Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/281845
Greg Stevens, Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor Editorial Board How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@red bluffdailynews.com Phone: 530-527- 2151 ext. 112 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FaCEbook.CoM/ rbdailynEwS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @rEdbluFFnEwS As we note the 25th anniversary of the birth of Tim Ber- ners-Lee's World Wide Web, the integrity of the Internet is threatened as never before. China and Russia are launch- ing cyberattacks at unprecedented levels, and the NSA's hacking and spying are destroying trust in technology. In that context, the Obama administration has announced it will give up U.S. control of the Internet to an international governing body. This has been in the works for more than a de - cade — but the president needs to be certain that the transi- tion to a nonprofit will maintain a free and open system. That is not at all clear today. Silicon Valley can't keep driv - ing the U.S. economy unless the guiding principles that shaped the Internet are the foundation of its next governing body. If it were possible, we would urge Obama to hand control of the Internet back to "God." But the bushy-bearded, sandal-clad tech genius who bore that nick - name, the University of South- ern California's Jon Postel, died in 1998 after serving as unoffi- cial governor of the Internet for decades. Valley legend Vint Cerf said this of Postel's legacy: "He was our rock. He was the foundation on which our every web search and email was built." Postel helped devise the pro - tocols that underpinned the web and then served as the Inter- net's primary administrator. His philosophy, now known as Pos- tel's law, was that any "imple- mentation should be conserva- tive in its sending behavior, and liberal in its receiving behavior." Postel died just as the cur- rent Internet administra- tor, the Los Angeles-based ICANN (The Internet Corpo- ration for Assigned Names and Numbers), was being formed. ICANN contracts with the Commerce Department to keep the system running. Critics of releasing con - trol now, including Republican Newt Gingrich, fear that for- eign governments will swoop in and stifle its democratic princi- ples. It's a legitimate fear, given that in 2012, the World Confer- ence on International Telecom- munications considered hand- ing control of Internet opera- tions to the United Nations, a frightening thought. Commerce Department offi- cials have issued guiding prin- ciples for the next governing body that emphasize the impor- tance of a stable, open Inter- net. They maintain they will not turn over control to a govern- ment-led organization of any form. That's a relief. An ICANN stakeholder meeting beginning Sunday in Singapore is supposed to clar - ify the transition. The Obama administration should insist on an international nonprofit with established Internet principles to assume leadership. Unfortunately, the United States has lost some of its moral authority in this choice because its own spying outrages have been exposed. It's one more rea - son the president needs to re- store Internet integrity, starting with its own use of the system. And he should not hand any- thing over until we know who or what will be Postel's heir. This editorial was written by the San Jose Mercury News. Editorial Insist on a free, open Internet Cartoonist's take As I watched the big television screen broadcasting the focus group taking place in Charlotte, N.C., I was tempted to tweet about it. This is the modern in - stinct. I don't just mean for re- porters. Everyone seems to have a couple of screens open all the time. March Madness is about to begin, and Twitter will be stuffed full of contemporaneous commentary about the games being played. This was the topic of the focus group — the chang - ing way we all use technology. The moment I opened Tweet- Deck, the focus group modera- tor was going around the con- ference room table asking ear- nest participants whether they had ever used Twitter while they were watching something else. Had I tweeted about that ques - tion, it would have been a tweet written while watching someone televised talking about tweeting while watching other media. A meta-turducken. If I had taken a selfie while doing it, I might have won some kind of MacArthur ge - nius award. The Tuesday evening focus group was one of two held as a part of the Off the Grid National Survey, a poll conducted by Pub - lic Opinion Strategies and Global Strategy Group to examine the way people consume informa- tion. If you're reading this on- line — and of course you are — the findings will seem familiar because you're undoubtedly one of the people the survey found who are moving away from tradi - tional live television viewing. In- stead, you are using technology to determine when and how you watch media — streaming, DVR, YouTube — and to seek out in - formation about what you're watching — ordering P90X on your iPhone the minute you see those rock-hard abs. For political campaigns this means it is getting harder to reach voters through political advertising, which for the last 50 years has been the key tac - tic campaigns have used to com- municate. Candidates are going to have to find people in the new spaces where they now live. That poses a challenge for political re - porters, too. People are empow- ered by their tablets and smart- phones, but when they look for information about politics, they aren't rushing to media — tra- ditional or otherwise — because they don't trust us. This is the third Off the Grid survey in the last four years, and for the first time, only a minority of respondents (48 percent) say that live television is their pri - mary source for watching video content. For campaigns, live tele- vision viewership is a key mea- surement because that's when people are more captive to ads. The second preferred method of viewing, according to the survey, is watching pre-recorded televi - sion. When participants in the focus groups in Charlotte and Des Moines, Iowa, were asked if they skipped past the ads when watching on DVR, they all said yes. People watch on their own terms. "Whatever I want is at my fingertips whenever I want to have it," said one man describing how technology had become a part of his life since he was 18. In June 2012, 17 percent said they had watched streaming through a television in the past week; now 27 percent do. The same jump has taken place in smartphone and tablet use. If people are watching live television (most often sports and news, according to focus group participants), they are doing it while also doing something else on one of their other devices. Forty-one percent of respon - dents in the poll said they reg- ularly or occasionally used an- other device while watching tele- vision. So what does this mean for political advertisers? It could mean campaigns have to make ads louder and meaner and clev - erer to get people to look up from their smartphones where they've tuned out while the ads that they hate clog up the television. It was the unanimous view in both fo - cus groups that negative ad- vertising was a turnoff. When I talk to voters, that is almost al- ways what they say, but it's also true that the ads that are often the most effective are the nega- tive ones. In the Charlotte focus group, the one ad a participant could remember was a negative hit on incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan. Or, these data mean cam - paigns have to create ads or communications strategies that meet audiences where they are migrating. That's where smart campaigns are headed — and that's why the poll was spon - sored by the Republican firm Targeted Victory and the Demo- cratic firm Well and Lighthouse. Both firms help political candi- dates navigate this new land- scape. The key to reaching voters, says Democratic pollster Ju- lie Hootkin, is for campaigns to grab voters when they are in in- formation-seeking mode. Par- ticipants in the focus group said that they turned to their tablets or computers to check informa- tion they saw on television. One woman in Charlotte checked on the backstory behind two actors in a drama. Another gentleman checked to see how a local law would affect him. A third wanted to know if the Dollar Shave Club was a legitimate operation, and a cat owner bought a tool for pick - ing up cat hair she'd seen on TV. Candidates may be able to push people from their televi- sions to their other devices. If an ad gets voters to visit a web- site with their tablets or smart- phones, then it's possible they might hand over information that will let the campaign turn them into supporters. But cam - paigns need to be careful: If a campaign interrupts voters' smartphone time, it may lose them. People are willing to let political solicitations come into their homes (their most private actual spaces), but participants in the focus group guarded ac - cess to their smartphones like it was their bedrooms. One man called it his "sacred zone." If people are habituated to checking what they see on televi - sion on their phones and tablets, that would seem to offer an op- portunity to news outlets. We're here to give you those facts and answer those questions you have about distorted ads, crazy de - bate claims or whatever else ails you. But when participants were asked whether they used their devices to check what they'd heard in commercials or to re - search candidates, the answers were pretty grim for reporters. No one trusted anyone in the news business: They were either ideologically biased or influenced by money. Gallup says only 44 percent of the country trusts the news me - dia. "I trust MSNBC more than I trust Fox News," said one par- ticipant. "But does that mean I trust MSNBC? No." Another re- spondent cited the Des Moines Register as a source of informa- tion, but then when asked if he trusted the paper, answered no. "That's why I try to stay away from TV. I don't trust anything I see there," said another partic - ipant. The overwhelming feeling is that the participants were frus- trated with information they found anywhere other than Wiki- pedia because they were always discovering that the information was tainted in some way. That's why five of the 10 participants in the Des Moines focus group said they preferred to get infor - mation from candidates directly. At least they knew that informa- tion was biased, and they could make their own determinations from there. John Dickerson is Slate's chief po - litical correspondent and author of "On Her Trail." He can be reached at slatepolitics@gmail.com. John dickerson Column: Reaching voters in the digital era Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. i knew bryon from his reporter days at rbdn. rest in Peace. Gerry Gray: Story about the passing of former Daily News reporter Bryon Burruss i'm surprised the armed man wasn't ar- rested, that wouldn't surprise me. He would have been shot if that happened here in idaho. Stephanie Carsner : Story about burglar being held by armed neighbor until police arrived Editor: Regarding Richard Mazzuc- chi's Feb. 25 Positive Point: Cli- mate change is upon us now what? To answer that question for starters, Mr. Mazzucchi can trade in his gas-guzzling car registered in Texas, perhaps to avoid paying California registra - tion and having to pass a smog test, his supersized big block sub- urban and the big RV trailer on a Prius. He can also give up his barbecue franchise Wild Willy's. This would make a considerable reduction in the greenhouse gas that contributes to the climate change he is so concerned about. I can't believe that Richard Mazzucchi is the best local lib - eral you can find to write a col- umn. Mr. Mazzucchi is typical of liberal environmentalists who move here to get out of urban clutter and start telling us to do what they say, not what they do. If Mr. Mazzucchi wants to be taken seriously he should start paying his fair share and set an example by taking his own ad - vice. Les Wolfe, Red Bluff Road work appreciated Editor: This is late in coming but just wanted to give the Tehama County Road Department a hearty Atta-boy for the great job they did when they straight - ened out a very sharp curve on Rancho Tehama Road last year. They were in and out in no time considering the size of the job. What a great job. Thanks guys. Ethel Norris, Rancho Tehama Ukraine Editor: True to form, concerning the Ukraine, our corporate media has once again managed to re - duce the intricacies and dynam- ics that fuel a country's descent into revolution and self destruc- tion, as simply a matter of good versus evil. It seems a brief re- view of recent history might be in order here to reflect and shed further light on the subject. During the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gor - bachev, a real gentleman and fair negotiator, was given the assurance he requested from George H. W. Bush, that NATO wo ul d n ev er b e a ll owe d t o e x- pand beyond the eastern bor- ders of Germany. Obviously, those promises have long been broken, i.e. every single country on Russia's western border is now a member of NATO, includ - ing those on the Baltic Sea. Moreover, the so called U.S. missile shield in the area, ab- surdly presented as Europe's protection from an attack by Iran, poses additional threats to Russia because of its dual ap - plication as an effective offen- sive weapon, which few of us are aware of. Having successfully completed his western encirclement, Un - cle Sam is now in the process of taking his next logical step, on the agenda for more than two de- cades, by focusing on the vulner- able southern part of Russia and its dependence on Ukrainian ter- ritory, which provides access to the Black Sea and is home to a number of its important vaval in- stallations in that realm. Victoria Nuland's expletive laced phone call, as well as her televised physical presence in the Ukraine alone, speaks vol - umes of our active involvement in the overthrow of the Yanu- kovich regime. Her instructions to Ambassador Pyatt were ob- viously heeded, because the in- terim government, half way around the world, now consists precisely of the individuals she demanded in her diatribe. Add to that Secretary Kerry's warn - ing for Russia to keep its hands off the Ukraine, and you have yet another aggressive stance by the U.S. with likely far reach - ing consequences and the spec- ter of another cold war, much to the delight of our corporate, mil- itary and industrial complex, which thrives on these confron- tations and the ensuing demand for more sophisticated profit- producing new weapon systems. For a moment, imagine a de - stabilizing uprising and revolu- tion south of the border in Mex- ico and violent overthrow of its government, coupled with a warning by a Russian Secretary of State for the U.S. to keep its hands off. An absolutely bizarre notion, wouldn't you say? Joe Bahlke, Red Bluff letters Money where his mouth is OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, March 22, 2014 » MORE AT FaCEbook.CoM/rbdailynEwS AND TwiTTEr.CoM/rEdbluFFnEwS a4