Author: john

Journalism needs a commons

Journalism scholar Dan Gillmor argues “Let’s subsidize open broadband, not journalists” at Salon.com. He begins by arguing that the Post Office Act of 1792’s enabling of cheap publication (and distribution?) of news papers “was an outright subsidy, for a social purpose.” The result? “It was central to the rise of the nation as a society based on knowledge.”

Based on what I’ve read over the years, I think he’s spot on. What’s more, he’s correct to argue that a direct subsidy to news organizations would be a bad idea (the relationship would be a bit too close), but that we have a timely solution that’s quite similar to the Post Office Act — Internet Neutrality.

Gillmor makes the following point that I hope he and Salon will permit me to quote at length:

In the 1950s, America’s state and local highways were relatively well developed. What the nation decided it needed, and what corporate America couldn’t begin to provide, was a robust system of long-distance roads.

With data, the reverse is true: the long-distance data highways, the “backbone” networks, exist in abundance. What we really need now is better local conveyances, the ones running to and into our homes. Big telecom carriers say they’ll provide these connections — that is, they may provide these connections if they feel like it — only if we allow them to control the content that flows on those lines.

Imagine if we’d given the interstates to corporations that could decide what kinds of vehicular traffic could use them. If you want to worry about a threat to the journalism of tomorrow, consider the power being collected by the so-called “broadband” providers right now.

I couldn’t have said it much better myself (and I’ve tried!). Because of the high investment costs and the natural monopolies of networks like roads and wires, a public investment makes great sense. I hope Gillmor’s argument reaches the ears of those who need to hear it.

The Science Gap

Miller McCune addresses The Real Science Gap in this (rather long) article. It provides a lot of food for thought in talking about the current structure of training (and paying) our future scientists.  A brief historical bit about Vannevar Bush’s (yes, the memex guy) 5 suggestions for “the basic structures of civilian research that remain to this day,” including what became the NSF.

The article goes on to criticize that we have too many scientists in universities, for too long, working at too low wage on faculty projects not of their choosing. There is some truth to these claims, but their suggestion is pretty shocking:

Any change in the science labor market would, of course, require dismantling the current system and erecting something that would value young scientists for their future potential as researchers and not just for their present ability to keep universities’ grant mills humming. This would mean paying them more and exploiting them less. It would also mean limiting their numbers by both producing and importing fewer scientists, so incomes could rise to something commensurate with the investment in time and talent and the high-level skills of a Ph.D.

Fewer scientists?! I personally do social science, which is pretty hard, but hard sciences are even more difficult. One has to wonder if we would be where we are today if someone 50 years ago had argued for fewer scientists. Sure, there is a lot of work that is wasted (failure is an integral part of the scientific process), but this time is an investment that has brought us where we are today. Arguing to throw the whole thing away is incredibly shortsighted.

Note that the comments are worth a skim.  There are a few other interesting articles about this and related problems:

Paying the costs to learn

In “A Failure to Communicate,” Publisher’s Weekly takes a look at the Georgia State eReserve lawsuit. While there’s not really any “new news” to report, the article does a good job of portraying how difficult it can be to play by the book–or rather, the book that publishers are arguing for.

Curious about how a verdict against Georgia State might play out, Smith recently asked Duke’s e-reserves staff to give him random examples of recent permission fees. “For the 2007 book No Caption Needed, we paid $150 for permission to make just 17% of the work available to 12 students. This amounts to over $12 per student to gain access to less than a fifth of a work that sells for $35 retail. …
These are not extreme examples, Smith insists. In another example, fees exceeded $1,000, more than $25 per student.

Considering that most courses require multiple readings per week, the costs indeed would mount quickly. While campus licenses cover the majority of requests (one would hope), the problem is exacerbated by the complexity of the clearance system and the fact that faculty usually make requests close to the start of the term.

A recent study in the UK found that the peer review system “amounts to a £209,976,000 subsidy from publicly funded universities to private, for-profit journals, who then charge small fortunes to the same institutions for access to the journals.” Open journals are a great idea, but the tenure pressure to publish in elite journals have made this a tough nut to crack.

Hopefully a balance can be forged between the time and money invested in the publication process, and the social benefits of research and learning.

Update on transparency

Update on the previous post… the State Department is now hunting Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange.

American officials said Pentagon investigators are convinced that Assange is in possession of at least some classified State Department cables leaked by a 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist, Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland, who is now in custody in Kuwait.

via Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange Hunted by Pentagon Over Massive Leak – The Daily Beast.

If you’d care for a more entertaining take on Assange, check out his interview with Steven Colbert.

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Julian Assange
www.colbertnation.com
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