FCC Commissioner Michael Copps visits Bob McChesney and takes callers - Sunday 2pm ET

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Listen:
http://will.illinois.edu/mediamatters/show/february-13th.-2011/

Media Matters with Bob McChesney
Sundays at 1 pm Central on AM580

Media Matters features host Bob McChesney in conversation with a variety of guests. Listeners may call with comments or questions.

Bob McChesney is a research professor in the Institute of Communications Research and the Graduate School of Information and Library Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "The media are central to all our lives," he says. "Yet the media are the most frequently misunderstood parts of our lives. We want to help people understand the role of media in society."

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Sunday, February 13, 2011

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps

Michael Copps joined the FCC on May 31, 2001 and was sworn in for his second term in December 2005.

Copps served until January 2001 as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Trade Development at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he was previously Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Basic Industries. Copps came to Washington in 1970, joining the staff of Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC) and serving for over a dozen years as Chief of Staff. He has also held positions at a Fortune 500 company and at a major trade association. Before coming to Washington, Copps was a professor of U.S. History at Loyola University of the South. Copps received a B.A. from Wofford College and earned a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
http://www.fcc.gov
Statements for 2011
http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/copps/statements.html



For those not familiar with Mr. Copps, I dug up the following:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/cable-ization-of-the-open-internet-comcastnbcu-deal-approved.ars
"Cable-ization of the open Internet": Comcast/NBCU deal approved
By Nate Anderson | Last updated 25 days ago

The Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice have blessed the mega-merger of Comcast and NBC-Universal. The combined company has agreed to a huge list of conditions, most of which will be made public later, that eroded much of the resistance among four FCC Commissioners. But the lone holdout, Commissioner Michael Copps, lived up to his unofficial title as the Grumpy Old Man of the FCC (and we mean that in the most complimentary way).

Copps' statement after the vote is stuffed with some truly inspired ranting. One bit in particular stands out:

The Comcast-NBCU joint venture opens the door to the cable-ization of the open Internet. The potential for walled gardens, toll booths, content prioritization, access fees to reach end users, and a stake in the heart of independent content production is now very real.

As for the future of America’s news and journalism, I see nothing in this deal to address the fundamental damage that has been inflicted by years of outrageous consolidation and newsroom cuts. Investigative journalism is not even a shell of its former self. All of this means it’s more difficult for citizens to hold the powerful accountable. It means thousands of stories go unwritten. It means we never hear about untold instances of business corruption, political graft and other chicanery; it also means we don’t hear enough about all the good things taking place in our country every day.

The slight tip of the hat that the applicants have made toward some very limited support of local media projects does not even begin to address the core of the problem. Given that this merger will make the joint venture a steward of the public’s airwaves as a broadcast licensee, I asked for a major commitment of its resources to beef up the news operation at NBC. That request was not taken seriously. Increasing the quantity of news by adding hours of programming is no substitute for improving the quality of news by devoting the necessary resources.

Make no mistake: what is at stake here is the infrastructure for our national conversation—the very lifeblood of American democracy. We should be moving in precisely the opposite direction of what this Commission approves today.

more...

[Bozita]

1. kick for time

[Bozita]

2. Maybe I should have created a new post instead of resurrecting this one.