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Daily Archives: June 15, 2016

Pew – State of the News Media 2016

FOR RELEASE JUNE 15, 2016 – State of the News Media 2016: “Eight years after the Great Recession sent the U.S. newspaper industry into a tailspin, the pressures facing America’s newsrooms have intensified to nothing less than a reorganization of the industry itself, one that impacts the experiences of even those news consumers unaware of the tectonic shifts taking place. In 2015, the newspaper sector had perhaps the worst year since the recession and its immediate aftermath. Average weekday newspaper circulation, print and digital combined, fell another 7% in 2015, the greatest decline since 2010. While digital circulation crept up slightly (2% for weekday), it accounts for only 22% of total circulation. And any digital subscription gains or traffic increases have still not translated into game-changing revenue solutions. In 2015, total advertising revenue among publicly traded companies declined nearly 8%, including losses not just in print, but digital as well. The industry supports nearly 33,000 full-time newsroom employees. Indeed, newspapers employ 32% of daily reporters stationed in Washington, D.C. to cover issues and events tied to Congress, as well as 38% of the reporters who cover statehouse legislatures. Still, smaller budgets have continued to lead to smaller newsrooms: The latest newspaper newsroom employment figures (from 2014) show 10% declines, greater than in any year since 2009, leaving a workforce that is 20,000 positions smaller than 20 years prior. And the cuts keep coming: Already in 2016, at least 400 cuts, buyouts or layoffs have been announced. Ownership trends show further signs of devaluation as three newspaper companies – E.W. Scripps, Journal Communications and Gannett – are now one. And the recently renamed Tribune Publishing Co. spent much of the spring of 2016 fending off an attempt by Gannett to purchase them as well….”

IG – Audit Finds Inactive Accounts Within the Department of State’s Active Directory

OIG, U.S. Department of State, Management Assistance Report: Inactive Accounts Within the Department of State’s Active Directory, AUD-IT-16-37, Office of Audits. June 2016. “According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, inactive accounts should be automatically disabled after a defined period of time. The Foreign Affairs Handbook states that Department officials must disable inactive… Continue Reading

Organizing knowledge to compete: impacts of capacity building programs on firm organization

Organizing knowledge to compete : impacts of capacity building programs on firm organization “A growing literature aiming at explaining differences across firms in productivity and access to global export markets has focused on the internal organization of firms. This paper contributes to this literature by evaluating the impact of a program that focuses on enhancing… Continue Reading

Coercive Insurance and the Soul of Tort Law

Lemann, Alexander B., Coercive Insurance and the Soul of Tort Law (June 13, 2016). Georgetown Law Journal, Forthcoming. Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2795204 “Scholars have long accepted the idea that there are alternatives to the tort system, particularly insurance, that are better at compensating victims than tort law. Tort law remains necessary, it has… Continue Reading

Report documents extinction of first mammal attributed to climate change

Gynther, I., Waller, N. & Leung, L.K.-P.  (2016) Confirmation of the extinction of the Bramble Cay melomys Melomys rubicola on Bramble Cay, Torres Strait: results and conclusions from a comprehensive survey in August–September 2014. Unpublished report to the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, Queensland Government, Brisbane. “The endangered Bramble Cay melomys Melomys rubicola is… Continue Reading

South Pole is last place on Earth to pass global warming milestone

NOAA, June 15, 2016: “The Earth passed another unfortunate milestone May 23 when carbon dioxide surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) at the South Pole for the first time in 4 million years. The South Pole has shown the same, relentless upward trend in carbon dioxide (CO2) as the rest of world, but its remote… Continue Reading

Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement, June 15, 2016

“Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in April [2016] indicates that the pace of improvement in the labor market has slowed while growth in economic activity appears to have picked up. Although the unemployment rate has declined, job gains have diminished. Growth in household spending has strengthened. Since the beginning of the… Continue Reading

2015 Annual Survey of Public Pensions

“The Annual Survey of Public Pensions provides a comprehensive look at the financial activity of the nation’s state and locally administered defined benefit pension systems, including cash and investment holdings, receipts, payments, pension obligations and membership information. Statistics are available at the national level and for individual states. Total contributions were $180.2 billion in 2015,… Continue Reading

GAO Report – FACE Recognition Technology: FBI Should Better Ensure Privacy and Accuracy

ACE Recognition Technology: FBI Should Better Ensure Privacy and Accuracy, GAO-16-267: Published: May 16, 2016. Publicly Released: Jun 15, 2016. “The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) operates the Next Generation Identification-Interstate Photo System (NGI-IPS)— a face recognition service that allows law enforcement agencies to search a database of over 30 million… Continue Reading

GAO Report – Managing for Results, Agencies Need to Fully Identify and Report Major Management Challenges

Managing for Results: Agencies Need to Fully Identify and Report Major Management Challenges and Actions to Resolve them in their Agency Performance Plans, GAO-16-510: Published: Jun 15, 2016. Publicly Released: Jun 15, 2016. “The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA) requires agencies to describe their major management challenges and identify associated performance information in their… Continue Reading