INTERVIEW WITH FCC COMMISSIONER POWELL

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: July 7, 2004 10:08:52 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] INTERVIEW WITH FCC COMMISSIONER POWELL
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com

INTERVIEW WITH FCC COMMISSIONER POWELL

Michael K. Powell, a Republican, was nominated 31 July 1997 as a member 
of the FCC by President William J. Clinton and confirmed by the U.S. 
Senate on 28 October 1997. President George W. Bush appointed Powell 
chairman of the FCC on 22 January 2001. Gartner Fellow Kenneth McGee 
met recently with Chairman Powell in his Washington, DC, office to 
discuss issues and policies concerning broadband, telecommunications, 
media ownership and content issues and digital TV.
On Media ownership Powell said: Here's the truth: the ownership debate 
is about nothing but content. Don't be fooled. I mean, this is my 
greatest warning to the American public. It's easy to go after every 
ill in society by claiming it's the media's fault. It's the American 
pastime, right? Anything you don't like, it's the media's fault. What 
scared me in that debate is that it's not about the ownership rules at 
all. The vast majority of people don't even know what the rules say, to 
be perfectly candid. Name all six of them. Name what they actually do. 
Nobody can. They became a stalking horse for a debate about the role of 
media in our society. I can expect and understand consumer anger and 
anxiety about that. But the ownership rules are not the cause or the 
cure. It was really an invitation for people with particular viewpoints 
to push for a thumb on the scale, for content in a direction that 
people preferred. The danger with that? It's easy to say, "I'm 
comfortable with that when the government's doing it for something I 
like. But I get really scared when it's something I don't." And what is 
juxtaposed against the media ownership debate? Indecency, which maybe 
is what you mean by content. Hollywood was happy to beat up on 
ownership liberalization because they want the government to intervene 
so we can promote more independent programming — which is content. But 
the same Hollywood says the government can't say that Howard Stern 
can't say the F word, because that's censorship and inappropriate.

[SOURCE: Gartner, a provider of research and analysis on the global IT 
industry]
<http://www4.gartner.com/research/fellows/asset_91308_1176.jsp>

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