Kevin Martin’s FCC is getting active on the indecency front, having named conservative Christian activist Penny Nance to the post of special advisor in the FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis. Her job, according to a Commission spokesperson is to focus “on broadcast- and cable-related consumer and social issues,” with a presumed focus on beefing up the FCC’s efforts to tackle indecency.
Nance is a prominent traditional family values and anti-abortion conservative who recently headed interest group Kids First and was a board of member of Concerned Women in America, which advocates the incorporation of Christian principles into U.S. laws.
According to Mediaweek, Nance was also a lobbyist for Reclaiming America, a group working toward the implementation in law of “the Biblical principles on which our country was founded.” Most bloggers have taken umbrage at the notion that the expert agency responsible for regulating communications has tapped someone with Nance’s view of mixing government with Christianity. Typical of the reaction is this sound-bite from the Center for Creative Voices in Media blog:
Why Ms. Nance at the FCC? Maybe Brent Bozell wasn’t available — or was unwilling to take the pay cut… But it might as well be Brent, as the [Mediaweek] article makes clear. What does this say about the direction new FCC Chair Kevin J. Martin intends to take the Commission on so-called “indecency” issues? This is extremely troubling news for anyone concerned about freedom of speech, and the separation of church and state.
My favorite blog entry on the Nance controversy, however, comes from a blog called Sir Real’s Words of Wisdom. The title of Sir Real’s entry: “FCC Hires New Idiot to Control Our Lives.”
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:12 PM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Courtesy of MicroPersuasion, the White House is now podcasting President Bush’s weekly radio address. In the interests of equal time, we post here the weekly podcasts of the Democratic Party. (Thanks to Rex Hammond for the equal time link).
Courtesy of the FTTH Blog, the Fiber-to-the-Home Council is kicking off a lobbying campaign to persuade Congress to adopt a “converged services approach” as it wrestles with the 1996 Telecom Act rewrite.
In a letter to Congress, the Council said that two barriers exist to next-generation network development: the lack of a streamlined cable franchising process and barriers to muncipal broadband.
Currently, there are two significant barriers to next-generation network deployment: 1) the lack of a streamlined cable television franchising process; and 2) restrictions on the ability of municipalities to provide their citizens access to broadband services. We strongly believe the time has come for Congress to remove these barriers and adopt legislation encouraging the deployment of next-generation broadband networks.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 12:43 PM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wired News has a good piece on the reaction of civil libertarians to the FCC’s ruling last week that expands wiretapping rules to VoIP and other Internet-related service providers. The detractors, which include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, People for Internet Responsibility, and former FCC official Kevin Werbach, now a professor at Penn’s Wharton School, say that the FCC’s action violates the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement (CALEA) Act, which drew a bright line between “information services” and telephone networks.
No doubt a legal challenge on this question is in the works. The Wired piece cites John Morris, an attorney with the Center for Democracy and Technology as saying “I think a legal challenge is highly likely at this point.”
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 12:11 PM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Courtesy of Boing Boing, the Tiffany network, home of Edward R. Murrow and all that was once distinguished in electronic journalism is looking for an…amateur podcaster. Not that I think there is anything wrong with that. In fact, it’s just a testament to how blogging, podcasting and citizen journalism is changing the face of traditional media.
Want to be CBS’s first podcaster? The network is searching for an amateur DJ to interview CBS stars and create a podcast about the new fall season. The podcaster will join the nation’s top DJs at the CBS Radio Junket on September 10 in Hollywood to interview CBS talent for the podcast, which will be made available to millions via CBS.com and Infinity Broadcasting’s San Francisco-based KYOURADIO, the world’s first-ever podcasting radio station. For consideration, you’ll need to upload a mock three-minute interview.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:20 AM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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