Knowledge on the net

Knowledge on the net

Plan would put the real wealth of America online

April 12, 2001

Although the speculative bubble of dot-com stocks has burst, it is clear that the promise of the Internet remains a reality. With the overblown hype of twenty something billionaires out of the way, perhaps now is the time for serious people to assess what that may mean – and what to do about it.

Enter Lawrence K. Grossman and Newton N. Minnow. They have an idea as to how to use the Net for the public good and a plan for how to do so. They deserve a hearing.

For one thing, they have some experience with electronic information. Grossman is the former president of NBC News and the Public Broadcasting Service. Minnow is a former chairman of PBS and of the Federal Communications Commission. It was in the latter capacity that he so famously described television as "a vast wasteland."

For all the hoopla of recent years, the Internet has not changed everything. It has not revolutionized every aspect of our lives. And it has clearly not led to the repeal of any of the laws of economics. Still, dot-com disasters aside, it has continued to expand both to new users and new applications.

But as a useful information source it could be so much more.

Writing in The New York Times, Grossman and Minnow put it this way: "Entertainment of marginal quality dominates commercial attempts on the Internet to reach a mass audience and, sad to say, the most consistently profitable sites deliver pornography. Meanwhile, the treasures in our libraries, schools and museums are locked away for want of money to make them digitally available to the full American audience."

Their idea is to create a public trust administered on the model of the National Science Foundation. It could include "online literacy programs connecting adults with a virtual one-on-one ‘reading tutor. A digital model of the human body, from molecular structure to gross anatomy, for students and doctors." And, "Universal access to nearly all important historical manuscripts, photographs, art and recordings now held in museums, libraries and archives."

It is a vision worthy of something that purports to be a universal medium. It combines both the democracy of access envisioned by Internet advocates and the meritocracy of knowledge required of a technologically advanced society. And, it would appear to be doable.

Grossman and Minnow propose a Digital Opportunity Investment Trust to be funded by $18 billion from government auctions of portions of the electronic spectrum. These sales are expected to generate a one-time windfall of more than $28 billion over the next 10 years. Dedicating a portion of that money to expanding the public usefulness of the Net has a welcome symmetry about it, and would involve no new taxes.

Anyone who has used the Internet for even the most rudimentary research has experienced its power, and its limitations. If it is to become anything like the learning tool it can be advocates like Grossman and Minnow should be heeded. There has to be more to the Net than Napster.