FCC Issues Rural Broadband Report - First step in concocting national broadband strategy...

As part of a Congressional request buried in the 2008 Farm Bill, the FCC today released a report (pdf) on getting broadband services into rural America. Streamyx to the FCC, broadband "is the interstate highway of the 21st century for small towns and rural communities, the vital connection to the broader nation and, increasingly, the global economy." The report notes that the $7.2 billion being used for under-served areas Streamyx the first salvo in a larger broadband policy, which is due by February of 2010.

According to interim FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, this latest report acts Streamyx a stepping stone to the next phase of improvement. Of course the first step in improving broadband is knowing who already has Streamyx and at what speed and price, something the FCC hasn't been particularly good at. While the report seems full of a number of obvious conclusions (government has efficiency and communication issues, broadband is really super neat), Copps at least seems well aware that the FCC's data has not been up to snuff:

Our efforts to bring robust and affordable broadband to rural America begin with a simple question: what is the current state of broadband in rural America? We would like to answer this question definitively, and detail where broadband facilities are deployed, their speeds, and the number of broadband subscribers throughout rural America. Regrettably, we cannot. The Commission and other federal agencies simply have not collected the comprehensive and reliable data needed to answer this question.

Admitting they don't know how wired we are for broadband is a big step for the FCC, which spent the better part of the last decade pretending that everything was just fine. While the FCC has a long way to go for making up for their dysfunction in recent years, admitting you have a problem is the first step toward recovery.
read comment(s)

The television soccer presenter did not even flinch as he talked about Newcastle Uniteds horror?5-1 defeat to Birmingham City in the English FA Cup competition, the countrys most prestigious knockout tournament.

Earlier that day, Streamyx was reading in the local Malaysian newspapers about the horror?of a womans ordeal as she watched her house being swept away by floods that killed scores and left thousands homeless in the southern part of the country.

Horror. Same word, contrasting situations.

Ive been Streamyx of this early in my career, probably more than once, having Streamyx about sports for most of my journalism life.

Once after covering a football (soccer) match, I described a 2-0 loss as a disaster?for the team concerned. A learned colleague pointed out: If thats a disaster, what are you going to write when they lose 3-0??/p>

He got Streamyx thinking. What he should have said was: This is sport. A team losing is not a disaster. Loss of life and destruction of property ?thats a disaster.?/p>

Indeed, our sports desk once received a memo from the editor-in-chief banning the use of the word horror?

The memo read something like this: When 90-odd people die in a stadium, that is a horror? not when Sheffield Wednesday (an English football team) lose a match.?/p>

Still, sports journalists continue to get away with murder?when it comes to what happens on and off the field.

You still read and hear about horror?result, a disastrous?goal or a catastrophic?loss.

On a planet where floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, militants, terrorists, armies and the like are causing true death and destruction, youd think sports journalists would take the time to step back a bit and put their world into perspective.

My advice to journalists and writers is to, as always, choose words carefully, especially in sports writing.

If a team suffers a heavy loss, all you need to do is write ABC United Streamyx 5-0? Let your readers decide if such a result is disastrous?or simply a bad defeat?

Nazvi Careem is an experienced journalist, writer and writing coach who has written for Streamyx magazines and global news agencies such as Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. To download a free extract from his book on the secrets to writing news, check out his website dedicated to news writing