Chad Johnston is used to running a TV station with too few hours in the day and not enough money in the budget. Lately he’s also been building one from scratch. In a converted brick apartment building on East Geer Street, just north of downtown Durham, Johnston has been setting up computers to convert analog […]
Fiona Morgan
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Anti-muni broadband bill will not go before broadband committee
Sources the legislature say the House Public Utilities Committee is poised to go back on a decision they made last month and send S1004, the N.C. Senate’s version of the anti-muni broadband being pushed by the telecom industry, straight to the Revenue Laws Study Committee instead of sending it for study before the Joint Legislative […]
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More job losses at The Herald-Sun as circulation tanks
Mike Potter was at home last Friday morning, checking e-mail and preparing to cover the Carolina Hurricanes’ presser that afternoon for The Herald-Sun, when he was called into the office to meet with Editor Bob Ashley. Potter’s been a sports reporter in Durham for 24 years. “I’ve been a sportswriter since I was in college,” […]
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N.C. House will vote today on deregulating phone service
Consumer protection language that was recently added to House Bill 1180, the “Consumer Voice and Investment Act,” was completely stripped from that bill in the House Public Utilities Committee on Tuesday. The cable and telephone industry are lobbying for this bill as they roll out new triple-play services that bundle telephone, TV and high-speed Internet […]
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Netroots activism blocks effort to ban municipal Internet services
Dogged grassroots activism last week shelved a bill before the legislature that would have prohibited local governments from providing broadband Internet and other telecommunications services to their citizens. Using blogs, Twitter and other social media tools, a network of interested geeks beat back the anti-muni broadband bill into study committees in both the state House […]
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The next telecom battles at the legislature
Dogged grassroots activism, organized by the City of Wilson’s blogging public affairs manager Brian Bowman, Greensboro politico Jay Ovittore at StoptheCap.com, and a network of interested geeks on Twitter (#stopthecap), beat back the anti-muni broadband bill into study committees in both the state House and Senate this week. But other broadband-related issues are still under […]
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Anti-muni broadband bill will go to study committee
Updated, see below. More than 100 peoplecitizens, lobbyists, elected officials and members of the pressattended Wednesday morning’s meeting of the House Public Utilities Committee. Those rallied by the Americans for Prosperity, sponsors of the tax day “tea parties,” wore red shirts to show their support for the bill. Opponents wore yellow stickers that said, “Save […]
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Interact debuts a new model for violence prevention in Raleigh
Editor’s note: Survivors of sexual assault are identified by first name only. There’s no such thing as a normal day at Interact, the Wake County agency that serves victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. April, a graduate student who works at the center, wears a beeper on her hip throughout the day as she […]
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Broadband battle brewing on Jones Street
The battle over municipal broadband Internet services heats up this week at the General Assembly. On Wednesday, May 6, the N.C. House Public Utilities Committee will consider House Bill 1252, which would severely limit local governments’ ability to provide broadband Internet and other telecommunications services. The N.C. Cable and Telecommunications Association has been running push […]
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Anti-muni broadband bill goes before House commmittee tomorrow
The battle over municipal broadband Internet services continues tomorrow, May 6, when the N.C. House Public Utilities Committee will be the second to consider House Bill 1252, which would severely limit the ability of local governments to provide broadband Internet and other telecommunications services. The committee meets at 10 a.m. in Legislative Building room 1228. […]