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The Federal Communications Commission kicked off a series of potentially bitter debates about how to make high-speed Internet service faster and more popular with the official release Tuesday of its long-awaited National Broadband Plan.

The Senate Commerce Committee scheduled a hearing next Tuesday to explore the FCC's recommendations, which Congress requested last year. The House Energy and Commerce Committee will follow with its own hearing March 25.

Rochelle Gurstein in Guernica:

Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker:

China without Google -- a prospect that looks increasingly likely -- could mean no more maps on mobile phones. A free music service that has helped to fight piracy might be in jeopardy. China's fledgling Web outfits would face less pressure to improve, eroding their ability to one day compete abroad.

Courts in Iowa, Minnesota and New York are considering replacing at least some court reporters with digital recording systems to cut costs.

If they do, they would follow Utah, Vermont, New Hampshire, Alaska and Kentucky in using electronic recording systems. Utah and Vermont switched exclusively for budget reasons in 2009, according to SueLynn Morgan, president of the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA), and officials in those states.

"The budget crisis since January 2009 is behind the push now," Morgan said.

As the Justice Department hunts for the latest batch of missing federal e-mails, the officials who oversee spending of $71 billion a year for information technology got a big raspberry Friday for a 14-year-long failure to ensure that government e-mails are preserved.

For all the spending it oversees, the Federal Chief Information Officers Council is virtually unknown to the general public. Now it has "won" this year's Rosemary Award for the worst open government performance.

Paul Karpowicz has nothing against broadband. But he has no plans to take part in a government effort to bring it to more homes.

Karpowicz is president of Meredith Broadcasting, which owns 12 local TV stations from Portland, Ore., to New Haven, Conn. Meredith also holds unused TV airwaves covering some of those markets and Karpowicz intends to use them to stream programming to handheld devices.

#wanttospinWHreporters?

If you're PressSec -- White House press secretary Robert Gibbs' username on Twitter -- you join the powerful social media platform and push your message across the Internet, 140 characters at a time.

Blending behind-the-scenes nuggets with a defense of President Barack Obama's record, White House and administration officials increasingly are communicating through Twitter.

For four decades, Thomas Lopez, also known as Meatball Fulton, has been president of The ZBS Foundation, a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to the production of lush, adventurous, experimental modern radio fiction. ZBS' large catalog of productions includes many adventures from characters who have, over the years, become beloved: metaphysical adventurer Jack Flanders and Ruby the Galactic Gumshoe are the two best-known.