Just in time for the House Telecommunications Subcommittee's hearing tomorrow (May 6) on Net Neutrality legislation, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) and the American Spectator are out with new attacks on the simple idea that people should not have their Internet experiences subject to the whims of telephone...

Criticizing Hollywood for being greedy is pretty easy. It's rare when they are not greedy, particularly when it comes to their assaults on Congress. Making the point in a little off-beat fashion can be much more satisfying, and that's what we did at Public Knowledge, where I work during...

If Watergate happened today, would the story be reported? If so, by whom? And would you believe what you read, or saw or heard about it? Let those questions slip into the background for a bit and consider how two writers from the New Yorker view the media.

Said...

Hollywood for years has had a fascination with spies. Some are action spies, like the various incarnations of Bond, James Bond, or cerebral spies like Alec Guinness' masterfully subtle George Smiley. All sorts of people have played TV spies, from Robert Culp and Bill Cosby to Patrick McGoohan, Robert Goulet...

The punditocracy and the press corps are simply salivating at the prospect of Democratic primaries lasting into the spring. The stuff of voyeurism is palpable -- insults, cattle futures profits, tax returns, real estate deals. It's politi-porn at its best.

So far, it looks like the candidates are willing to...

There's no question at this hour who won the Potomac Primaries being held tonight in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia. The bigger question is -- who lost? Here's my answer: those oh-so-smart professional politicians who thought it would be great to have a primary in February.

This answer was so wrong...

For years, the concept of "Hollywood accounting" had the same level respect as that old oxymoron "military intelligence." It didn't take an Art Buchwald or James Garner years ago, or even the writer's strike now, to show that playing with numbers in Hollywood is less a science than an exercise...

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) did as expected yesterday (Dec. 18) by allowing big media companies to merge and consolidate. While still contemplating the effects on the old media, however, it's time to make sure that the Commission doesn't forget the new.

While the dust is still flying, we do...

Once again, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) finds itself in a spot where it doesn't want to be - having to set down rules to make sure that big telecom companies don't take advantage of consumers using newer technologies.

The Commission, or at least most of the commissioners, would probably...

Michael Powell, the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), should be excused if he took some time off today from his busy schedule to listen to some music. An apt tune would be from the musical Avenue Q, called "Schadenfreude."

It's a magnificent word meaning taking delight...

We know it's tough out on the picket line. Writers should get paid for their work. Few people dispute that. Unfortunately, the few who do are the ones controlling the money. But let's take a minute and put things in perspective. The writers, after all, are the people to whom...

It was just before Halloween that President Bush trotted out the specter of World War III. Somehow, his remark that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon" was...

Trying to figure out what goes on at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is a daunting task, particularly when it gets to the telecommunications/telephone issues. Like those new commercials for the Chevy Malibu when a woman runs into a car because it's too boring to be seen, the concepts at...

There was an itty-bitty story in the New York Times this morning (Wed.). There was a similar itty-bitty story (in the print version of the Washington Post -- a longer one online). They were, on the whole, disappointing. Miracles should really be given more coverage.

The story...

The conservative media world, from the Drudge Report to Fox News to the right-wing political blogosphere, was all atwitter last week with what appeared to be a classic "gotcha" story of blatant hypocrisy -- that do-gooding Google had banned ads critical of MoveOn.org. The debate spilled over into the...

It seems as if the only time Republican policymakers care about our poor telephone companies is when they want to protect the companies from liability from illegal spying or when they want to allow the companies to strengthen their hold over the economy.

Neither approach is particularly helpful, although...

It's a good bet that at least some of the people who read this live in areas that have the privilege of being hooked up to a fiber network, like Verizon's FIOS service or the equivalent for AT&T. If you are, consider yourself lucky. You now have more choices for...

Once upon a time, the law governed what telephone companies could and couldn't do to affect the content of telephone calls sent over the network. The answer, basically, was nothing. The Communications Act provided that it would be "unlawful" for carriers to "subject any particular person, class of persons, or...

A Senate Subcommittee will hold a hearing Thursday on Google's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick, and what the deal would mean for the online advertising industry. This is a complex transaction, with lots of issues of market competition and privacy to be worked out. But one witness isn't coming...

Every evening on his Countdown show, Keith Olbermann designates someone as the "Worst Person in the World." With a nod to Mr. O., we hereby designate the Biggest Crybaby in the World. The initial selection: Verizon.

The biggest issue facing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over the summer was setting...