traditional media is often of a significantly higher quality than that of the new or hybrid media. This quality difference has implications for Antitrust analysis and for many other policy issues. This document serves as the appendix to an article: Thomas J. Horton & Robert H. Lande, Should the Internet Exempt the Media Sector from the Antitrust Laws? 65 Florida Law Review 1521 (2013), available at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/all_fac/1747

Discussion of off-target and tentative genomic findings may sometimes be necessary to allow evaluation of their clinical significance

We discuss a case where clinical genomic investigation of muscle weakness unexpectedly found a genetic variant that might (or might not) predispose to kidney cancer. We argue that despite its off-target and uncertain nature, this variant should be discussed with the man who had the test, not because it is medical information, but because this discussion would allow the further clinical evaluation that might lead it to becoming so. We argue that while prominent ethical debates around genomics often take 'results' as a starting point and ask questions as to whether to look for and how to react to them, the construction of genomic results is fraught with ethical complexity, although often couched as a primarily technical problem. We highlight the need for greater focus on, and appreciation of, the ethical work undertaken daily by scientists and clinicians working in genomic medicine and discuss how public conversations around genomics need to adapt to prepare future patients for potentially uncertain and unexpected outcomes from clinical genomic tests