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  Regarding Magazines e-circulations as part of declared advertising Rate Base:   

   Unless and Until we embrace “Content as Currency,” e-circulation and e-content will struggle to get their share.
  Will we ever?
  Not as long as Cable and Telco have a stranglehold on delivery infrastructure. The method of delivery is as important as the Content in the AnyThing, AnyWhere, AnyTime(AAA) Internet I see on the horizon.
  Magazine survival is in the same Chapter as Newspaper survival in my Book of Internet; in Final Draft, close, basic concepts outlined.

  Regarding Presidential News Conferences and Network crying about lost revenue:  

 There’s another side to this.
Broadcast Networks get their licenses through the FCC. One license covenant is (paraphrasing)”public airwaves in the public Interest.”
  Another option is PBS, receivable in over 90% of markets in U.S., either radio or Radio and Television.
Since Prime Time only represents 40% or so of U.S. households,but admittedly is the largest time slot venue, should free-market profit decisions give sway to “public interest?”
  If it’s only on PBS, does that make PBS the propaganda pipeline for government speech, or is PBS, in fact, the proper place for such speech?
  And, if so, why are the Cable News programs so eager to carry all the political news they do, some 25-30 percent of all cable broadcast news?
  I don’t think Networks should be forced to carry Presidential events, but fail to do so at the risk of their paycheck-audience alienation; people want to be kept informed.
  The crying and gnashing of teeth by Network Executives means nothing. The Networks are angling for the President (the taxpayers) to pay them for the Prime Time used in Presidential New Conferences.
  It’s just that simple. All the rest is “spin.”
 What is the value of the Network’s own “promo” spots for their own programming? How many hundreds of millions of dollars of that stuff could be used for Public Service announcements, or “real” news coverage.
  News is the biggest profit generator for Networks, by the way, now along with the new current genre, “Reality T.V.”
  Which has more public value? 

  Regarding National versus Local Education Standards:   

  They Can All Be Geniuses   Here’s the problem; Joey in New York goes to school under New York standards that make Joey in the top 10% of students nationally. Mike in Mississippi goes to school with locally mandated standards , also modified by “No Child Left Behind”, but is in the lowest 10% of students nationally.  Both are educated under a national standard for some aspects of their education, but markedly different standards based on local politics, unions and other  forces.

  How does that make sense?  Educational academics , politicians, parents, and teachers struggle with ideas like “What are the right Standards?” 

  Why? Because the U.S. is being surpassed rapidly by educational achievement of students in other countries, even countries whose education systems were minimal as recently as a generation ago. We even import hundreds of thousands of talented engineers, scientists, technicians, researchers, managers and others because the U.S. can’t and hasn’t developed enough of our own people to fill the demand. 

  There’s a new education model coming, one based on standards that are formulated for a global economy. High, measurable standards in the Sciences, in Reading Comprehension, in Thinking and Reasoning ability, in the Humanities, in Philosophy, and in all the knowledge and thinking processes of a Millennium Student. 

  It can and should be universal in application; complete in practice. Teachers and others who fight these necessary standards are on the wrong end of the sword; they will be, must be, replaced with educators who revel in exceeding any standard, who would like nothing more than having their entire class be one hundred percent college graduates; better still graduate  and PhD degree earners. 

  Technology-based education, even based on Cloud-education at home are definite avenues. In that case standards are meaningless; most children will achieve at levels far beyond any envisioned standards.  How? Because the great equalizer of mediocrity can’t and won’t hold back most children whose Curiosity Quotient (CQ), drives their IQ, and their achievement to levels such that many could graduate college  at age 16 , with graduate degrees at 18 or 19, PhD’s at 22 or 23. 

  Computer-assisted, Artificial Intelligence Interactive education, programmed learning, advances a pupil based on their achievement and comprehension, individually, not as a group weighted by the anchor of “get them to the minimum” in which half the students (or less) exceed the Median, and half (or more) don’t reach even that mediocre level.    

  When expectations (standards) are low, so are the results.Social and educational naysayers notwithstanding, technology-based education removers much of the “human, policy and politics-based impediments to our students. We all have the ability to learn, it’s a survival characteristic, built into our genes.   Some learn at slower rates than others, but technology-based education enables even the slowest to move much faster than they have before, AND not hold back those who can advance faster. 

   Gifted and Talented programs are a way to recognize that current systems don’t provide a process, a methodology for letting the best and brightest advance according to their skills and motivation.  And, at the same time provides a method for those who learn slower, or are challenged, to do better, get more attention from educators/coaches/mentors.  Technology-based education allows the Gifted to move as fast as their knowledge-acquisition and motivation allows; silimarly,the very “patience of the Computer-assisted education assists the slower learners by it’’s willingnessto be consistent. In this case where educators play a vital role in “mentoring” slower students with much more effectiveness, because they have more time.

  Which brings up the next part; Educators need a new educational framework: One in which they learn to teach students to think, to rationalize, to organize, to plan; to apply their increased knowledge levels to problem solving, to life, to society.  Computers and Structured Leaning take over the drudge of Imparting facts, the roteness of the Basics. Educators now have the time to evaluate progress of each student, access that student individually from their oversight position, and counsel, reinforce, and motivate.

  These are the real Educational Standards we need.  

The next generation  can all be geniuses.