The Gofer\'s Expanding Portfolio

THE Internet has been abuzz over the spectacle of President Obama and the prime ministers of Britain and Denmark snapping a photo of themselves - a â€œselfie,â€ to use the mot du jour - with a smartphone at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela in South Africa on Tuesday.

Leaving aside whether it was appropriate, the moment captured the democratization of image making that is a hallmark of our gadget-filled, technologically rich era.

Manifestly undemocratic, in contrast, is the way Mr. Obama's administration - in hypocritical defiance of the principles of openness and transparency he campaigned on - has systematically tried to bypass the media by releasing a sanitized visual record of his activities through official photographs and videos, at the expense of independent journalistic access.

The White House-based press corps was prohibited from photographing Mr. Obama on his first day at work in January 2009. Instead, a set of carefully vetted images was released. Since then the press has been allowed to photograph him alone in the Oval Office only twice: in 2009 and in 2010, both times when he was speaking on the phone. Pictures of him at work with his staff in the Oval Office - activities to which previous administrations routinely granted access - have never been allowed.

Instead, here's how it's done these days: An event involving the president discharging his official duties is arbitrarily labeled â€œprivate,â€ with media access prohibited. A little while later an official photo is released on the White House Flickr page, or via Twitter to millions of followers. Private? Hardly.

These so-called private events include meetings with world leaders and other visitors of major public interest - just the sorts of activities photojournalists should, and used to, have access to.

In response to these restrictions, 38 of the nation's largest and most respected media organizations (including The New York Times) delivered a letter to the White House last month protesting photojournalists' diminished access.

A deputy press secretary, Josh Earnest, responded by claiming that the White House had released more images of the president at work than any previous administration. It is serving the public perfectly well, he said, through a vibrant stream of behind-the-scenes photographs available on social media.

He missed the point entirely.

The official photographs the White House hands out are but visual news releases. Taken by government employees (mostly former photojournalists), they are well composed, compelling and even intimate glimpses of presidential life. They also show the president in the best possible light, as you'd expect from an administration highly conscious of the power of the image at a time of instant sharing of photos and videos.

By no stretch of the imagination are these images journalism. Rather, they propagate an idealized portrayal of events on Pennsylvania Avenue.

If you take this practice to its logical conclusion, why have news conferences? Why give reporters any access to the White House? It would be easier to just have a daily statement from the president (like his recorded weekly video address) and call it a day. Repressive governments do this all the time.

American presidents have often tried to control how they are depicted (think of the restrictions on portraying Franklin D. Roosevelt in his wheelchair). But presidents in recent decades recognized that allowing the press independent access to their activities was a necessary part of the social contract of trust and transparency that should exist between citizens and their leaders.

Consider these moments: John F. Kennedy's son peeking out from under his desk; Richard M. Nixon flashing a two-armed V-for-victory sign as he departed office in disgrace; Ronald Reagan waving from a hospital window after cancer surgery to assure America that he was O.K.; George W. Bush's astonishment on learning of the 9/11 attacks, and his remarks to rescue workers at the rubble of the World Trade Center days later.

It's true that photojournalists will on occasion capture embarrassing gaffes (think of Gerald R. Ford's stumbling on the steps of Air Force One or Mr. Bush's reaching for a locked door at a news conference in China). These images show - surprise - that the president is human.

Allowing media access and providing official photos are not mutually exclusive. News outlets can choose (as The Times has occasionally done) to use an official, or handout, photo when its news value is compelling and the photo is taken in a place logically off limits to journalists, like the private residential quarters of the White House. But The Associated Press rejects a vast majority of White House handouts because they show newsworthy activities of public significance, in locations where we strongly believe journalists should have access.

Until the White House revisits its draconian restrictions on photojournalists' access to the president, information-savvy citizens, too, would be wise to treat those handout photos for what they are: propaganda.

Santiago Lyon, a longtime photojournalist, is vice president and director of photography at The Associated Press.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on December 12, 2013, on page A39 of the New York edition with the headline: Obama's Orwellian Image Control.

Spotify Adds Led Zeppelin, and Turns Focus to Mobile

Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

Daniel Ek, the Spotify chief executive and a co-founder, on Wednesday in New York announcing his service's plans.

With competition growing in the streaming music market, Spotify announced a series of changes meant to entice new customers and extend its digital footprint farther around the world.

At a news conference in Manhattan that was broadcast online, Daniel Ek, the company's co-founder and chief executive, said the company was increasing the amount of free music it makes available on mobile devices, opening in 20 emerging markets and adding the music of Led Zeppelin.

Spotify has fascinated those in the tech world practically since it began in Sweden in 2008, both for its sleek design and ambitious business model. Positioning itself as a legal alternative to piracy, the service makes music available free with advertising, or for monthly subscriptions of about $5 to $10, which eliminate the ads and add perks like access through mobile devices. Still, the relative lack of free music available on mobile phones has been seen as an impediment to Spotify's growth.

â€œThe world has changed a lot since we launched,â€ Mr. Ek said in an interview after the news conference. â€œMore than half of all users are now signing up straight to mobile, and there is a huge correlation between playing on mobile and getting people to convert.â€

Spotify will now make on-demand music - picking specific songs to listen to - available free on tablet computers. On mobile phones, free users can listen in shuffle mode to their playlists and to songs by any artist on the service. (Paying users, of course, can listen without the shuffling.)

Spotify also announced that it was opening in 20 new countries, mostly in Latin America and Eastern Europe, including Bulgaria, Colombia, Guatemala and Paraguay. The company now operates in 55 markets around the world. But Spotify is about to face major competition from YouTube and Beats Music, which are expected to introduce subscription services early next year.

Spotify's exclusive deal with Led Zeppelin, which has sold more than 300 million albums around the world, was notable because the band had refused to license its music to streaming services.

Led Zeppelin's representatives have been in negotiations with various streaming services since at least January. Spotify, which has more than six million paying subscribers, is believed to have beaten out smaller competitors like Rdio and Rhapsody.

Among the few major acts still absent from on-demand streaming services like Spotify are AC/DC, Tool, Garth Brooks and the Beatles.

A version of this article appears in print on December 12, 2013, on page B6 of the New York edition with the headline: Spotify Adds Led Zeppelin, And Turns Focus to Mobile.

Advertising: Zeus Jones to Open San Francisco Office

Zeus Jones to Open San Francisco Office

Leslie Plesser

Gareth Kay, center, who will lead the new San Francisco office of Zeus Jones, with the agency's founders, from left, Christian Erickson, Eric Frost, Adrian Ho and Rob White.

ZEUS JONES, a consultancy that specializes in tasks for brands like digital, design, social media and content creation, is joining a parade of advertising agencies opening in San Francisco by hiring a well-known senior executive based in the Bay Area.

The principals of Zeus Jones are to formally announce on Thursday that they are expanding by adding an office in San Francisco, the first outside their Minneapolis headquarters. The office will be led by Gareth Kay, who will have the title of founding partner of Zeus Jones San Francisco.

Mr. Kay, 40, will also be an owner of the office with the founding partners of Zeus Jones, according to Rob White, one of those founders. Mr. Kay â€œwill become a partner in due course in the total enterprise,â€ said Mr. White, who is chief executive of Zeus Jones.

Until recently, Mr. Kay had been associate partner and chief strategy officer at a leading San Francisco agency, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, part of the Omnicom Group, which he joined in 2009. He previously worked at agencies that included Modernista, Lowe & Partners, TBWA and Duckworth Finn Grubb Waters.

The announcement will end speculation that began when word circulated last week that Mr. Kay was leaving Goodby, Silverstein. He may have stimulated some conversation by editing his profile on the social media platform LinkedIn, where he changed his current status to â€œPerson at Company in Stealth Mode.â€

The hiring of Mr. Kay is emblematic of moves made as each year draws to a close and firms seek to prepare for the challenges of the next year. Along with adding or rearranging chairs in executive suites -which has also taken place this week at agencies like Arnold Worldwide, Crispin Porter & Bogusky and Erwin Penland - agencies and consultancies are forming divisions and making deals.

â€œWe recognize fully that we haven't and can't make the kind of impact we want to in one place, with one office,â€ said Adrian Ho, a second founding partner of Zeus Jones. â€œHiring Gareth gives us the benefit of launching immediately with credibilityâ€ in the competitive San Francisco market, he added. Since Zeus Jones opened in 2007, many of its marketer clients have been based in the Midwest, among them NestlÃ© Purina and 3M. Like others seeking growth by coming to San Francisco, the principals of Zeus Jones are attracted by an opportunity to land assignments from marketers based in the West.

â€œWe want to test our beliefs against different brands, different clients,â€ said Christian Erickson, a third founding partner, adding that because â€œour process is heavily collaborative,â€ it is â€œextremely beneficialâ€ for Zeus Jones and its clients to be close geographically.

Also appealing is the creative ferment permeating the Bay Area as a result of Silicon Valley. â€œSan Francisco is where businesses are being created faster than anywhere in the world,â€ Mr. Ho said.

Mr. White said that had Mr. Kay â€œbeen in New York or Austin, it might have been interestingâ€ to join with him, â€œbut not as interestingâ€ as being in San Francisco.

â€œIt's a combination of Gareth and the Bay Area,â€ Mr. White said. â€œIt doesn't mean we're not interested in other markets, but we felt, â€˜Let's do this one right.' We want to make sure San Francisco is strong before we consider any other markets.â€

Mr. Kay's entry point to Zeus Jones was Mr. Ho. â€œFor a decade, we had conversations about our futures,â€ Mr. Kay said, that recently turned into more concrete discussions centered on a philosophy that the Zeus Jones founders call building â€œmodern brandsâ€ through methods that go beyond traditional advertising efforts like commercials into realms that include designing packaging and solving marketing problems.

â€œOur beliefs are so aligned, it made sense to do this together,â€ Mr. Kay said.

Mr. Ho said, â€œWe tried to recruit Gareth before,â€ to join Zeus Jones in Minneapolis, â€œand he told us, â€˜No, no,' very clearly; he didn't want to be here.â€

Mr. Kay interjected, â€œI've fallen in love with San Francisco.â€

Mr. Ho resumed: â€œThis came about by sitting down over the course of a month and realizing there was a way for us to help Gareth do what we wants to do, and for Gareth to help us do more of what we want to do.â€

However, before Mr. Kay opens Zeus Jones San Francisco, he will spend a couple of months in Minneapolis.

â€œI thought I'd go for the frozen treatment,â€ he said, laughing. (What else could he expect at an agency where a founding partner is named Eric Frost?)

Plans call for Zeus Jones San Francisco to open with three or four employees in addition to Mr. Kay and help from what he called â€œreinforcements from Minneapolis,â€ where Zeus Jones has about 45 full-time employees. The San Francisco office is opening with a clean slate. â€œWe think it's good discipline to start with absolutely no clients,â€ Mr. Ho said. â€œIt builds characterâ€ - not unlike a Minneapolis winter.

The founding partners of Zeus Jones are also promoting three executives in Minneapolis to partners. Two of them - David Annis, head of production, and Brad Surcey, head of design - are partners with responsibilities for both Minneapolis and San Francisco. The third new partner, Peter Petrulo, a designer, becomes a member of the management team in Minneapolis.

A version of this article appears in print on December 12, 2013, on page B6 of the New York edition with the headline: Zeus Jones to Open San Francisco Office.

Weinsteins Sue Warner Over Proceeds on â€˜Hobbit\' Films

Weinsteins Sue Warner Over Proceeds on â€˜Hobbit' Films

LOS ANGELES - Bob and Harvey Weinstein escalated a legal dispute over their claim to a share in the proceeds from the new â€œHobbitâ€ films by Warner Bros. with a lawsuit filed in a New York state court on Tuesday.

The brothers shared in the income from the 2012 film â€œThe Hobbit: An Unexpected Journeyâ€ thanks to an agreement under which they sold film rights to J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle Earth fantasies before founding their current studio, the Weinstein Company. Their suit claims they are owed a similar share in subsequent Hobbit films, including â€œThe Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,â€ which is set for release by Warner and its New Line Cinema unit on Friday.

Warner, which disputes the claim, says the Weinsteins committed â€œone of the great blunders in movie historyâ€ by entering into a contract that only gave them a stake in one film. â€œThey agreed to be paid only on the first motion picture based on â€˜The Hobbit,'â€ said the Warner statement, â€œAnd that's all they're owed.â€

â€œThe Hobbit: An Unexpected Journeyâ€ had worldwide ticket sales of more than $1 billion following its release last December.

New York Court Won\'t Order Fox Reporter to Testify, Shoring Up State Shield Law

New York Court Won't Order Fox Reporter to Testify, Shoring Up State Shield Law

A New York State shield law protecting journalists was bolstered Tuesday when the state's highest court refused to require a Fox News reporter to return to Colorado to testify in the case of James E. Holmes, the man accused of shooting 12 people in July 2012 in a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.

Jana Winter, of Fox News, refused to reveal a confidential source in her reporting on the 2012 slayings in Aurora, Colo.

In unusually strong language, the New York Court of Appeals wrote, â€œThere is no principle more fundamental or well-established than the right of a reporter to refuse to divulge a confidential source.â€ First Amendment experts said that the ruling, written by a 4 to 3 majority on the court, could make New York, already the home to numerous media companies, a kind of safe haven for journalists.

â€œThis is a ringing endorsement of New York shield law and establishes that it has real teeth,â€ said Elizabeth McNamara, a media lawyer with the New York firm Davis, Wright & Tremaine. â€œThe shield law goes back a long time and it has been a real element in establishing the publishing industry here in New York. This is an important decision in that it enforces the fact that journalists can make commitments to sources and they will be binding.â€

But Daniel N. Arshack, of Arshack, Hajek & Lehrman, the New York counsel to Mr. Holmes, called the decision â€œunprecedentedâ€ and dangerous. â€œThere is no prior case that carves out a kind of witness that will not be produced when requested by other states,â€ he said in a phone interview.

The ruling is only significant for state law and will have no effect on federal First Amendment cases.

After the shooting, Jana Winter, a New York-based employee of Fox News, was sent to Aurora on assignment and reported that Mr. Holmes had sent a notebook full of details of how he was going to kill people to a psychiatrist before the attack.

Lawyers for Mr. Holmes subsequently asked for sanctions in his criminal case, saying that the government had violated their client's rights by leaking the information while a gag order was in place. Law enforcement officials denied leaking the information, and Mr. Holmes's lawyers requested that the New York courts compel Ms. Winter to return to Colorado to testify to determine the truth of the situation.

The Manhattan Supreme Court, a lower court, granted a subpoena to do just that and Ms. Winter, concerned that she would be jailed in Colorado for refusing to give up her sources, appealed the case all the way to Albany. The highest court's ruling means that Ms. Winter's trials are done, according to her lawyer.

â€œThe case is over as far as Jana is concerned and there is no chance that she will be forced to testify,â€ said Dori Hanswirth, of Hogan Lovells, the lead lawyer for Ms. Winter. She emphasized the case was bigger than her client. â€œIt is certainly telling New York journalists that you are protected even if you travel outside of the state.â€

But Mr. Arshack said his side was still evaluating whether they had options under federal or Colorado law. In a written statement, he elaborated further on his objections to letting the ruling stand unchallenged.

â€œThe decision undermines the ability of prosecutors and the defense alike, across the country, to compel the attendance of witnesses in criminal cases. This is a death penalty case in which the credibility of law enforcement witnesses may determine whether a man lives or dies. To withhold testimony which could affect that decision simply shocks the conscience,â€ he wrote.

Derigan Silver, an assistant professor specializing in media law at the University of Denver, said he agreed that the ruling set a precedent and one that enhanced New York's position as a safe haven for journalists.

â€œIt is a pretty strong opinion on principle,â€ he said. â€œThe judges are not just looking at the language of the statute, they talk of tradition and common law, and what makes New York special. If you read it that way it is kind of like saying â€˜Come here, do your reporting from New York, and we will protect you.'Â â€

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 12, 2013

An article on Wednesday about a refusal by the New York Court of Appeals to require a Fox News reporter to return to Colorado to testify in the case of a 2012 shooting in a movie theater in Aurora misstated part of the name of the law firm of Elizabeth McNamara, a media lawyer who commented on the ruling. It is Davis, Wright & Tremaine - not Travis, Wright & Tremaine.

A version of this article appears in print on December 11, 2013, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: New York Court Won't Order Fox Reporter to Testify, Shoring Up State Shield Law.

Epic Rap Battles Seeks Staying Power on YouTube

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Dreamworks Animation Profit Falls, Though Shares Stay Strong

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Greeks Question Media, and New Voices Pipe Up

Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times

Apostolis Kaparoudakis at the controls of the Athens radio station and cafe of which he was a founder.

ATHENS - Late on a recent evening, crowds gathered at the Radio Bubble cafe in downtown Athens, drinking beer and talking politics. The cafe, in the trendy yet rough-around-the-edges Exarchia neighborhood, funds a small leftist online radio station of the same name, which broadcasts from inside.

People gather at the cafe for drinks and music, and also to talk politics.

At the sidewalk tables outside, where guests smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, the conversation inevitably turned to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's unilateral decision in June to shut down the state broadcaster, the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, known as ERT, overnight, turning an institution once seen as a bastion of patronage hires into a veritable martyr to press freedom.

â€œWhen a war begins, they send an army to protect public TV,â€ said Apostolis Kaparoudakis, who was a founder of Radio Bubble in 2007. â€œHere they sent it to close it down.â€

As a song by the Beastie Boys played in the background, Mr. Kaparoudakis said he had started Radio Bubble to play good music, â€œwhich is a political act,â€ but also as a challenge to the mainstream news media in Greece, almost all of which is owned by the country's business elite, who often dictate the editorial line.

The radio station, which has an active presence on Twitter, is one of many small, often left-leaning news media outlets that have cropped up in Greece in recent years. Although their audiences are still relatively modest, they are playing an increasingly vital role in the conversation, largely because they question the country's dominant power structures.

Even before the economic crisis hit, polls showed that Greeks lacked trust in the mainstream news media almost as much as they lacked it in politicians, seeing both as intertwined in a kind of crony capitalism that helped push the country to bankruptcy.

Now, four years into the crisis, Greeks are even more skeptical of mainstream news organizations and even hungrier for information from nontraditional sources, especially if it veers from the government's line that Greece has no alternative to the austerity policies demanded by its foreign lenders.

â€œThere's a great lack of trust that is no longer there,â€ said Ioanna Vovou, who teaches media studies at Panteion University in Athens. â€œIt's true that people, mostly younger people, say they have turned to alternative sources of media.â€

At the same time, the economic crisis has fueled rampant speculation about the true sources of Greece's misery, sometimes drowning reliable information in a cacophony of conspiracies. But alternative news media have increasingly tried to bridge the trust gap by fostering citizen journalism and taking on topics that remain taboo for the more established news organizations.

Some of the new sources, like Radio Bubble, the magazine Unfollow and the web portal The Press Project, lean left and are critical of Mr. Samaras's coalition government, an uncomfortable alliance between the center-right New Democracy party and the Socialists.

The most interactive of the three, Radio Bubble urges its audience to use Twitter to send images and updates using the hashtag #rbnews during developing stories. The tweeted information helps fill out the picture of chaotic events, like street demonstrations when protesters clash with the police, who often fire tear gas.

â€œWe call ourselves citizens' media, not alternative media,â€ said Theodora Oikonomides, a former Radio Bubble editor who was a humanitarian aid worker before returning to her native Greece in 2009. Mr. Kaparoudakis added, â€œWe don't want listeners, we want citizens.â€

He said the station came into its own in December 2008, broadcasting around the clock when riots broke out in Athens after a policeman killed a 15-year-old boy. Today, Radio Bubble has about 9,000 followers on Twitter and streams about 100,000 hours of programming each month on its online radio station. Bar revenues cover operating costs and only bar employees and the station's two founders are paid.

Outlets like Unfollow and The Press Project are trying investigative journalism in a country that does not always embrace the undertaking. In 2013, Greece dropped 14 spots to number 84 on the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index. (Finland was No. 1, Germany 17 and the United States 32.)

Unfollow, which has 7,000 to 8,000 subscribers, made a name for itself this year when it was sued by Dimitris Melissanidis, the head of Aegean Oil, after it reported on a slow-moving court case against a member of the family on fuel-smuggling charges. The smuggling charges were later dropped after the statute of limitations ran out. The magazine now faces a second defamation lawsuit for another article about a Melissanidis family enterprise.

â€œWhat we're doing in Unfollow, we're trying to do a job that's impossible in the mainstream because of the connection with big enterprises that impose their views and their will,â€ said Aris Chatzistefanou, a co-founder of the magazine and a documentary maker whose film â€œDebtocracyâ€ argues that Greece should leave the euro.

Mr. Chatzistefanou added: â€œUsually they say it's the government that controls the media. I think it's the other way around, it's the economic elites that control the government.â€

After the government shut down ERT, The Press Project ran the ERT signal on an alternative platform. (Since then, ERT has been kept in operation by about 600 unpaid employees.)

When it grabbed the ERT signal, â€œIt was a test that we could do it, that we could provide the TV signal to the whole of Greece,â€ said Costas Efimeros, who started The Press Project in 2010 as a sideline to an information technology company he runs, with several profitable sports and car websites.

This month, The Press Project opened an English-language version. It also has a web television station in the works. The site does not accept advertising from banks or government organizations, â€œsince such sources of advertising in Greece have been linked to manipulation of information,â€ it wrote in a mission statement.

Back in 2009, when the crisis hit, â€œwe felt there was a big gap in the media,â€ Mr. Efimeros said, as he sat at a desk in the company's office in Gazi, a trendy, formerly industrial area in downtown Athens. â€œWe want to create a media to discuss the situation of the media in Greece,â€ he added.

Mr. Efimeros said that he supported Syriza, the main opposition party, in the last elections and that his web company runs sites related to the party, as well as other Greek political parties. The Press Project, some of whose contributors have also worked with The New York Times, had a scoop this month about a member of Parliament from Syriza under investigation for tax evasion, a case that tarnished the image of the party, which has cast itself as a clean alternative to the mainstream parties.

As discontent with the government grows and financially struggling channels increasingly broadcast reruns rather than original programming, alternative sites may gain even greater popularity.

â€œIn the past year, both my parents joined Twitter,â€ said Janine Louloudi, 30, a freelance journalist, as she sat at the Radio Bubble cafe. â€œI've seen that shift in other people's families, too. You're going to see more people the age of my parents getting their news from the Internet.â€

â€œWhat happened at ERT started a debate about what kind of media we want,â€ said another young journalist, Vassilis, who said he did not want to reveal his last name because he hosts a show for Radio Bubble under the name Polyphemus, after the mythical Cyclops. â€œBecause,â€ he said, citing a variation on an old saying, â€œin the land of the blind, the one-eyed man sees.â€

A version of this article appears in print on October 30, 2013, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Greeks Question Media, And New Outlets Pipe Up.

New Chief of the F.C.C. Is Confirmed

Mary F. Calvert for The New York Times

Tom Wheeler testified before the Senate Commerce Committee in June.

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted unanimously on Tuesday to confirm President Obama's two nominations to the Federal Communications Commission, overcoming obstacles by Republican lawmakers.

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, had held up the nomination of Tom Wheeler to be the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

The vote came after Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, lifted a hold earlier in the day on the nomination of Tom Wheeler as chairman, with Mr. Cruz saying he had received assurances from him that the commission would not immediately pursue changes for political advertising on television.

Mr. Wheeler was confirmed along with Michael O'Rielly as a commissioner, filling the two F.C.C. seats that have been empty since the previous chairman and a Republican member announced their resignations in March.

Mr. Cruz had blocked consideration of Mr. Wheeler's nomination two weeks ago, saying he was worried that Mr. Wheeler would push the F.C.C. to expand disclosure requirements for political advertisements on television.

That became an issue in the 2012 elections after the Supreme Court ruled that corporations and unions could make unlimited donations to political groups. The F.C.C.'s regulations on political advertising imply that such disclosure is required, but the F.C.C. has not forced the issue. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, and chairman of the Commerce Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday that it was a crucial time for the commission, with the F.C.C. â€œfacing decisions that will shape the future of our nation's telephone network, and the wireless, broadband and video industries.â€

Before the vote, Mr. Cruz said that Mr. Wheeler had â€œstated that he had heard the unambiguous messageâ€ that Congress, rather than the F.C.C., should decide on requiring full disclosure in political advertising. At a confirmation hearing in June, Mr. Cruz warned Mr. Wheeler that the issue â€œhas the potential to derail your nomination.â€

Mr. Wheeler referred any questions concerning his nomination to the White House. A Democratic official with knowledge of Mr. Wheeler's meeting with Mr. Cruz said the nominee discussed his priorities with the senator and said that the issue required more study.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, also removed another roadblock in the way of the F.C.C. nominations on Tuesday.

Mr. Graham had said he would prevent any confirmation votes until the Obama administration allowed survivors of last year's attack on the American Mission in Benghazi, Libya, to testify before Congress. But Mr. Graham issued a statement on Tuesday saying that he would not block the F.C.C. nominees because the nominations predated his hold related to Libya.

Although Mr. Cruz's action cleared the way for the nominations to go through, it also appeared to stymie some Democrats' efforts to get the commission, under Mr. Wheeler's direction, to use its regulatory power to do what the Senate has failed to do. In 2012, Democrats fell a single vote short of passing the Disclose Act, which would have required the public disclosure of contributors to so-called super PACs, the anonymously financed lobbying groups that can engage in unlimited political spending independent of any candidate's campaign.

At his nomination hearing in June, Mr. Wheeler dodged a question from Mr. Cruz about whether the F.C.C. had the authority to regulate political speech. â€œThat's an issue that I look forward to learning more about,â€ Mr. Wheeler said.

Critics of unlimited political donations have pushed the commission to fill in the blanks left by the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision. F.C.C. regulations require that a television station â€œfully and fairly disclose the true identity of the person or persons or corporation, committee, associate or other unincorporated group or entityâ€ that sponsors a political ad, and that the station post that information online.

But the F.C.C. has not said whether the requirement goes beyond the â€œI approved this messageâ€ tagline or the tiny gray type that appears on-screen at the end of most political ads.

In April 2012, the F.C.C. approved new regulations that required broadcast television stations to make their public service requirement files available online. Those files include information on the buyers of political advertising. Previously, stations were required only to maintain the files at their office and make them available for public inspection.

Some Democrats pushed for the commission to require more disclosure. But critics of the idea noted that the F.C.C. had authority only over broadcast channels - not cable stations, websites, newspapers or other media commonly used for political advertising.

The confirmations of Mr. Wheeler and Mr. O'Rielly bring the agency back to its full strength of five commissioners - three of them Democrats and two Republicans - and will allow the commission to get to work on several pressing issues that have not moved forward since the former chairman, Julius Genachowski, announced his resignation in March.

Those issues include the structuring of so-called spectrum incentive auctions, in which the commission would sell licenses to mobile phone and broadband companies allowing them to use newly available bands of the public airwaves to transmit phone and data traffic.

Unlike previous F.C.C. auctions of airwaves, these auctions have several moving parts. The F.C.C. first has to persuade the current license holders to use the airwave bands - mostly television broadcast stations - to either give up their spots or agree to move to another location in the electromagnetic field over which radio signals travel.

As an incentive to get those television stations to cooperate, Congress gave the F.C.C. permission to offer to share some of the proceeds of the auctions with the stations. Most of the remainder of the proceeds are designated for use in building a new nationwide public safety network for use by first responders.

A version of this article appears in print on October 30, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: New Chief Of the F.C.C. Is Confirmed .

Advertising: Stand Clear of Closing Doors! Protect Your Manicure

Stand Clear of Closing Doors! Protect Your Manicure

REMEMBER the vending machines in New York City subway stations, even on platforms? (O.K., maybe not, as it was decades ago.) Among the products straphangers could buy were cigarettes, candy and gum; there were also scales proclaiming, â€œHoroscope and weight 1Â¢.â€

The beauty giant L'OrÃ©al wants to revisit that era in a high-tech way with a project it is sponsoring inside the 42nd Street-Bryant Park station from Monday through Dec. 30. Passers-by will see screens and a mirror that use cameras and sensors to recommend women's cosmetics bearing the L'OrÃ©al Paris brand name, which can then be purchased.

The project, called the L'OrÃ©al Paris Intelligent Color Experience, is being described by the participants as an entry in the realm of interactive shopping outside of traditional stores. It is another example of a trend known as experiential marketing, which seeks to give brands more tangible form beyond retail shelves.

The goal is a â€œreal-life experience through technology,â€ said Marc Speichert, chief marketing officer at the L'OrÃ©al Americas unit of L'OrÃ©al. â€œIf this experiment is successful, we might bring it to other places.â€

â€œWhat's amazing with the technology is that we'll have the ability to measure the level of engagement,â€ he added, based on â€œthe number of people who pass by, the number who interact with each screen, the number who leave their information.â€

The project, with a budget estimated at $700,000 to $1 million, was developed by the R/GA Lab unit of R/GA in New York, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies; R/GA is the digital agency of record for the L'OrÃ©al Paris brand. Also involved in the project are CBS Outdoor, which sells advertising space in the subway system, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

â€œWhat we're trying to find out is whether there is an appetite for something between e-tailing and brick-and-mortar retail,â€ said Paul Fleuranges, senior director for corporate and internal communications at the M.T.A.

â€œWe hope to do some market research while this is up and running,â€ he added, and based on the results, â€œwe may be willing to do other pilots.â€

â€œWe have a lot of retail space that is not currently under lease,â€ Mr. Fleuranges said, adding: â€œIf we can find ways to generate revenue from those assets, that's a good thing for us. If we can add to the passenger experience, that's a good thing for us. If we can bring new technology into the system, that's a good thing for us.â€

The L'OrÃ©al Paris project will be in a vacant newsstand space in the station, Mr. Fleuranges said, on the mezzanine level above the No. 7 line. The installation, 7 feet tall by 14 feet wide, can be stocked with up to 700 items; plans call for 27 types of L'OrÃ©al Paris mascara, eye shadow, lipstick and nail polish. The items will be priced at $5.99 to $9.99 each, and purchases will be made with credit cards.

A passer-by will see on the left side of the installation a full-length mirror. Digital animations will present her silhouette and the colors she is wearing, then ask whether she wants cosmetics to â€œmatchâ€ or â€œclash.â€

In the center, she will see under the words â€œLove the look? Make it yoursâ€ product suggestions, among them Colour Riche eye shadow, Voluminous Butterfly mascara and Colour Riche nail polish. She can touch the screen to buy them, and the products emerge from underneath the screen. Or if â€œNot ready to buy?â€ as the screen asks, she can â€œemail the lookâ€ to herself. The right side of the installation has a screen with photographs and posts from beauty bloggers.

â€œWe looked at a lot of stations with the M.T.A., I would say 20,â€ said John Jones, senior vice president and executive creative director at R/GA, before deciding on 42nd Street-Bryant Park, which offered benefits like â€œthe right audience for L'OrÃ©al Parisâ€ and â€œthe best visibility.â€

â€œThere are some specific goals and a list of hypothesesâ€ for the project, he added, principally â€œthe connection between an engaging brand experience, a brand halo effect, and people buying products.â€

Erin Lynch, group executive creative director at R/GA, said she believed the â€œelement of participationâ€ would â€œhelp women unlock their unique beauty potential, which goes back to â€˜L'OrÃ©al Paris, because I'm worth it.'â€

Ms. Lynch said she was pleased that subway riders will use the station to reach major seasonal attractions: the annual holiday shops and skating rink at Bryant Park, scheduled to return on Friday.

â€œWe're creating this underground experience when a lot of experiential is going on above ground,â€ she added. (Underlining that is a sponsored name, the Bank of America Winter Village at Bryant Park.)

â€œWe were setting up all weekend,â€ Ms. Lynch said of the project, â€œand people would do a double take, exactly what we wanted to happen as we're bringing this color, this engaging technology, to an unexpected place.â€

During the setup, Ms. Lynch said, she tried it out, and as a result would be â€œwearing matching nail polishâ€ at a media preview scheduled for Wednesday.

Mr. Fleuranges said he remembered the original subway vending machines, particularly those â€œon the inside of columns facing the platform.â€ The gum machines, which usually had mirrors, â€œprobably went away in the '70s,â€ he added.

Those with long memories may recall penny gums sold in the subway, mainly American Chicle brands like Chiclets (two pellets in a tiny box) and Adams California Fruit Gum.

A version of this article appears in print on October 30, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Stand Clear of Closing Doors! Protect Your Manicure.

CBS Said to Be Developing Streaming News Channel

The CBS Corporation is developing a 24-hour news channel that would be streamed online and would mainly repurpose video and reporting already produced by CBS News, according to executives involved in the planning.

The head of CBS News, David Rhodes, is said to be a champion of the 24-hour channel.

The executives spoke on the condition of anonymity because the channel, if it were to move forward, would not be publicly announced for weeks or months. The channel does not have a formal name yet, but it is known internally as CBS News Stream, the executives said.

It is a collaboration between CBS News, which is spearheading the journalistic planning for the channel, and the company's interactive division, which is handling the distribution. David Rhodes, the president of CBS News, is said to be the project's biggest champion.

The project's existence was first reported by BuzzFeed on Tuesday. In response, a CBS Corporation spokesman, Dana McClintock, said that â€œwe are currently talking to a number of partnersâ€ about a potential streaming news service.

â€œThere are all kinds of exciting opportunities offered by new platforms, and we intend to keep pursuing them,â€ said Mr. McClintock, who declined to comment further.

For CBS, which sat, sometimes glumly, on the sidelines while its rivals created cable news channels like MSNBC, an Internet channel would be a relatively low-cost way to spread out its news-gathering costs and, maybe, reach viewers who are not home for the â€œCBS Evening News.â€

It might also help attract attention to its website, CBSNews.com, which has lagged behind most other American television news sites.

Executives involved in the planning emphasized that CBS News Stream would not be an investment on the scale of MSNBC, which NBC News and Microsoft started in 1996, or Fusion, the cable news and pop culture channel that ABC News and Univision started earlier this week.

Plans for the Internet channel might be best likened to a 24-hour news radio station, which intersperses live updates with prerecorded interviews and features. The channel would have video clips from news broadcasts like â€œCBS This Morningâ€ and â€œ60 Minutes,â€ as well as additional material that did not make it onto television, presented in both a linear format like a normal cable channel and an on-demand format like a website.

CBS has tried to liven up its website with new video efforts before, but to limited success. Mr. Rhodes says this time is different, according to the executives involved in the planning, because Internet streaming has become more mainstream thanks to services like Netflix and YouTube.

Virtually all of the major media companies in the United States are experimenting with Internet video destinations, sometimes to recycle shows and movies they already own and other times to introduce new programming.

These streaming channels may someday show up right next to traditional cable channels on the app-like interfaces that are gradually replacing old on-screen guides.

But CBS, if it decides to start CBS News Stream, will enter an ever-more-crowded marketplace.

Another potential obstacle could be the company's agreements with its affiliate stations, which prevent CBS from live-streaming its newscasts except in certain circumstances. The executives said that any Internet channel would respect those agreements.

A version of this article appears in print on October 30, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: CBS Said to Be Developing Streaming News Channel .

Barnes & Noble to Release New Version of the Nook

Barnes & Noble is set to release a new black-and-white e-reader with a glowing backlit screen on Wednesday, as the bookseller enters the holiday season with declining sales and a cloudy digital future.

The new Nook, with a sharper display and lighter weight, is an update to a device released in 2012 that was meant for nighttime reading.

Barnes & Noble executives said that despite the perception of simple e-readers as transitional products, they believe there is still demand for them as more consumers shift to multifunction color tablets.

â€œBlack-and-white e-readers aren't growing the way they were three or four years ago,â€ Michael P. Huseby, chief executive of Nook Media and president of Barnes & Noble, said in an interview on Tuesday. â€œBut for our particular market, our customers who visit our stores and really value Barnes & Noble as a brand, this is a product they really value.â€

The device will appear just before the holiday season, when publishers and booksellers depend on a major boost in sales. It will cost $119, similar to the Kindle Paperwhite that appears with advertising on the screen.

Mr. Huseby said there were no plans for Barnes & Noble to release a new color tablet by the end of the year. â€œThat does not mean we won't do so in the future,â€ he said. â€œWe're being more measured in terms of how we pace the production of devices.â€

Barnes & Noble is the country's largest bookstore chain, with 674 retail stores.

James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, said he believed that the new Nook was â€œspectacular,â€ with a sleek design and superb battery life.

But the long-term viability of Barnes & Noble and its Nook business could be a major obstacle in the mind of consumers who are weighing whether to buy one of the company's devices.

â€œIf you were just engineering a device that you wanted people to fall in love with, then yes, it's a great device,â€ Mr. McQuivey said. â€œBut the bigger problem is, will people perceive that Barnes & Noble as a company will be around to fulfill the promises that that device makes? It's a shadow that hangs over the entire Nook enterprise right now.â€

Another problem, Mr. McQuivey said, is that the previous generation of devices is not obsolete.

â€œProbably most of the intended target for the devices already have another device,â€ he said. â€œThe urgency is not there because the old devices are still very good.â€

Allen Weiner, an analyst for Gartner, said that Barnes & Noble was compelled to release a new device that would â€œget them in the spotlight.â€

â€œThis represents, hey, we're still here, and we're still relevant,â€ he said. â€œThis is a logical step in their evolution.â€

A version of this article appears in print on October 30, 2013, on page B5 of the New York edition with the headline: Barnes & Noble to Release Upgraded Version of Black-and-White Nook E-Reader.

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