A few notes about the FCC hearing
Thursday's FCC hearing has received a lot of attention in the blogosphere, and almost everyone has linked to my liveblogging coverage, which all of us at NPI gratefully appreciate. If nothing else I wanted to give people who couldn't be there a taste of what was going on and what was said.
Josh Feit over on the Stranger's Slog had a post yesterday with his take on the hearing, and I first want to respond to some of the things he said:
And I would not characterize the entire hearing as "a redundant chorus of lefties denouncing big media". I don't think that's accurate, and furthermore, I see it as an unncessary put down. It reads as an elitist insult to me - oh yeah, the long-winded rabble repeating the same thing over and over again.
In my liveblogging, I merely tried to summarize the points that speakers were making. I didn't have time to do more then. I was listening and typing for several hours without rest. I knew that analysis and critiques can come later. If you're not paying attention at the moment, you can miss something.
So while it may appear to Josh that I am easily impressed, the truth is that I have heard so many speeches and read so much commentary over the years that the opposite is really true. I have a high standard.
I'm simply not in the habit of publicly pinning fellow progressives, liberals, or Democrats to the wall with a barrage of criticism.
Nor I am interested in doing so. So when I write about an event, convention, etc. I naturally like to focus on the highlights and the positives.
I'll admit that I tend to cringe when I have to listen to a speaker who is stumbling or rambling on and on without making any point. But I also know from experience that public speaking isn't that easy. It's hard to be polished.
And I'll admit that at some points during the hearing I felt like closing my eyes and taking a rest. There was redundancy. There were people speaking who didn't seem sure of what they wanted to say. But I expected that. And I was pleasantly surprised by the diversity I saw. Demographically, geographically, ideologically.
It wasn't a Seattle-only crowd. It wasn't just a "chorus of lefties", either.
As far as net neutrality is concerned, it was mentioned at several points during the hearing. In fact, a couple of concerned citizens nailed it really well. There was one individual representing the Online Video Service who explained how critical it was in very sharp, clear language. And another speaker reframed the issue, saying it's about preventing "net discrimination".
Kathy Gill from the University of Washington dedicated much of her time to talking about net neutrality. And she had more than two minutes of time in which to speak.
Jeff Hoyt brought both the Internet and radio together in his remarks about Voice of Vashon, a community operated Internet radio station. Net neutrality is a critical issue for his group.
I believe the commissioners are acutely aware of the issue. And while I believe the Internet is extremely important, I disagree with Josh's contention that the real issue, or the real question, somehow wasn't addressed.
Speaker after speaker noted that big media companies own a ton of Internet portals. Ruper Murdoch's News Corporation, for example, owns MySpace. Hearst owns significant parts of Genealogy.com, Drugstore.com, and Hire.com. Time Warner, the biggest, owns AOL, which owns properties such as Moviefone, MapQuest, Winamp, Singingfish, Weblogs, Inc (including sites like Engadget, Autoblog, Cinematical, or TVSquad) XDrive, and Netscape.
That's just the tip of the iceberg.
Guess who owns CareerBuilder LLC, the largest online job site in the United States? The Gannett, Tribune and McClatchy newspaper companies. (Tribune also owns BlackVoices.com and Zap2It.)
AutoTrader.com is a majority-owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises. CBS owns SportsLine. Then there are all the portals that are associated with traditional media - for example, ESPN and ESPN.com, owned by Disney, or NYTimes.com and the New York Times, owned by the company of the same name.
Consolidation and concentration is a problem that affects every medium, including the Internet, though the Internet is less susceptible because the barrier to entry is lower (at least right now it is, and hopefully will continue to be).
It's not easy to start your own newspaper or TV station, but it is pretty easy to put up your own website. However, that doesn't mean you can compete with the conglomerates on their level.
So preventing further media consolidation in general, and making net neutrality a key part of our commerce laws, are both extremely important. That's the message that got sent at the hearing.
I would have enjoyed the hearing more if the three Republican commissioners had been there listening to all of that public testimony. It was great to have Commissioners Copps and Adelstein, but we need to find a way to corner the other three and ensure that they hear directly from the concerned public.
Josh Feit over on the Stranger's Slog had a post yesterday with his take on the hearing, and I first want to respond to some of the things he said:
I had to leave shortly after the public testimony started, but judging from the first round I did hear...and from the effusive and always too-easily-impressed- with-liberal-rhetoric Andrew (over at Northwest Progressive Institute, it went as expected: A redundant chorus of lefties denouncing big media.I would surmise that Josh got that first notion from reading my writing, but it isn't true that I am "easily impressed" with "liberal rhetoric". As far as the hearing is concerned, I was not impressed by all the speakers.
And I would not characterize the entire hearing as "a redundant chorus of lefties denouncing big media". I don't think that's accurate, and furthermore, I see it as an unncessary put down. It reads as an elitist insult to me - oh yeah, the long-winded rabble repeating the same thing over and over again.
In my liveblogging, I merely tried to summarize the points that speakers were making. I didn't have time to do more then. I was listening and typing for several hours without rest. I knew that analysis and critiques can come later. If you're not paying attention at the moment, you can miss something.
So while it may appear to Josh that I am easily impressed, the truth is that I have heard so many speeches and read so much commentary over the years that the opposite is really true. I have a high standard.
I'm simply not in the habit of publicly pinning fellow progressives, liberals, or Democrats to the wall with a barrage of criticism.
Nor I am interested in doing so. So when I write about an event, convention, etc. I naturally like to focus on the highlights and the positives.
I'll admit that I tend to cringe when I have to listen to a speaker who is stumbling or rambling on and on without making any point. But I also know from experience that public speaking isn't that easy. It's hard to be polished.
And I'll admit that at some points during the hearing I felt like closing my eyes and taking a rest. There was redundancy. There were people speaking who didn't seem sure of what they wanted to say. But I expected that. And I was pleasantly surprised by the diversity I saw. Demographically, geographically, ideologically.
It wasn't a Seattle-only crowd. It wasn't just a "chorus of lefties", either.
As far as net neutrality is concerned, it was mentioned at several points during the hearing. In fact, a couple of concerned citizens nailed it really well. There was one individual representing the Online Video Service who explained how critical it was in very sharp, clear language. And another speaker reframed the issue, saying it's about preventing "net discrimination".
Kathy Gill from the University of Washington dedicated much of her time to talking about net neutrality. And she had more than two minutes of time in which to speak.
Jeff Hoyt brought both the Internet and radio together in his remarks about Voice of Vashon, a community operated Internet radio station. Net neutrality is a critical issue for his group.
I believe the commissioners are acutely aware of the issue. And while I believe the Internet is extremely important, I disagree with Josh's contention that the real issue, or the real question, somehow wasn't addressed.
Speaker after speaker noted that big media companies own a ton of Internet portals. Ruper Murdoch's News Corporation, for example, owns MySpace. Hearst owns significant parts of Genealogy.com, Drugstore.com, and Hire.com. Time Warner, the biggest, owns AOL, which owns properties such as Moviefone, MapQuest, Winamp, Singingfish, Weblogs, Inc (including sites like Engadget, Autoblog, Cinematical, or TVSquad) XDrive, and Netscape.
That's just the tip of the iceberg.
Guess who owns CareerBuilder LLC, the largest online job site in the United States? The Gannett, Tribune and McClatchy newspaper companies. (Tribune also owns BlackVoices.com and Zap2It.)
AutoTrader.com is a majority-owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises. CBS owns SportsLine. Then there are all the portals that are associated with traditional media - for example, ESPN and ESPN.com, owned by Disney, or NYTimes.com and the New York Times, owned by the company of the same name.
Consolidation and concentration is a problem that affects every medium, including the Internet, though the Internet is less susceptible because the barrier to entry is lower (at least right now it is, and hopefully will continue to be).
It's not easy to start your own newspaper or TV station, but it is pretty easy to put up your own website. However, that doesn't mean you can compete with the conglomerates on their level.
So preventing further media consolidation in general, and making net neutrality a key part of our commerce laws, are both extremely important. That's the message that got sent at the hearing.
I would have enjoyed the hearing more if the three Republican commissioners had been there listening to all of that public testimony. It was great to have Commissioners Copps and Adelstein, but we need to find a way to corner the other three and ensure that they hear directly from the concerned public.
