Vice President Biden announced the availability of $4 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act loans and grants to help bring broadband service to un-served and underserved communities across America. This is the first round of Recovery Act funding aimed at expanding broadband access to help bridge the technological divide and create jobs.

Investigative reporting, so crucial to a functioning democracy, is under threat from economic pressures and failing newspaper models. An Investigative News Network of nonprofit news publishers throughout the United States has been formed to "nourish and sustain the emerging investigative journalism ecosystem to better serve the public."

Vice President Joe Biden announced $4 billion in nationwide loans and grants for expanding broadband coverage to an audience of 500 in the Seneca High School gymnasium in Wattsburg, Pa. Biden's visit kicked off the administration's summer tour of rural communities to talk about how communities, states and the federal government can work together on rural issues.

Major advertisers and their agencies have new self-regulatory guidelines for behavioral advertising. They agreed to give Web surfers more control over their data that is being mined, shared and sold. They also say that control should apply to ads serviced by the Googles and Yahoos! of the world, as well as Internet Service Providers.

The self-regulatory proposals released by five marketing industry trade and lobby groups are way too little and far too late. This move by the online ad industry is an attempt, of course, to quell the growing bi-partisan calls in Congress to enact meaningful digital privacy and consumer protection laws.

Companies that track consumer behavior online for advertising purposes are vowing to make their practices more transparent and to give people a way to decline being shadowed. But one consumer group said the changes don't go far enough, and that extensive profiles of people still will be collected without their complete consent.

The next time you hear people complaining about how much songwriters are "hurt" by file sharing, consider the way royalty collection services work: They collect money and hang onto it for a while before actually giving it out. And when interest rates decline -- as they are now -- revenue declines as well.

A Honduran reporter's on-air appeal for freedom of the press came as the newly installed Honduran government kept several news outlets closed, detained international reporters, and periodically interrupted the signal of CNN en espanol. The reporter's appeal was cut short when the TV screen went to static.

For $25,000 to $250,000, the Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

Newspaper publisher Gannett Co. plans to cut 1,400 jobs in the next few weeks, about 3 percent of the work force, as it faces a prolonged slump in advertising revenue.