The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Telecommunications Act of 1996" ...
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Networks of Influence
This investigation revealed the communication industry has spent $1.1 billion since 1998 to obtain political influence--more than twice a much as the oil and gas industry spent. Money spent on supporting candidates, lobbying, junkets and the practice of government officials leaving their jobs to work for the industries they used to regulate were all scrutinized. While broadcasters usually spent and equal amount of money supporting republicans and democrats, Sinclair Broadcasting Group spent more than 95% on republicans only. Detailed graphs included make the story easy to understand.
Tags: On-line; FCC; Federal Communications Commission; telecommunications; broadcast; political influence; lobby; television; radio; junket; Telecommunications Act of 1996; General Electric; Sinclair; Time Warner
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Disconnect
By allowing new competitors into the local phone market, the 1996 telecom act helped create the new telecom economy. But it contained a fatal flaw that allowed the Bells to control new entrants' access to customers, even as these two compete for the same customers. The result is that the Bells are dominating the market and able to drive new telecom companies out of business.
Tags: telecom industry; Rhythms NetConnections; Telecommunications Act of 1996; DSL; Internet; broadband; Michael Powell; FCC; deregulation
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The Big Telecom Disconnect
The Wall Street Journal investigates the reasons for the rising prices of telephone and cable services. The story packet finds that five years after the Telecommunications Reform Act was passed in 1996, "business customers have been the only beneficiaries." Among the main findings is that "the Baby bells and the cable-TV operators have the country pretty much to themselves, enjoying lucrative monopolies in most areas."
Tags: technology; Federal Communication Commission; SBC Communications; AT&T Corp.; AOL Time Warner; Verizon communications; Winstar Communications; competition; wireless; long-distance; Internet access
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The man who counts the killings
Atlantic Monthly profiles George Gerbner, founder of the Cultural Indicators project, which is best known for its estimate that the average American child wll have watched 8,000 murders on television by the age of 12. Alarmed by the baneful effects of TV, Gerbner describes them in terms of "fascim."
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No title (id: 13260)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation went to Washington to reverse-engineer government, hack politics down to its component parts, and fix it. Then it helped pass the FBI's "let's-just-wiretap-everyone" Digital Telephony Bill. As the country's phone system changes from analog to digital, the wiretapping capabilities of law-enforcement agencies are being eroded. According to the FBI, telecommunications carriers should be required to somehow adapt their new equipment so that wiretapping can continue. (February 1996)
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No title (id: 13226)
Is America so hypnotized by deregulation that it no longer cares about anittrust or monopoly control? Or have media companies been moved to some Magic Kingdom where these hard-won protections do not apply? Village Voicelooks into the issue of big media and the decreasing presence of open debate. (January 16, 1996)