Julius Genachowski to Chair FCC: Prospects for Media and Internet

On Monday night, the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post reported that President-elect Barack Obama will nominate his longtime friend and Harvard Law classmate Julius Genachowski to head the Federal Communications Commission. The new chairman is one of the chief architects of the online campaign that proved essential to Obama's victory.

With an impressive business resume and low-key public profile, Genachowski anchored the drafting of Obama's comprehensive media policy agenda that promotes diversified media ownership and fast, affordable, neutral Internet connections. His high-tech background, progressive platform and experience as senior legal council at the FCC under President Clinton make it likely that he will be a strong advocate for the public interest on myriad crucial issues.

The FCC is poised to decide on a host of media policies that will have a profound impact on our media experience. Will Internet service providers be allowed to eliminate Net Neutrality and censor content? Will the airwaves be opened up to new wireless service providers that make high-speed Internet more ubiquitous and affordable? Will the largest media companies be allowed to further consolidate ownership, homogenize content and crowd out diversity? Will the US continue the slide from 4th to 22nd amongst developed nations in Internet speed and adoption?

If you've ever been disappointed or disgusted with corporate, lapdog journalism; if you've ever been angered by your sky-high cable bills; with 100 channels but nothing on; or wanted to pull your hair out because of lousy, expensive cell phone service, then these questions couldn't be more important. Bad media policy-making is the reason we have lousy media, and good media policy is how we're going to fix it. It is the way we will get affordable, neutral Internet into every home that is so fast that every Web site can be a TV network. It is how you will get cable service that doesn't require a second mortgage.

Good policy-making is how we can get hard-hitting, critical journalism in the 21st century that investigates what is happening, rather than rehashing what happened (think Iraq and the financial crisis). It is how we will -- while newspapers continue their financial free fall -- foster the kind of media that holds government and corporations accountable. It is how we ensure that all people, rich and poor, urban and rural, will have an on-ramp to the information superhighway.

That's the kind of media that people want. It's the kind of media that President-elect Obama champions, the kind our struggling nation desperately needs. And by all indications, it's the kind of media that the incoming FCC chairman is committed to delivering. But as they say, the proof is in the pudding, and now all eyes are on a 46-year old named Julius Genachowski.

Comments

[gatorray]

When I was president of Local 229 of The Newspaper Guild during the 1980s, the TNG president repeatedly warned with the way media consolidation was going, six news outlets will control all the news in the U.S.


The telecommunications act paved way for the Republican Hate Machine to spread the sleazy attacks on Bill and Hillary. This let the Republicans steal Florida in the 2000 election and Ohiol in 2004.


Would the Americans have elected George II President if they knew he had run four oil companies into the ground and was bailed out by the Saudis?


Would they have if they knew that George II let some 300 Saudis -- including many relatives of Osama ---rush out of the country two days after 9/11 without them being questioned by the FBI and
they included Saudi Prince Ahmed, who was according to captured al Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubydah, was one of three princes making protection payments to al Qaeda and that they permitted them to attack the U.S.,?


Would he have if they knew that Zubydah -- under interrogation by Americans posing as Saudis -- said Prince Ahmed knew in advance about 9/11, but didn't tell the Americans and that within five months the three princes died under mysterious circumnstances?


Would they have elected him if they knew that, according to House of Bush, House of Saud, they knew over $1 billion was transferred from the House of Saud to the House of Bush?


Ray Cohn, Fontana.

[swkidder]

And in the middle of all this euphoria about ubiquitous wireless access and coverage, perhaps we might want to pause, and wait for just a moment while the very unpleasant data continue to emerge on the effects that cell phone (over)use and living in a WiFi soup have on human beings.
We're never going to get rid of cell phones, and wireless communications will be one of the cornerstones of the kind of global connectivity we all want to enjoy. But it would be nice, for a change, not to look back twenty years from now - in the middle of a cancer epidemic - and regret that we didn't take some simple precautions.
The cellphone/wireless industry is just as willing to suppress the data that say their products might cause harm as was the tobacco industry. It's our job to ask the unpleasant questions, and to safeguard our own health and wellbeing. But one nice Change might be to have federal agencies that work with the public in safeguarding its health and well-being.

[andyboy]

My prediction some time ago was that soon we would all be clamoring to reverse the de-regulation and monopolies which we just got done allowing over the last decade.

A clear case of too little too late. The barn door is closed. The horse? God only knows.

[eden4barack08]

I sure hope so.

[ebanks84]

I would love to have the FCC take control of the garbage Hollywood is allowed to throw up on his on our TVs and in our movie theatres. And we wonder why our children are morally depraved. Go figure!

[Syncoptic1]

what will that change? sex and violence existed a long time before television did, so there goes that explanation. it's time for parents to actually start paying attention to what their "morally depraved" spawn are watching, and put their foot down on what is not appropriate in their houses, instead of passing the buck to the rest of us for their bad parenting. why don't you move to north korea? there's lots of "garbage" they won't allow on t.v. over there.

[TheMaskedMediaMan]

Personally, I would love to see the new FCC Chairman take a long, hard look at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and its Public Broadcasting System. Back in the late 50s and early 60s when the CPB/PBS system was built, it was needed and necessary to get quality TV programming out into rural areas where education and library systems were substandard. PBS was meant to serve as "educational" televsion. Fifty years later, we live in a vastly a different world. In the digital age, every those rural areas have cable or satellite TV and access to the internet. So why are American taxpayers still paying over $400 million a year in tax dollars to subsidize a public TV network that functions just like any other private TV network? If you shut the CPB/PBS down, viewers would lose absolutely nothing. FRONTLINE would get taken over by CNN, SESAME STREET by Nickelodeon, AMERICAN MASTERS by Biography, NOVA by Discovery, THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE by The History Channel, etc, etc. Americans would still get their favorite PBS shows via other channels¦they just wouldn't have to shell out close to a half a billion dollars in tax money per year in order to pay for them. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is the Bernie Madoff of American television.

[JBCinSD]

I disagree completely. Putting these programs on commercial television would make them subject to the same pressures that make the commercial stations sink to the lowest common denominator. More likely than your scenario, Great Performances becomes American Idol and Frontline becomes 20/20 I don't want Sesame Street as sponsored by Jello or Barbie. Only because these programs are free of commercial pressures are they free to produce quality television.

PBS is free, available in most markets to everyone with a television. The majority of households do not have cable television, the site of the channels you mention. Should poor kids not see Sesame Street? Should only those who can afford cable be exposed to opera?

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is one of the few government expenditures where I get my money's worth and more as a taxpayer. I'll trade it for a few tanks or bridges to nowhere in a heartbeat.

[TheMaskedMediaMan]

You've obviously never worked at the CPB or at a PBS television station and seen the gross mismanagement of funds and resources that are a daily fact of life under that archaic and corrupt system. I produced at a PBS station where the President/General Manager was chauffered into work each day by limo even as he was demanding that his employees work Pledge Week shifts for free (as their "contribution" to the station). Outside producers like Bill Moyers were given multi-million dollar contracts by the CPB to produce TV shows that aired on PBS. But those shows weren't owned by the CPB. They were owned by the program producers. That means when it comes time to sell those shows to secondary markets or release them on DVD, the producer and not the CPB got the profits. Public money made those shows! The public should own those shows! Again, these are YOUR tax dollars that are being mismanaged. And you're deluding yourself if you think poor people without cable are sitting around watching opera on PBS. The research and the ratings and the demographics just don't support that naive assertion. If the General Accounting Office looked into the CPB/PBS's misuse of taxpayer money, they'd shut it down in a week. Once, the system was needed. That time has passed. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting System need to be dismantled and their $400 million budget should be put to use where it's actually needed.

[madisonhack]

I too, disagree. PBS is the last line of defense of what used to be the Fairness Doctrine, an ideological affront to the Rupert Murdochs of the world who would sell us "truth" from whomever cared to pay them the most to disseminate it. That is precisely what is wrong with FOX and Clear Channel. I hope whoever chairs the FCC will look into the corporate connections of mass media and make a concentrated effort to break apart the mega networks that currently have a stranglehold on U.S. television, radio, press, and internet service.

As far as CPB and PBS is concerned, let's hope it can be overhauled because it has a nobler purpose than to just put "shows" on the air.

[razajac]

"The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is the Bernie Madoff of American television."

Soooooo.... PBS is a Ponzi scheme?...(!)?

[bdaved]

That's a bunch of hooey.

[TheMaskedMediaMan]

Personally, I would love to see the new FCC Chairman take a long, hard look at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and its Public Broadcasting System.

Back in the late 50s and early 60s when the CPB/PBS system was built, it was needed and necessary to get quality TV programming out into rural areas where education and library systems were substandard. PBS was meant to serve as "educational" televsion.

Fifty years later, we live in a vastly a different world. In the digital age, every toothless hillbilly and his cousin/wife has cable or satellite TV and access to the internet.

So why are American taxpayers still paying over $400 million a year in tax dollars to subsidize a public TV network that functions just like any other private TV network?

If you shut the CPB/PBS down, viewers would lose absolutely nothing.

FRONTLINE would get taken over by CNN, SESAME STREET by Nickelodeon, AMERICAN MASTERS by Biography, NOVA by Discovery, THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE by The History Channel, etc, etc.

Americans would still get their favorite PBS shows via other channels¦they just wouldn't have to shell out close to a half a billion dollars in tax money per year in order to pay for them.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is the Bernie Madoff of American television.

[bdaved]

That's more of that hooey.

[Ozarks]

Just allow Ala Cart on cable and satellite . The big 5 media giants have already leveraged themselves to probable extinction . Neutral Internet, Obama's infrastructure improvements and Ala Cart may finally force the telecoms to expand dsl and fiber optics which will cause the cable companies go the way of the Chicago Tribune and probably the New York Times in May. Ala Cart will take away the cash cow of Disney and other "providers" so you don't have to pay for 200 channels when you only watch maybe 5 to 10 of them. I would like to see the whole "Daisy Chain" of these robber barons go the way of "Fat Sam"

[Pippen]

There is so much money involved in internet and media connection companies that unless Obama grows a halo and walks on water you and I will be paying higher cable bills, and getting ALOT LESS than we ever have.

Lack of competition in cable providers is worse than the lack of competition in retail oil and gas and that group keeps getting smaller.

The U.S. Government and it's lobbiest do not want you or I to be informed, educated connected citizens, they want slaves. Ignorant docile American Idol watching fast food eating slaves, with a gun. The gun of course is just to help pacify because there will NEVER be a day where the gun toting will get called upon to defend themselves against a terrorist or God for Bid THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT !

If the same Americans today were to occupy Boston before the revolution there would BE NO AMERICA. We'd be a small non cohesive series of lack luster settlements none of which extend beyond the Tennessee hills. The rest would be Russian and Latin.

[cayuse]

"Will the largest media companies be allowed to further consolidate ownership, homogenize content and crowd out diversity? "

Monopoly and low tax to capital gains for "Stock Trading" is the greatist ills of our economy and society today. They are robing the capacity and opportunity of genius need edfor technogy and reward for the effort of labor

[Brett Glass]

Unfortunately, Mr. Silver's inside-the-Beltway DC lobbying group, "Free Press," is pushing for so-called "network neutrality" regulation that is anything but neutral. (It favors large corporations such as Google, which has funneled money to so-called "public interest" groups in DC to induce them to support its agenda.) The regulation promoted by Mr. Silver's group would raise the price of broadband Internet service, eliminate consumers' choice of broadband providers, and encourage illegal activity (such as so-called "file sharing" services which are used for piracy of music and video and for distribution of pornography, including child pornography). We can only hope that Mr. Genachowski will see through the misleading propaganda peddled by groups like Free Press (which also operates under several aliases, including "Save the Internet" and "Internet for Everyone") and do what's truly right for America.

[idest]

So I guess you'd like it if Comcast and Verizon could determine what websites you were allowed to peruse, and indeed what data is allowed to be transferred to your computer. Sounds a bit too Orwellian to me, but to each his own I guess.

[Brett Glass]

Neither Comcast nor Verizon has ever attempted to block specific Internet content nor to "determine what websites you [are] allowed to peruse." Nor is there any reason to believe that they would ever do so. But Mr. Silver has been spreading unsubstantiated scare stories claiming that they will, in an attempt to scare citizens and legislators into promoting the Internet regulation that his lobbying group is pushing. Don't fall for the propaganda! The result will be more expensive, poorer performing, less available, less competitive Internet.

[mayahbird]

I sure hope he means it.
I would like to see a lot more competition in the news and banking and oil and all the other monopolies in this country. When they get so big as they are now, when they go down the whole country suffers. Or if they decide to raise the price, who can stop them? What ever happened to competition??? The way it is now, you get the one voice they want you to hear and nothing else. I for one would like to hear some truth for a change.

[JenComm]

The Telecomm Act of 1996 was one of the worst pieces of policy to come out of the Clinton Administration. A repeal (or significant amendment) is a necessary step to fix the monopoly mess in the media. Unfortunately I am not hoping for a reversal, seeing as Genachowski served on the FCC under Clinton.

[andyboy]

Remember: A fast internet is a dangerous internet. And a cheap internet is even more so.

[mayahbird]

Why?

[Strywever]

I'm hoping he's facetiously describing the conservative perspective, which reflects a desire to limit access to information so that they can continue to pursue their agenda without anyone noticing what they're really doing.

[razajac]

Because your IP packets can run off the virtual highway and hit a virtual tree. Then there'll be a big virtual funeral for the packets, with everybody crying virtual tears... while the black sheep virtual half-brother of the IP packets runs around spreading virtual rumors about a virtual vial of virtual cocaine found in the virtual glovebox of the optical fibre virtual highway.

You big silly!

[tigerakabj]

First on my list to break up these "Media monopolies" (more specifically Fox news). He should quickly undo the 1996 telecom act that Clinton signed. The media in the hands of a few (with an agenda i.e. Rupert Murdoch) is not good. 21st century trust-busting of the robber barons of the media needs to cmmence.

[jqcitizen]

tiger-

Agreed. Breaking up monopolies is especially important in areas of the country that have only 1 newspaper, 1 radio station and 1 TV station ALL owned by the same person(s).

In situations such as this the 'News' is more like brainwashing propaganda.