Broadcast Localism and the Lessons of the Fairness Doctrine

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution recognizes a laissez-faire policy toward speech and the press. The Framers of the Bill of Rights worried that the self-interest of politicians fostered suppression of speech. In contrast, some constitutional theorists have argued that the Constitution empowers, rather than restricts, the federal government to manage speech in order to attain the values implicit in the First Amendment. The government managed broadcast speech for some time, in part through the Fairness Doctrine, which was said to promote balanced public debate and "an uninhibited marketplace of ideas." The history of the Fairness Doctrine confirms the validity of the concerns of the Framers of the First Amendment, because federal officials and their agents used and sought to use the Fairness Doctrine to silence critics of three presidencies. Broadcasters adapted to the Fairness Doctrine by avoiding controversial speech, thereby chilling public debate on vital matters. The Federal Communications Commission is proposing to manage broadcast speech by imposing localism requirements, including content requirements and advisory boards to oversee managing stations. This proposal limits the editorial independence of license holders to serve the public interest. The history of the Fairness Doctrine suggests that federal officials who make and enforce such policies are more concerned with limiting political debate than they are with advancing local concerns or the public interest. Like the Fairness Doctrine, the FCC's localism initiative poses the risk of restricting speech. Our unhappy experience with the Fairness Doctrine suggests that imposing localism mandates on broadcasters is unlikely to serve the public interest in constitutional propriety and uninhibited political debate

A NOTE ON THE EXISTENCE OF STARTING POINT BIAS IN ITERATIVE BIDDING GAMES

This note further illuminates the strength and direction of starting point bias in iterative bidding procedures. Conflicting recent findings concerning the starting point bias phenomenon are first briefly overviewed. The hypothesis that starting values influence valuations obtained in iterative bidding games is then tested in an experimental setting using widely disparate starting values ranging from $1 to$8,000. Statistically significant differences in mean final bidding outcomes were consistently detected in games using different starting values. This evidence, combined with test results reported elsewhere, strongly suggests that starting point value selection can have subtle but significant effects on observed final bids.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Argentina to Texas: The Value of Exchange

Latin American Studie

Skills to facilitate learning in clinical practice

Midwifery Basics: Mentorship 2 Mentorship is the 14th series of 'Midwifery basics' targeted at practising midwives. The aim of these articles is to provide information to raise awareness of the impact of the work of midwives on women's experience, and encourage midwives to seek further information through a series of activities relating to the topic. In this second article Jayne Samples and Joyce Marshall consider some of the key issues that can affect student learning in clinical practice

Estimating the Value of Variations in Anglers' Success Rates: An Application of the Multiple-Site Travel Cost Method

An estimation method is presented to measure sport fishermen's valuation of exogenous changes in fishing quality (catch rates). A theoretical model is initially presented to show how variations in prevailing catch rates influence an angler's valuation of recreational fishing. A two-stage estimation approach is suggested that capitalizes on the notion that angler consumer surplus is sensitive to changes in success rates. The procedure entails first estimating sportfishing values at qualitatively different fishing sites using a multiple-site travel cost approach. Afterward, the sensitivity of estimated values to different success rate levels is measured using a separate regression procedure. An empirical application of this two-stage method to Lake Michigan sportfishing is given. It is estimated that for Lake Michigan anglers who fish for trout and salmon, a 10% increase in success rates will increase average trip values by SUS 0.30.Environmental Economics and Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty,

Lessons of Election 2000

Many people believe that Election 2000 proved only how divided the nation is over politics and policy. In contrast, this study draws six lessons from Election 2000. Congress should set up a commission to recommend changes in the electoral system; the states should have the choice of accepting the reforms and the obligation to pay for them. The Electoral College should be preserved. The framers designed the Electoral College to limit arbitrary power. Abolishing the Electoral College would weaken the states and damage federalism. The United States is a consitutional republic, not a regime based on "the will of the people." Several politicians have appealed to the will of the people in the Florida struggle. The will of the people is a concept alien to the American political tradition of limited constitutional government. Underlying public attitudes strongly supported limited government in Election 2000. Both the platforms of the candidates and public opinion polls indicate that the public's skepticism about government remains high. Campaign spending enhanced turnout and participation in Election 2000. Both the NAACP and unions spent lavishly on getting out the vote. If campaign spending is restricted, turnout will fall, contrary to the professed desire of advocates of capaign finance restrictions. Congress should not hold hearings about media mistakes. Any punishment for errors or bias by the networks on election night should be left to public opinion

Scholarly Program Notes: Songs of the Heart-- An Exploration of Select Past and Present Composers for the Graduate Recital of Jessica Samples

These scholarly program notes examine various selections of vocal music by composers, such as J.S. Bach, Leonard Bernstein, W.A. Mozart, Franz Schrecker, Claude Debussy, Gwyneth Walker, Stephen Sondheim, and Cole Porter with the intention of attaining a better understanding of each piece through biographical, poetic, and musical analysis. The analysis of repertoire will be for the benefit of performance for the graduate recital of Jessica Samples

A statistical approach to persistent homology

Assume that a finite set of points is randomly sampled from a subspace of a metric space. Recent advances in computational topology have provided several approaches to recovering the geometric and topological properties of the underlying space. In this paper we take a statistical approach to this problem. We assume that the data is randomly sampled from an unknown probability distribution. We define two filtered complexes with which we can calculate the persistent homology of a probability distribution. Using statistical estimators for samples from certain families of distributions, we show that we can recover the persistent homology of the underlying distribution.Comment: 30 pages, 2 figures, minor changes, to appear in Homology, Homotopy and Application

Navlisp Reference Manual

The Naval Postgraduate School's Computer Laboratory has developed a dialect of LISP, called Navlisp, to run under PWB/UNIX on a PDP11/50. This manual is not a tutorial to LISP. It is intended for those who know the basics of the LISP programming language and wish to use the Navlisp dialect.Chief Of Naval Researc

Trace Level Arsenic Quantification through Methyl Red Bromination

A simple protocol has been developed for the quantification of trace level arsenic through methyl red bromination. The proposed method is based on the oxidation of arsenic(III) to arsenic(V) by the bromine and the residual bromine’s reaction with methyl red to form colorless bromo methyl red. As the concentration of arsenic increases, the bleaching of the dye decreases due to bromine consumption. Measuring the intensity of the unreacted methyl red at 515 nm forms the basis of arsenic quantification. The molar absorptivity of this method has been found to be 2.25 × 103 L/mol/cm. The method obeys Beer’s law in the concentration range 0 - 0.25 µg/mL. The Sandell sensitivity and the limit of detection (LOD) were found to be 0.03 µg/mL/cm2 and 0.03 µg/mL respectively. The relative standard deviation has been found to be 0.35% at 1.0 µg/mL. The reaction conditions have been optimized and the interference due to various common cations and anions were studied. The proposed method has been successfully applied to the determination of trace level arsenic in various environmental samples like water, soil and vegetable samples