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FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Meredith Attwell Baker kicked off the 2010 Congressional Internet Caucus “State of the Net” conference this afternoon with two brief keynote addresses.  Below I’ve summarized the highlights here from my live Tweeting at the event (@AdamThierer): Commissioner Copps • “every great challenge this country faces… has a broadband component at [...]

Bidding has begun on Comcast’s acquisition of a majority stake in NBC Universal.  No, not the bidding between GE and Comcast over the terms of the sale.   That was the comparatively easy part.  The real bidding is over at the FCC, as various interests work to get concessions and pledges from Comcast as a condition of FCC approval [...]

Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps declared yesterday in a speech celebrating the 75th anniversary of the FCC and the Communications Act, that it was time to think “more rigorously” about the impact of the migration of communications to the Internet and “how to ensure that as the Internet becomes our primary vehicle for communicating with [...]

Transparency at the FCC

by on January 27, 2009 · 2 comments

Speaking of transparency…  My colleague Barbara Esbin has a great piece on the PFF blog about changes being implemented by Acting Chairman Copps to make the agency less dysfunctional and more open to the public: the new Acting Chairman has confirmed what FCC insiders, outside practitioners, and the House staff investigating former Chairman Kevin Martin’s management practices [...]

Remember Newspapers?

by on October 27, 2008 · 2 comments

In a City Journal article earlier this year, I wondered “how long some local papers have left when they are barred from restructuring their businesses or partnering with other local media operators to stem the bleeding and reinvent their business models.”  I was responding to the Senate’s smack-down of a half-hearted reform effort that FCC [...]

Faithful readers will recall that, several months ago, I penned a 7-part “Media Metrics” series that took a hard look at the health of the media marketplace. Today, the Progress & Freedom Foundation is releasing a greatly expanded version of these essays that I have put together with my PFF colleague Grant Eskelsen. In this [...]

In Part 1 of this series, I argued that the Democratic Party seems to be gradually abandoning whatever claim it once had to being the party of the First Amendment. Regrettably, examples of Democrats selling out the First Amendment are becoming more prevalent and the few champions of freedom of speech and expression left in [...]

The idea that the Democrats are the party of free speech and the great protectors of our nation’s First Amendment heritage has always been a bit of a myth. In reality, when you study battles over freedom of speech and expression throughout American history you quickly come to realize that there are plenty of people [...]