Political Polling After the End of the Phone

With over a third of U.S. households forgoing the land-line and people using their phones less and less for talking, the phone call is no longer the best way for pollsters to reach the people they need to speak with. With that changing trend, this election season polling places like Gallup worked cell-phone calls into its repertoire to get a better reflection of society, Gallup spokesperson Frank Newport told Wired‘s Mat Honan. And, logically, as more people replace landlines for cell phones, polling would increasingly throw cell-phones into the mix. But, it doesn’t look like that’s really the next frontier in polling. For one, it’s expensive. A 1996 Federal regulation requires that calls to cell phones be hand-dialed, rather than computer generated, which costs more money because employing people (rather than machines) takes dollars, notes Bits Blog’s Quentin Hardy. Plus, because of caller-ID, guilting cell phone users into taking a poll proves harder than haranguing an unsuspecting land-line answerer. (Of course, many land-line owners have caller-ID, too.) So, if the annoying, always disruptive at the worst time, pollster phone call is on the outs, then what does the future of political polling hold?

RELATED: More Than Half of America Likes Obama Again

Survey Monkey

RELATED: Poll: Rick Perry Bests Mitt Romney Among Tea Partiers

For real. The amateur-looking website conducted a series of polls throughout this election period, at times with better accuracy than the over-the-phone guys. In an explanatory post on the site, the company explains it had 96 percent accuracy with its methods. Over 60,000 people took one of the site’s surveys the day before election day alone, SurveyMonkey’s vice president, Philip Garland, told Hardy. 

RELATED: Poll: GOP Race Now Between Newt, Sarah, Mitt and Everyone Else

Though some have questioned the accuracy of the online poll because of its newness to the field. Nate Silver, whose words on all things polling we should now consider law, confirmed that many of the most accurate polling came from online surveys. “When people are asked questions by a person, they feel like they should make a choice,” Garland added. People are more candid on the Internet, which is not at all surprising. 

RELATED: Rick Perry Is Still Leading Despite Some Bad Debates

Text Messages

RELATED: Less Than Half of America Knows What GOP Stands For

Though a new survey says that text messaging is on the decline, Gallup is already experimenting with it as a polling technique in Central and South America, notes Honan. Though it doesn’t sound that different than screening a phone call, text messages are a lot less invasive and they don’t require an answer right away. Also, increasingly, it is how people do much of their communicating. 

Emails, Unfortunately

Though that sounds logical since so many Americans are accessible by email, it turns out it is too hard to get a good sample using email, since many people have multiple email addresses, and it’s hard to account for that difference. Also, isn’t it just so easy to click delete without opening? However, that hasn’t stopped certain organizations from using it, as Bloomberg Businessweek‘s Peter Coy explains. Some firms use email lists that aren’t representative of the general population, he notes. 

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Elmo puppeteer accused of underage relationship

NEW YORK (AP) — The puppeteer who performs as Elmo on “Sesame Street” is taking a leave of absence from the popular kids’ show in the wake of allegations that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old boy.

Sesame Workshop said puppeteer Kevin Clash denies the charges, which were first made in June by the alleged partner, who by then was 23.

“We took the allegation very seriously and took immediate action,” Sesame Workshop said in a statement issued Monday. “We met with the accuser twice and had repeated communications with him. We met with Kevin, who denied the accusation.”

The organization described the relationship as personal and “unrelated to the workplace.” Its investigation found the allegation of underage conduct to be unsubstantiated. But it said Clash exercised “poor judgment” and was disciplined for violating company policy regarding Internet usage. It offered no details.

“I had a relationship with (the accuser),” Clash told TMZ. “It was between two consenting adults and I am deeply saddened that he is trying to make it into something it was not.”

At his request, Clash has been granted a leave of absence in order to “protect his reputation,” Sesame Workshop said.

No further explanation was provided, nor was the duration of his leave specified.

“Elmo is bigger than any one person and will continue to be an integral part of ‘Sesame Street’ to engage, educate and inspire children around the world, as it has for 40 years,” Sesame Workshop said in its statement.

“Sesame Street” is currently in production, but other puppeteers are prepared to fill in for Clash during his absence, according to a person close to the show who spoke on condition of anonymity because that person was not authorized to publicly discuss details about the show’s production.

“Elmo will still be a part of the shows being produced,” that person said.

The 52-year-old Clash, the divorced father of a grown daughter, has been a puppeteer for “Sesame Street” since 1984. It was then that he was handed the fuzzy red puppet named Elmo and asked to come up with a voice for him. Clash transformed the character, which had been a marginal member of the Muppets troupe for a number of years, into a major star rivaling Big Bird as the face of “Sesame Street.”

In 2006, Clash published an autobiography, “My Life as a Furry Red Monster,” and was the subject of the 2011 documentary “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey.”

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In This Junkyard, It Seems, There Are No Dogs

It’s kind of Orwellian that anyone would rapaciously buy an ETF with the ticker JNK—branding shorthand for “junk,” Wall Street’s sobriquet for high-yield, the riskiest layer of corporate bonds.

Nevertheless, JNK, the SPDR Barclays Capital High Yield Bond ETF, and competitor offerings are a hot destination in these yield-famished days. The appeal is irrefutable: You’ll get precious little income from Treasuries and muni bonds. Creditworthy corporations are borrowing at record lows. Why not then pile into riskier, higher-yielding debt, especially if you can do so via one tidy, exchange-traded ticker? (No need to ring Michael Milken.) What’s more, Moody’s sees the global default rate for “speculative-grade” debt ending the year at 2.8 percent, compared with an average of 4.8 percent since 1983. Yields have fallen 1.65 percentage points this year, to 7.05 percent on Nov. 1, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch data.

What’s not to love?

An overcrowded trade marked by 2007-like issuer complacency—that’s what. More companies are demanding and getting easy terms on their junk issues. The most popular junk ETFs are going deeper into credit risk to scrape for yield. The sluicing of retail money into these ETFs is perpetuating what has historically proved to be a vicious trend. “Signs of over-exuberance are creeping into the corporate credit market,” wrote Michael Lewitt, a hedge fund manager who publishes the Credit Strategist. “In the past, rising issuance of these types of low-quality bonds has been a warning that a market rally is coming to an end … Today’s new issues will be the troubled credits of tomorrow.”

On Nov. 7, Standard & Poor’s warned of the unprecedented dangers of a brave, new junk bond world. Wrote credit analysts Diane Vazza and Evan Gunter:

“The ease with which investors can enter and exit ETF investments creates new and risky dynamics in the speculative-grade market with the potential flow of ‘hot money.’ Speculative-grade companies have a higher default risk than investment-grade companies. Therefore, when the credit cycle turns against investors, losses from defaults can quickly outstrip the additional interest payments that high-yield investors receive. Since we are entering the stage of declining credit quality in the current credit cycle, the credit quality of an issuer or a portfolio has become paramount.”

Vazza and Gunter looked under the hoods of JNK and its rival, HYG, the iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond Fund. They found that both ETFs owned a higher proportion of the riskiest junk debt versus the overall high-yield market. While they estimated that the broad universe of high yield includes 7.9 percent of bonds rated CCC+ and lower, their share in HYG’s portfolio is at 11.0 percent and in JNK just under 10 percent. While higher risk juices returns in a favorable environment like the present one, the analysts explained, they take outsized losses once the credit cycle turns.

Sales of junk debt in the U.S. have come in at $ 294 billion so far this year, the fastest pace on record. It’s in that booming backdrop that private equity-owned companies have paid out $ 34.1 billion in dividends this year, according to Standard & Poor’s Capital IQ Leveraged Commentary & Data. That’s north of 2010’s total of $ 31.5 billion and the $ 23.8 billion paid out in 2007, when the leveraged buyout market peaked. By comparison: Some $ 1.2 billion in dividends were issued in 2008 and $ 440 million in 2009.

This boom has prompted an echo-boom in payment-in-kind transactions, or PIK toggles, which let companies pay interest in debt rather than cash, essentially deferring payments to their investors. That tactic was a hallmark of the private equity bubble of five years ago. According to Moody’s, as of mid-October two of the third quarter’s 14 dividend financings enjoyed PIK toggle structures, including Emergency Medical Services’ $ 450 million of notes to pay a dividend to Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and IDQ Holdings’ $ 45 million deal supporting a payout to Castle Harlan. Last month, Petco also got in on the PIK toggle boom.

Caveat junktor. Moody’s calculates that the default rate for companies that sold PIK-toggle bonds was 13 percent from 2006 to 2010, twice the rate for similarly rated issuers that didn’t use the tactic.

“Low yields are driving more and more investors into really strange territory,” says Lee Pacchia, a Bloomberg Law analyst who follows corporate bankruptcies. “They need to take on risk. While the market forces driving this trend could go on for a while, lowering standards could end badly. It’s called ‘junk’ for a reason.”

The institutional smart money is increasingly taking the other side of that trade. According to Bloomberg data, the number of bearish options on HYG are at an all-time high: The number of outstanding puts on HYG has almost doubled since Oct. 19, to a record of 118,444 at the end of last month. Hedge funds seeking that bet on both gains and losses in credit attracted $ 12.6 billion of deposits in the three months ended Sept. 30, the most since the last quarter of 2007, according to HFR.

It all makes you wonder how quickly people may have forgotten the lessons of the credit bubble, or what one hedgie has called the era of promiscuous lending. Will today’s junk boom end so differently?

“The history of money is a sad state of affairs,” wrote Prudent Bear’s Doug Noland in his recent post, titled “The Myth of Deleveraging.” “Failing to learn from a litany of previous monetary fiascoes, ‘money’ is these days being abusively over-issued.”

Farzad is a Bloomberg Businessweek contributor.

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BBC must reform or die, says Trust chairman

LONDON (Reuters) – The BBC could be doomed unless it makes radical changes, the head of its governing trust said on Sunday, after its director general quit to take the blame for the airing of false child sex abuse allegations against a former politician.

Chris Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, said confidence had to be restored if the publicly funded corporation was to withstand pressure from rivals, especially Rupert Murdoch‘s media empire, which would try to take advantage of the turmoil.

“If you’re saying, ‘Does the BBC need a thorough structural radical overhaul?’, then absolutely it does, and that is what we will have to do,” Patten, a one-time senior figure in Prime Minister David Cameron‘s Conservative Party and the last British governor of Hong Kong, told BBC television.

“The basis for the BBC’s position in this country is the trust that people have in it,” Patten said. “If the BBC loses that, it’s over.”

George Entwistle resigned as director general on Saturday, just two months into the job, to take responsibility for the child sex allegation on the flagship news programme Newsnight.

The witness in the report, who says he suffered sexual abuse at a care home in the late 1970s, said on Friday he had misidentified the politician, Alistair McAlpine. Newsnight admitted it had not shown the witness a picture of McAlpine, or approached McAlpine for comment before going to air.

Already under pressure after revelations that a long-time star presenter, the late Jimmy Savile, was a paedophile, Entwistle conceded on the BBC morning news that he had not known – or asked – who the alleged abuser was until the name appeared in social media.

The BBC, celebrating its 90th anniversary, is affectionately known in Britain as “Auntie”, and respected around much of the world.

But with 22,000 staff working at eight national TV channels, 50 radio stations and an extensive Internet operation, critics say it is hampered by a complex and overly bureaucratic and hierarchical management structure.

THOMPSON’S LEGACY

Journalists said this had become worse under Entwistle’s predecessor Mark Thompson, who took over in the wake of the last major crisis to hit the corporation and is set to become chief executive of the New York Times Co on Monday.

In that instance, both director general and chairman were forced out after the BBC was castigated by a public inquiry over a report alleging government impropriety in the fevered build up to war in Iraq, leading to major organisational changes.

One of the BBC’s most prominent figures, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, said since the Iraq report furore, management had become bloated while cash had been cut from programme budgets.

“He (Entwistle) has been brought low by cowards and incompetents,” Paxman said in a statement, echoing a widely-held view that Entwistle was a good man who had been let down by his senior staff.

Prime Minister Cameron appeared ready to give the BBC the benefit of the doubt, believing that “one of the great institutions of this country” could reform and deal with its failings, according to sources in his office.

Patten, who must find a new director general to sort out the mess, agreed that management structures had proved inadequate.

“Apparently decisions about the programme went up through every damned layer of BBC management, bureaucracy, legal checks – and still emerged,” he said.

“One of the jokes I made, and actually it wasn’t all that funny, when I came to the BBC … was that there were more senior leaders in the BBC then there were in the Chinese Communist Party.”

Patten ruled out resigning himself but other senior jobs are expected to be on the line, while BBC supporters fear investigative journalism will be scaled back. He said he expected to name Entwistle’s successor in weeks, not months.

Among the immediate challenges are threats of litigation.

McAlpine, a close ally of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has indicated he will sue for damages.

Claims for compensation are also likely from victims who say Savile, one of the most recognisable personalities on British television in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, sexually abused them as children, sometimes on BBC premises.

INQUIRIES

Two inquiries are already under way, looking at failures at Newsnight and allegations relating to Savile, both of which could make uncomfortable reading for senior figures.

Police have also launched a major inquiry into Savile’s crimes and victims’ allegations of a high-profile paedophile ring. Detectives said they had arrested their third suspect on Sunday, a man in his 70s from Cambridgeshire in central England.

Funded by an annual licence fee levied on all TV viewers, the BBC has long been resented by its commercial rivals, who argue it has an unfair advantage and distorts the market.

Murdoch’s Sun tabloid gleefully reported Entwistle’s departure with the headline “Bye Bye Chump” and Patten said News Corp and others would put the boot in, happy to deflect attention after a phone-hacking scandal put the newspaper industry under intense and painful scrutiny.

He said that “one or two newspapers, Mr. Murdoch’s papers” would love to see the BBC lose its national status, “but I think the great British public doesn’t want to see that happen”.

Murdoch himself was watching from afar.

“BBC getting into deeper mess. After Savile scandal, now prominent news program falsely names senior pol as paedophile,” he wrote on his Twitter website on Saturday.

It is not just the BBC and the likes of Entwistle and Patten who are in the spotlight.

Thompson, whom Entwistle succeeded in mid-September, has also faced questions from staff at the New York Times over whether he is still the right person to take one of the biggest jobs in American newspaper publishing.

Britain’s Murdoch-owned Sunday Times queried how Thompson could have been unaware of claims about Savile during his tenure at the BBC as he had told British lawmakers, saying his lawyers had written to the paper addressing the allegations in early September, while he was still director general.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey and Sophie Hares)

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10 things you need to know today: November 11, 2012

Emails from Petraeus‘ mistress triggered investigation, the BBC’s chief resigns, and more in our roundup of the stories that are making news and driving opinion

1. BIOGRAPHER’S EMAILS LED FBI TO PETRAEUS AFFAIR
Paula Broadwell, the woman with whom CIA Director David Petraeus had an extramarital affair, leading to his sudden resignation on Friday, had allegedly sent harassing emails to a woman in Florida, leading the FBI to investigate the claim — and eventually uncovering the affair. Broadwell, who was Petraeus‘ official biographer, reportedly sent emails to the Florida woman inquiring about the nature of her relationship with Petraeus, prompting the unidentified woman to lodge a complaint with the FBI. The FBI began its investigation in the spring, and interviewed Petraeus in the past two weeks. During the interview, Petraeus admitted to the affair with Broadwell, who is also married. [Wall Street Journal]
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2. BBC CHIEF RESIGNS OVER GROWING SCANDAL
BBC’s director general George Entwistle resigned his post Saturday night amid growing criticism as the broadcaster deals with an alleged sex abuse scandal that implicated longtime BBC host Jimmy Savile. Savile, who died last year, was suspected of sexually abusing hundreds of young people over the decades, sometimes on BBC premises. Entwistle had most recently come under fire for allowing a false report on the BBC program Newsnight to air on Nov. 2. During the broadcast, a former Conservative Party politician was wrongly implicated in a pedophile scandal involving a children’s home in Wales. Entwistle said the report reflected “unacceptable journalistic standards” and never should have been broadcast. [New York Times]
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SEE ALSO: 10 things you need to know today: November 2, 2012

3. ISRAEL FIRES WARNING SHOT AT SYRIA
Israel fired a warning shot into Syria on Sunday after a stray mortar from Syria hit a military post in the Golan Heights. No injuries or damage were reported in Israel. Israel captured the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and subsequently annexed it. The incident was the first time Israel has been drawn into the fighting in the neighboring country. Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition, holding critical meetings in Qatar agreed Saturday to a new coalition to oppose President Bashar al-Assad. One Islamist opposition delegate said a new leader and deputy would be chosen on Sunday evening. [Associated Press, BBC]
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4. REP. ALLEN WEST WON’T CONCEDE
Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) was defeated by Democratic opponent Patrick Murphy, according to Florida’s vote count on Saturday, but the incumbent refuses to concede. The state issued complete but unofficial results showing Murphy with a lead of 2,442 votes, or 50.4 percent. That’s beyond the half-percent margin needed to trigger an automatic recount. West’s campaign alleges that in St. Lucie County, the only one of the three counties in the district that Murphy won, votes may have been counted twice and have asked to review sign-in books from the polls. West’s only path forward is through the courts. Under state law, he still could contest the election if misconduct or fraud might have changed its result. [Politico]
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SEE ALSO: The woman who named her newborn twins Barack and Mitt

5. IRAQ CANCELS ARMS DEAL WITH RUSSIA
Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, has canceled a recently signed $ 4.2 billion arms deal with Russia after suspicions of corruption surfaced. The prime minister’s adviser Ali al-Moussawi did not give any details or context. “We informed Russia about our decision, but we hope to sign a new weapons deal between Iraq and Russia,” al-Moussawi said. [CNN]
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6. BOEHNER TELLS HOUSE GOP TO FALL IN LINE
After the Republican Party’s electoral battering last week, House Speaker John Boehner insisted to House Republicans in a conference call that while they “would continue to staunchly oppose tax rate increases as Congress grapples with the impending fiscal battle, they had to avoid the nasty showdowns that marked so much of the last two years,” writes The New York Times. Many members offered subdued words of support, in contrast to a similar call last year when Boehner tried to persuade members to compromise with Democrats on a deal to extend temporary payroll tax cuts, “only to have them loudly revolt.” Both Boehner and President Obama seem to be keeping open the avenue of negotiation to address the looming fiscal cliff set to hit Jan. 1. [New York Times]
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SEE ALSO: The highest skyscraper climb with a bionic leg

7. APPLE AND HTC SETTLE PATENT DISPUTES
Apple and Taiwanese phonemaker HTC have settled all their outstanding disputes over patents, ending a fight that began in March 2010. The two companies signed a 10-year license agreement that will extend to current and future patents held by one another. HTC’s have been in decline since the second half of 2011, despite having become a major global phone company by aligning itself with Google’s Android platform. [BBC]
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8. STRONG EARTHQUAKE HITS MYANMAR
After a 6.-magnitude earthquake hit northern Myanmar on Sunday, at least 12 people were feared dead. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit near the city of Mandalay, at a depth of just 6.2 miles. The shallow quake was felt in Bangkok, the capital of neighboring Thailand, and several aftershocks followed. [Voice of America]
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SEE ALSO: 10 things you need to know today: November 3, 2012

9. CHINA TO LAUNCH NEXT MANNED CRAFT IN JUNE
A spokesperson for the Chinese space program announced Saturday that China’s next space mission will launch in June 2013. The operation is the second manned mission for the country, which completed its first manned mission — Shenzhou-9 — in June of this year. “They will stay in space for 15 days, operating both automated and manual space dockings with the target orbiter Tiangong-1, conducting scientific experiments in the lab module and giving science lectures to spectators on the Earth,” Niu Hongguang of the Chinese space program said. [Forbes]
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10. JUSTIN BIEBER AND SELENA GOMEZ SPLIT
Singer Justin Bieber, 18, and girlfriend, singer-actor Selena Gomez, 20, have gone their separate ways, a source confirms to the Associated Press. The split happened last week, and the two young stars cite distance and their busy schedules as contributing factors. The two had been dating for a year. [Associated Press] 

SEE ALSO: 10 things you need to know today: October 31, 2012

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BBC head says broadcaster must reform or die

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain‘s BBC could be doomed unless it makes radical changes, the head of its governing trust said, after its director general quit to take the blame for the airing of false child sex abuse allegations against a former politician.

BBC Trust chairman Chris Patten said on Sunday confidence had to be restored if the publicly funded corporation was to withstand pressure from rivals, especially Rupert Murdoch‘s media empire, which would try to take advantage of the turmoil.

“If you’re saying, ‘Does the BBC need a thorough structural radical overhaul?’, then absolutely it does, and that is what we will have to do,” Patten, a one-time senior figure in Prime Minister David Cameron‘s Conservative Party and the last British governor of Hong Kong, told BBC television.

“The basis for the BBC’s position in this country is the trust that people have in it,” Patten said. “If the BBC loses that, it’s over.”

George Entwistle resigned as director general on Saturday, just two months into the job, to take responsibility for the child sex allegation on the flagship news programme Newsnight.

The witness in the Newsight report, who says he suffered sexual abuse at a care home in the late 1970s, said on Friday he had misidentified the politician, Alistair McAlpine. Newsnight admitted it had not shown the witness a picture of McAlpine, or approached McAlpine for comment before going to air.

Already under pressure after revelations that a long-time star presenter, the late Jimmy Savile, was a paedophile, Entwistle conceded on the BBC morning news that he had not known – or asked – who the alleged abuser was until the name appeared in social media.

The BBC, celebrating its 90th anniversary, is affectionately known in Britain as “Auntie”, and respected around much of the world.

But with 22,000 staff working at eight national TV channels, 50 radio stations and an extensive Internet operation, critics say it is hampered by a complex and overly bureaucratic and hierarchical management structure.

THOMPSON’S LEGACY

Journalists said this had become worse under Entwistle’s predecessor Mark Thompson, who took over in the wake of the last major crisis to hit the corporation and is set to become chief executive of the New York Times Co on Monday.

In that instance, both director general and chairman were forced out after the BBC was castigated by a public inquiry over a report alleging government impropriety in the fevered build up to war in Iraq, leading to major organizational changes.

One of the BBC’s most prominent figures, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, said since the Iraq report furore, management had become bloated while cash had been cut from programme budgets.

“He (Entwistle) has been brought low by cowards and incompetents,” Paxman said in a statement, echoing a widely-held view that Entwistle was a good man who had been let down by his senior staff.

Prime Minister Cameron appeared ready to give the BBC the benefit of the doubt, believing that “one of the great institutions of this country” could reform and deal with its failings, according to sources in his office.

Patten, who must find a new director general to sort out the mess, agreed that management structures had proved inadequate.

“Apparently decisions about the programme went up through every damned layer of BBC management, bureaucracy, legal checks – and still emerged,” he said.

“One of the jokes I made, and actually it wasn’t all that funny, when I came to the BBC … was that there were more senior leaders in the BBC than there were in the Chinese Communist Party.”

Patten ruled out resigning himself but other senior jobs are expected to be on the line, while BBC supporters fear investigative journalism will be scaled back. He said he expected to name Entwistle’s successor in weeks, not months.

Among the immediate challenges are threats of litigation.

McAlpine, a close ally of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has indicated he will sue for damages.

Claims for compensation are also likely from victims who say Savile, one of the most recognizable personalities on British television in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, sexually abused them as children, sometimes on BBC premises.

INQUIRIES

Two inquiries are already under way, looking at failures at Newsnight and allegations relating to Savile, both of which could make uncomfortable reading for senior figures.

Police have also launched a major inquiry into Savile’s crimes and victims’ allegations of a high-profile paedophile ring. Detectives said they had arrested their third suspect on Sunday, a man in his 70s from Cambridgeshire in central England.

Funded by an annual license fee levied on all TV viewers, the BBC has long been resented by its commercial rivals, who argue it has an unfair advantage and distorts the market.

Murdoch’s Sun tabloid gleefully reported Entwistle’s departure with the headline “Bye Bye Chump” and Patten said News Corp and others would put the boot in, happy to deflect attention after a phone-hacking scandal put the newspaper industry under intense and painful scrutiny.

He said that “one or two newspapers, Mr. Murdoch’s papers” would love to see the BBC lose its national status, “but I think the great British public doesn’t want to see that happen”.

Murdoch himself was watching from afar.

“BBC getting into deeper mess. After Savile scandal, now prominent news program falsely names senior pol as paedophile,” he wrote on his Twitter website on Saturday.

It is not just the BBC and the likes of Entwistle and Patten who are in the spotlight.

Thompson, whom Entwistle succeeded in mid-September, has also faced questions from staff at the New York Times over whether he is still the right person to take one of the biggest jobs in American newspaper publishing.

Britain’s Murdoch-owned Sunday Times queried how Thompson could have been unaware of claims about Savile during his tenure at the BBC as he had told British lawmakers, saying his lawyers had written to the paper addressing the allegations in early September, while he was still director general.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey and Sophie Hares)

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Boy Donates Bar Mitzvah Money to Fund Veterans’ Reconstructive Surgeries

At a time when he’s supposed to be celebrating himself, 13-year-old Josh Neidorf decided to make his bar mitzvah about celebrating those who serve their country. As a result, he donated most of  his bar mitzvah money to Operation Mend, a groundbreaking program out of UCLA that repairs extreme injuries and disfigurements in soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Before anyone shrugs off the gesture as a boy giving up the equivalent of his allowance for a good cause, rest assured Neidorf gave away much more than that. The Associated Press reports this child personally donated $ 13,000 to the medical facility. 

Neidorf explained his decision to local news outlet, KCAL9, “I just love knowing that it’s going somewhere to help the people who save our lives and keep us safe everyday.”

Operation Mend is a privately-funded program that was founded in 2007, by philanthropist Ron Katz. According to The Huffington Post, Katz was inspired by the news of returning vet Aaron Mankin and the dozens of surgeries he would need to repair an explosives injury to his face.  Mankin eventually became the first Operation Mend patient.

Katz told the Post, “My wife and I soon realized that there were dozens of Aarons out there. These men and women deserve not only the best that the defense sector has to offer, they deserve the best that the private sector has to offer as well.”

Though it started with plastic reconstruction, Operation Mend has expanded to include a host of other highly technical specialties including orthopedic reconstruction, airway reconstruction and mental health programs for both soldiers and their caregivers.

Veterans face some incredible odds upon their return to civilian life, chief among them being their health issues. Of the 2 million veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who’ve already returned home, the Los Angeles Times reports most endure recurring issues from physical trauma that include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), hearing loss and tinnitus, and head injuries. 

Operation Mend may be small in terms of the number of patients it can serve at any time (it will have served 72 this year), but it provides a place for our most severely injured to be treated by the nation’s most skilled medical staff using the latest in advanced techniques.

Obviously our returning soldiers are the most deserving of ample and expert medical care. But adopting veteran care as a cultural priority clearly has positive results for all of us. Children like Joshua Neidorf learn and can demonstrate real generosity and people in general come to understand we’re so much stronger when we refuse to leave any of our own behind.

Are you a veteran or the loved one of a returning soldier? What would you like to see provided for them to make the transition to civilian life smoother? 

Related stories on TakePart

• 9 Military Animals

• A Fair Education? Military Kids Struggle With New Schools, Red Tape, and High Stress

• Celebs Who Served in the Military

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A Bay Area native, Andri Antoniades previously worked as a fashion industry journalist and medical writer.  In addition to reporting the weekend news on TakePart, she volunteers as a web editor for locally-based nonprofits and works as a freelance feature writer for TimeOutLA.com. Email Andri | @andritweets | TakePart.com

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Japan’s economy shrinks 3.5 percent in 3rd quarter

TOKYO (AP) — Japan‘s economy contracted in July-September, its first contraction in three quarters, foiling hopes for a rebound and signaling to many economists it may already be in recession.

The minus 3.5 percent annual growth rate for the quarter reported Monday was in line with gloomy forecasts for the world’s third-largest economy, which has suffered as a territorial dispute with China hammered exports already weakened by feeble global demand.

Based on the most recent data, economists are forecasting a further decline in October to December, which would officially put Japan in recession, marked by two consecutive quarterly contractions.

The government also said Monday that consumer spending fell 0.5 percent as subsidies for auto purchases expired and corporate capital spending fell 3.2 percent. Spending on reconstruction from the country’s March 2011 disasters has also weakened.

The drop for the current quarter may not be as severe as that in July-September.

“How far is hard to tell,” said David Rea, an economist in London with Capital Economics, adding that the decline could be a couple of percentage points.

“If the economy does recover in any way it will be a minute rebound,” he said.

More than two decades after Japan’s asset bubble burst in the early 1990s, its policymakers have yet to devise an effective strategy to help the economy break out of its deflationary funk. Meanwhile, the Japanese yen remains stubbornly high, discouraging its companies from investing either at home or abroad and undermining its export competitiveness, especially against rivals Germany and South Korea.

Strangled by weak consumer spending and public investment, the economy grew at an anemic 0.7 percent annual pace in April-June, according to figures that were revised down by half from the originally reported 1.4 percent.

Until recently, the government was still forecasting growth at about 2 percent for the year. It earlier was predicting a turnaround late in the year, but the renewed tensions with China over disputed islands in the East China Sea, coupled with sluggish growth in Europe and other key export markets, have doused hopes for a significant rebound before 2013.

A slew of dismal recent data releases offers little encouragement.

Squeezed by surging costs for imported fuel and sinking exports, Japan’s current account surplus plunged to 2.72 trillion yen ($ 34 billion) in April-September, its lowest level since monthly data began in 1985, as the trade deficit surged.

Although Japan will likely continue to run current account surpluses for some time to come, its decline is a stark reminder of the country’s persisting reliance on exports to support its energy-intensive standard of living through massive imports of food, fuel and other resources.

Adding to the squeeze on pocketbooks from hikes in electricity rates, winter bonuses are falling by an average of 4 percent this year.

Machinery orders for September fell twice as fast as expected. Meanwhile, the job market weakened, likely hurting prospects for stronger consumer spending to help offset weak exports. Slower-than-anticipated government spending on reconstruction has further undermined demand.

Japan’s local governments are running short of funds as lawmakers dicker over legislation needed to authorize bonds to pay for deficit financing.

Though the government and opposition parties look likely to reach a compromise on financing that would avert Japan’s own version of a “fiscal cliff,” the standoff has done little to inspire confidence in the potential for a strong rebound, says Klaus Baader, a regional economist with Societe Generale Cross Asset Research in Hong Kong.

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Boy Donates Bar Mitzvah Money to Fund Veterans’ Reconstructive Surgeries

At a time when he’s supposed to be celebrating himself, 13-year-old Josh Neidorf decided to make his bar mitzvah about celebrating those who serve their country. As a result, he donated most of  his bar mitzvah money to Operation Mend, a groundbreaking program out of UCLA that repairs extreme injuries and disfigurements in soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Before anyone shrugs off the gesture as a boy giving up the equivalent of his allowance for a good cause, rest assured Neidorf gave away much more than that. The Associated Press reports this child personally donated $ 13,000 to the medical facility. 

Neidorf explained his decision to local news outlet, KCAL9, “I just love knowing that it’s going somewhere to help the people who save our lives and keep us safe everyday.”

Operation Mend is a privately-funded program that was founded in 2007, by philanthropist Ron Katz. According to The Huffington Post, Katz was inspired by the news of returning vet Aaron Mankin and the dozens of surgeries he would need to repair an explosives injury to his face.  Mankin eventually became the first Operation Mend patient.

Katz told the Post, “My wife and I soon realized that there were dozens of Aarons out there. These men and women deserve not only the best that the defense sector has to offer, they deserve the best that the private sector has to offer as well.”

Though it started with plastic reconstruction, Operation Mend has expanded to include a host of other highly technical specialties including orthopedic reconstruction, airway reconstruction and mental health programs for both soldiers and their caregivers.

Veterans face some incredible odds upon their return to civilian life, chief among them being their health issues. Of the 2 million veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who’ve already returned home, the Los Angeles Times reports most endure recurring issues from physical trauma that include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), hearing loss and tinnitus, and head injuries. 

Operation Mend may be small in terms of the number of patients it can serve at any time (it will have served 72 this year), but it provides a place for our most severely injured to be treated by the nation’s most skilled medical staff using the latest in advanced techniques.

Obviously our returning soldiers are the most deserving of ample and expert medical care. But adopting veteran care as a cultural priority clearly has positive results for all of us. Children like Joshua Neidorf learn and can demonstrate real generosity and people in general come to understand we’re so much stronger when we refuse to leave any of our own behind.

Are you a veteran or the loved one of a returning soldier? What would you like to see provided for them to make the transition to civilian life smoother? 

Related stories on TakePart

• 9 Military Animals

• A Fair Education? Military Kids Struggle With New Schools, Red Tape, and High Stress

• Celebs Who Served in the Military

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A Bay Area native, Andri Antoniades previously worked as a fashion industry journalist and medical writer.  In addition to reporting the weekend news on TakePart, she volunteers as a web editor for locally-based nonprofits and works as a freelance feature writer for TimeOutLA.com. Email Andri | @andritweets | TakePart.com

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BBC must reform or die, says Trust chairman

LONDON (Reuters) – The BBC could be doomed unless it makes radical changes, the head of its governing trust said on Sunday, after its director general quit to take the blame for the airing of false child sex abuse allegations against a former politician.

Chris Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, said confidence had to be restored if the publicly funded corporation was to withstand pressure from rivals, especially Rupert Murdoch‘s media empire, which would try to take advantage of the turmoil.

“If you’re saying, ‘Does the BBC need a thorough structural radical overhaul?’, then absolutely it does, and that is what we will have to do,” Patten, a one-time senior figure in Prime Minister David Cameron‘s Conservative Party and the last British governor of Hong Kong, told BBC television.

“The basis for the BBC’s position in this country is the trust that people have in it,” Patten said. “If the BBC loses that, it’s over.”

George Entwistle resigned as director general on Saturday, just two months into the job, to take responsibility for the child sex allegation on the flagship news programme Newsnight.

The witness in the report, who says he suffered sexual abuse at a care home in the late 1970s, said on Friday he had misidentified the politician, Alistair McAlpine. Newsnight admitted it had not shown the witness a picture of McAlpine, or approached McAlpine for comment before going to air.

Already under pressure after revelations that a long-time star presenter, the late Jimmy Savile, was a paedophile, Entwistle conceded on the BBC morning news that he had not known – or asked – who the alleged abuser was until the name appeared in social media.

The BBC, celebrating its 90th anniversary, is affectionately known in Britain as “Auntie”, and respected around much of the world.

But with 22,000 staff working at eight national TV channels, 50 radio stations and an extensive Internet operation, critics say it is hampered by a complex and overly bureaucratic and hierarchical management structure.

THOMPSON’S LEGACY

Journalists said this had become worse under Entwistle’s predecessor Mark Thompson, who took over in the wake of the last major crisis to hit the corporation and is set to become chief executive of the New York Times Co on Monday.

In that instance, both director general and chairman were forced out after the BBC was castigated by a public inquiry over a report alleging government impropriety in the fevered build up to war in Iraq, leading to major organisational changes.

One of the BBC’s most prominent figures, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, said since the Iraq report furore, management had become bloated while cash had been cut from programme budgets.

“He (Entwistle) has been brought low by cowards and incompetents,” Paxman said in a statement, echoing a widely-held view that Entwistle was a good man who had been let down by his senior staff.

Prime Minister Cameron appeared ready to give the BBC the benefit of the doubt, believing that “one of the great institutions of this country” could reform and deal with its failings, according to sources in his office.

Patten, who must find a new director general to sort out the mess, agreed that management structures had proved inadequate.

“Apparently decisions about the programme went up through every damned layer of BBC management, bureaucracy, legal checks – and still emerged,” he said.

“One of the jokes I made, and actually it wasn’t all that funny, when I came to the BBC … was that there were more senior leaders in the BBC then there were in the Chinese Communist Party.”

Patten ruled out resigning himself but other senior jobs are expected to be on the line, while BBC supporters fear investigative journalism will be scaled back. He said he expected to name Entwistle’s successor in weeks, not months.

Among the immediate challenges are threats of litigation.

McAlpine, a close ally of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has indicated he will sue for damages.

Claims for compensation are also likely from victims who say Savile, one of the most recognisable personalities on British television in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, sexually abused them as children, sometimes on BBC premises.

INQUIRIES

Two inquiries are already under way, looking at failures at Newsnight and allegations relating to Savile, both of which could make uncomfortable reading for senior figures.

Police have also launched a major inquiry into Savile’s crimes and victims’ allegations of a high-profile paedophile ring. Detectives said they had arrested their third suspect on Sunday, a man in his 70s from Cambridgeshire in central England.

Funded by an annual licence fee levied on all TV viewers, the BBC has long been resented by its commercial rivals, who argue it has an unfair advantage and distorts the market.

Murdoch’s Sun tabloid gleefully reported Entwistle’s departure with the headline “Bye Bye Chump” and Patten said News Corp and others would put the boot in, happy to deflect attention after a phone-hacking scandal put the newspaper industry under intense and painful scrutiny.

He said that “one or two newspapers, Mr. Murdoch’s papers” would love to see the BBC lose its national status, “but I think the great British public doesn’t want to see that happen”.

Murdoch himself was watching from afar.

“BBC getting into deeper mess. After Savile scandal, now prominent news program falsely names senior pol as paedophile,” he wrote on his Twitter website on Saturday.

It is not just the BBC and the likes of Entwistle and Patten who are in the spotlight.

Thompson, whom Entwistle succeeded in mid-September, has also faced questions from staff at the New York Times over whether he is still the right person to take one of the biggest jobs in American newspaper publishing.

Britain’s Murdoch-owned Sunday Times queried how Thompson could have been unaware of claims about Savile during his tenure at the BBC as he had told British lawmakers, saying his lawyers had written to the paper addressing the allegations in early September, while he was still director general.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey and Sophie Hares)

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