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Posted on By Patrick Maines

Orts and All

Can’t Miss TV

Comes now the news that Michael Moore, the merry propagandist, is joining Keith Olbermann on Al Gore’s Current TV, the legendary television network.  It’s practically a miracle!  Even now the crowds are queuing up to catch a glimpse of this dynamic duo.

One can only imagine the kind of material that, in collaboration, they may produce.  Perhaps an investigative report on the link between Citizens United, the Tea Party, and global warming.  Or maybe something even more intellectual, like a video essay on how the alleged indebtedness of the federal and state governments is just a rumor started by the gnomes of Zurich.

Whatever, isn’t it great to know that we live in a country where bombast and imbecility can have their day in the court of public opinion?  As they say in the ad – “mm, mm, good!”

Those ‘Public’ Airwaves

The Speaking Freely essay written by Erwin Krasnow, recently co-published by The Media Institute and The Thomas Jefferson Center, is striking in a number of ways, not least because its author is a former general counsel of the National Association of Broadcasters.  As such, Mr. Krasnow has known for years of broadcasting’s embrace of concepts like “scarcity” and the "public interest" standard as useful tools in re certain policy issues, like cable TV’s “must carry” obligations.

So how to get a handle on Krasnow’s call now for an end to such concepts, and to the notion that the public “owns” the airwaves?  Perhaps it’s the prospect of forced spectrum surrender, or maybe the notion that broadcasters are able these days to charge for their carriage by cable that explains it all.  Whatever, it will be interesting to see if, in days ahead, the NAB echoes some of Krasnow’s arguments.  For that matter, it would be interesting to know what those at NAB think of Krasnow’s essay, which has attracted rather a lot of attention.  Goes without saying that we at TMI would be more than happy to publish any such.

It’s the Gospel (‘Jesus Dropped the Charges’)

Doubling down on my earlier reckless confession of love for the blues and gospel music, herewith a link to a piece by the late O’Neil Twins.  (Yes, the title is amusing, but I’ll fight any man in the bar who says he doesn’t like the music.)  Check it out here.

Drudging Respect

Writing in The New York Times, David Carr has this to say about the extraordinary influence of the Drudge Report: “Yes, Mr. Drudge is a conservative ideologue whose site also serves as a crib sheet for the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.  But if you believe that his huge traffic numbers are a byproduct of an ideologically motivated readership, consider that 15 percent of the traffic at Washington Post.com, which is not exactly a hotbed of Tea Party foment, comes from The Drudge Report.”

Say what?  Featuring, on its editorial pages, such as George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Jennifer Rubin, Robert Samuelson, Mark Thiessen, and Michael Gerson, the WAPO may not be a hotbed of “Tea Party foment,” but it is the source of a lot of conservative opinion of the sort that Drudge links to often.

Carr’s opinion to the contrary notwithstanding (and how many times do we have to say this?), the primary reason for Drudge’s success – as for the success of conservative talk radio and the Fox News Channel – is its political point of view, which is different from that of most of the MSM, and popular with a large number of people.  Sheesh!

                                   

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not necessarily of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

 

Posted on By Patrick Maines

The WHCD: ‘Arianna Huffington Wore Nanette Lepore’

Online and off, the magazine called POLITICO sets the standard for political reporting in the U.S.A.  It doesn’t set the standard very high, mind you, but by its signature amalgamation of horse race journalism, rumor and innuendo, POLITICO represents a model of sorts for wannabe political reporters everywhere.

Thus it is that one dare not neglect to pay attention when the magazine focuses on Things That Really Matter … like, for instance, the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Once a year this affair provides a backdrop for every other political reporter’s fantasy: a stage on which all the people who count (stars and starlets, politicians and reporters) can rub elbows, see and be seen.

This year’s dinner, held just last weekend, was no exception.  Some examples, as chronicled in a few of the numerous stories in POLITICO:

“Star Strut – Scenes from the Red Carpet,” a “minute-by-minute” account of “the events leading up to DC’s biggest night,” complete with a photo of Bob Schieffer and a blond woman in a red dress.

“Seth Meyers Skewers DC,” on the “SNL” head writer’s remarks, wherein it’s revealed that “outgoing Commerce Secretary Gary Locke (soon to be ambassador to China) admitted to POLITICO that he’s been a huge fan of Meyers for years.” 

“What the Stars Wore” – “FLOTUS wears Halston to dinner.”  “On the red carpet, CBS’s Lara Logan, a very early arrival, wore cobalt blue Badgley Mischka." “Arianna Huffington wore Nanette Lepore.”  And Matthew Morrison (?) (I don’t know, you tell me) said: “I’m wearing Calvin Klein underwear.”

In other words, everything was perfect! The glamour, the wit, the very essence of it all.  Of course there are probably some cranks, mindful of those Americans who gave their lives last week in the Middle East, or of the millions more who are now facing the imminent prospect of abject poverty, who may be less than thrilled by the spectacle.

But hey, at a time when, according to a 2010 Gallup poll, mainstream journalists still outrank organized labor in the confidence people have in them, why worry, right?

                                    

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Michael Copps’ Excellent Adventure

Even in a town filled to the gunwales with sagacious and selfless public servants (wink, wink), FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, now in his tenth and final year as such, stands out from the crowd.  Evidence of his colorful take on policy issues has been on display right from the beginning.

In 2001, for instance, in just his first months on the job, Copps issued statements condemning allegedly indecent radio comments by Howard Stern (September); the TV broadcast of a Victoria’s Secret program (November); and the airing of liquor advertising (December).

When he wasn’t condemning indecent language, scantily clad women, or Demon Rum, Copps was laying the groundwork for what would become his signature spiel: a four-part jeremiad that excoriates the current state of journalism (not enough “localism” or investigative reporting); blames this state of affairs on media consolidation; recommends more spending on public broadcasting; and decries what he sees as insufficient “public interest” obligations on the licensed media (and perhaps the unlicensed media as well).

Copps is not alone in holding such views, but there’s something about the way he presents them – especially now when the political, legal, and economic winds are blowing in a very different direction – that’s borderline amusing.  Where once his fire and brimstone suggested a kind of Elmer Gantry, it now seems rather like Elmer Fudd. (“I hate wabbits!”)

Who could forget, just five months before the 2008 presidential election, the speech that Copps gave to the so-called National Conference on Media Reform?  Organized annually by those wonderful “progressives” at Free Press, Copps never misses one of these things; they are, he says, his favorite place to be.

Anyhow, in June of 2008, the commissioner was practically giddy at the prospect of working that old time religion on the nation’s communications policies:

On a night like tonight almost anything seems possible, doesn’t it?  To tell you the truth, I feel like that a lot these days.  I know we can get this done.  We can climb into the bright uplands of real democracy.  Because as we change media, we change everything.  We empower 300 million Americans to deal with all those issues that Big Media has dumbed-down or just plain ignored at terrible cost to our democracy.  There is no real democracy without media democracy.

Never mind the risible imagery of the Free Press crowd, backpacks and all, climbing those “bright uplands,” or the pristine gimcrackery in the real democracy/media democracy linkage – what’s notable is the contrast between those remarks and a speech Copps gave just a week ago.

Speaking again to the National Conference on Media Reform (who else?), Copps let it all hang out:

I’m here because I’m more worried than ever about the state of America’s media and what it’s doing to our country….  For the consolidated owners of radio and TV, the license to broadcast became a license to despoil….

What we’re dealing with here is a bad case of Big Media substance abuse – and they just can’t break the habit.  These folks have no intention, even as the economy improves, of reopening shuttered newsrooms or rehiring laid-off reporters.  They might even fire more, just to prove to Wall Street that the bottom line still rules….

You and I knew all along that the realization of our dreams waited on a new era of reform in Washington.  Then the new era came and we all just knew that media reform was right around the corner.  Twenty-seven months later we are still waiting.  Waiting for even a down payment on media reform, like an honest-to-goodness broadcast license renewal process to replace the utterly ridiculous, no-questions-asked regime now in place.  Or some public interest guidelines to encourage broadcast news and diversity and localism.

Really, it’s almost enough to make a grown man cry.  All those uplands unclimbed!  And Big Media moguls, firing people left and right, just to prove something to Wall Street.  Hearing such stuff, you know that Copps earnestly believes he’s put his finger on the problem.  After all, what else could it be?

Still, there’s something a little otherworldly about the gentleman’s lament, as though he’s been just a bystander looking in.  For the past 10 years Michael Copps has been one of five commissioners at the FCC, even chairman for a while, and since 2009 he has been a member of the majority there.

So if now, as he’s on his way out the door, Copps feels that the FCC has foozled its play, perhaps he should consider pointing one of those accusatory fingers at himself.  Maybe the problem all along hasn’t been consolidation or avarice, maybe it’s been that what ails the media, and the way forward, are more complex than to be availing of the kind of nostrums Copps and Free Press have been peddling.

Maybe the problem is that the Internet has upset the business model of almost all of the “old media,” denying them, most importantly, the kind of ad revenue that has been their lifeblood.  Seen from this perspective, exhortations to deny the efficiencies of consolidation, or to require more stringent “public interest” obligations, or to recommend greater funding of public broadcasting are not just irrelevant, they’re appalling.

                                       
The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

We’re All Centrists Now

The excitement is almost more than a person can bear.  From one corner of medialand to the other, progressives are on the march!  From out of New York comes the report, sure to send a frisson through who knows how many strange people, that Keith Olbermann is joining Al Gore’s Current TV.  As Olbermann’s PR firm put it: “He and his new partners will make an exciting announcement regarding the next chapter in his remarkable career.”  Remarkable indeed, since if codswallop were diamonds, Olbermann would be the shiniest man on television.

Meanwhile, Arianna Huffington, than whom no one better amalgamates progressive politics and uber commercialism, just sold the Huffington Post to AOL for more than $300 million.  And as for those cranks who have qualms about AOL acquiring a property with HuffPo’s pronounced political slant, not to worry, because Arianna says it isn’t “left” since only 15 percent of the site’s traffic goes to the politics section.

Indeed, Huffington’s denial of being a purveyor of liberalism is a familiar refrain these days.  Over at the New York Daily News, Josh Greenman recently wrote that the success of Rush Limbaugh, the Drudge Report, and Fox News proves the nonexistence of the “dominant liberal media,” while John Harris, the editor of Politico, has opined on the subject in print and on the air.

Interviewed on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show last month because he wanted “to rebut” Hewitt’s earlier claim that Politico has veered left in the last two years, Harris mostly avoided answering Hewitt’s questions, and this week published an essay in Politico where he claimed that most reporters “might more accurately be accused of centrist bias.”

So what to make of all this?  Why the rush to deny liberalism and lay journalistic claim on the center?  Several theories present themselves.  The first is opportunism and the second is obfuscation.  Beyond these lurk other possibilities, such as: (1) that certain reporters see the political handwriting on the wall and want not to be seen as among the victims; or (2) that many political reporters just don’t get it; that when they say, as Harris says in his Politico piece, that they “believe broadly in government activism” they’ve just conceded conservatives’ principal complaint, and cannot then go on and blithely characterize that stance as “centrist.”

The ideological composition of the citizenry differs by country, but in the USA the math is clear: There are at least twice as many conservatives as liberals, and not to take anything away from Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, or Roger Ailes, this is the primary reason for their success: They have delivered products that appeal to a large number of people whose views are, and have been, badly underrepresented by the vast majority of news organizations, political reporters especially.
                                       
The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

‘Net Neutrality’ Goes To Court (Again)

For the most part, objections to the FCC’s new “network neutrality rules” – codified in December to preserve a “free and open” Internet despite a lack of evidence that anything less was the ongoing condition already – have centered on the probable negative impact on investment in the broadband space, and on the ability of Internet service providers (ISPs) to manage their networks efficiently.

And why not?  After all, this is a time when even President Obama is recommending regulatory reform, and the net neutrality regulations impose substantial new reporting obligations, even as they fail to provide a clear understanding of what network management practices are acceptable.

Important as these concerns are, however, there is another problem with these rules, and that is the degree to which they conflict with the First Amendment.  Though this argument has been propounded by such notables as Laurence Tribe and FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell (who dissented from the FCC’s Order), it has gotten very little coverage in news or opinion stories.

But that may change if a lawsuit filed in federal court last month by Verizon survives the FCC’s motion to dismiss.  Indeed, if this case were to reach the Supreme Court, it might provide yet another example, a la Citizens United, of laws or regulations undone because of their constitutional infirmities.

So what are the First Amendment problems with the net neutrality regulations?  Broadly speaking, there are two: The regulations fail to recognize that broadband ISPs are speakers for First Amendment purposes; and they interject the government into private decisions about speech.

Commissioner McDowell elaborated on this first point in some detail in delivering his dissenting opinion.  “I question,” he said, “the Order’s breezy assertion that broadband ISPs perform no editorial function worthy of constitutional recognition.”

It is undisputed that broadband ISPs merit First Amendment protection when using their own platforms to provide multichannel video programming services and similar offerings.  The Order acknowledges as much but simply asserts that the new regulations will leave broadband ISPs sufficient room to speak in this fashion – unless, of course, hints elsewhere in the document concerning capacity usage come to pass.  So while the Order concedes, as it must, that network management regulation could well be subject to heightened First Amendment review, it disregards the most significant hurdle posed by even the intermediate scrutiny standard.  The Order devotes all its sparse discussion to the first prong of the intermediate scrutiny test, the “substantial” government interest, while wholly failing to address the second and typically most difficult prong for the government to satisfy: demonstrating that the regulatory means chosen does not “burden substantially more speech than is necessary.”

In comments submitted to the FCC by Time Warner Cable, Harvard constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe, who served as a judicial adviser to President Obama’s election campaign, made a number of kindred observations about net neutrality and the Constitution.  Two paragraphs, in particular, are of special note:

Net neutrality proposals rest on the mistaken premise that the Constitution gives the government a role in ensuring that the voices of various speakers receive equivalent attention and that audiences receive equal access to all speakers.  In fact, a central purpose of the First Amendment is to prevent the government from making just such choices about private speech, including decisions about what amount of any given kind of speech is optimal.  Inconsistent with that purpose is any notion that government might properly limit private decisions, such as those by BSPs (broadband service providers) regarding the control of their networks, in order to widen the access of some to the avenues of speech or to swell the aggregate amount of speech beyond whatever would result from the decisions of private speakers enjoying “absolute freedom from First Amendment constraints.”…

Many net neutrality proponents argue that BSPs are not actually engaging in speech that implicates the First Amendment.  But they are incorrect.  The Constitution applies equally even outside traditional print or electronic media, so that, for example, the government cannot require an individual to open his doors and turn his home into a forum for protesters.  Further, like a newspaper, a BSP has a limited capacity to distribute information and accordingly enjoys the right to decide how to apportion that space.  And as noted, BSPs make decisions about the delivery of particular content as they continue to innovate in the products, services, and business models they employ.

Quite apart from net neutrality’s First Amendment problems in the United States, there is an international aspect that is also troubling to those who recognize the importance of free speech around the world.
 
In remarks delivered in Washington last year to The Media Institute, the State Department’s Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, Ambassador Philip Verveer, said the following: “The net neutrality proceeding is one that could be employed by regimes that don’t agree with our perspectives of essentially avoiding regulation of the Internet … it could be employed as a pretext or as an excuse for undertaking public policy activity that we would disagree with pretty profoundly….”

For his candor, Ambassador Verveer received criticism from net neutrality proponents inside and outside the administration, but his point survives. It’s really not such a difficult concept to apprehend: When governments acquire regulatory authority over media and communications they are that much closer to being able to control the content and distribution of those media and communications, however benign the rationale for their regulatory authority may seem.

As mentioned at the outset, the First Amendment aspects of net neutrality have gone largely unreported, and there is little doubt that most of the briefs filed in support of Verizon’s case will accentuate other problems with the regulations.  But for those of us who follow free speech issues closely, the constitutional baggage is a thing of great interest and possibly great consequence.

                                           
The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not necessarily of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Tucson and the Media

Never mind for a minute the opinions of those outside the media.  People, for instance, such as Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), who sees in the Tucson massacre the need for a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine.  Or Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who in 2007 called on the NTIA to reexamine whether broadcast facilities are creating a climate of fear and inciting individuals to commit hate crimes, and who now says: “The shooting in Arizona reminds all of us that the coarsening of our public discourse can have tragic consequences.”  Or Rep. Bob Brady (D-Pa.), who Broadcasting & Cable reports is “working on a bill to make it a crime to use ‘language or symbols’ that could be interpreted as inciting violence against a member of Congress.”

Never mind even the astonishing comments of the ubiquitous Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a man who, far from being just your everyday lawman, is a political philosopher and soothsayer as well.

The most disturbing thing about the coverage of this affair is the reckless and, in some quarters, even shameless commentary produced by people in the media.  Witness, for instance, Jacob Weisberg at Slate (“How anti-government, pro-gun, xenophobic populism made the Giffords shooting more likely”); or Michael Tomasky at the Guardian (“In the US, where hate rules at the ballot box, this tragedy has been coming for a long time.”)

But the man whose editorial contribution to this tragic affair represents the absolute nadir of journalistic integrity is The New York Times’ Paul Krugman.  In a blog posted just hours after the shooting, and in a Times piece titled “Climate of Hate,” Krugman relieves himself of opinions that are as poisonous as they are unfounded.  Here’s but one example (among many) of the wisdom and high-mindedness of the gentleman: “So will the Arizona massacre make our discourse less toxic? It’s really up to GOP leaders. Will they accept the reality of what’s happening to America, and take a stand against eliminationist rhetoric? Or will they try to dismiss the massacre as the mere act of a deranged individual,  and go on as before?"

To their credit, and the country’s benefit, Paul Krugman and Jacob Weisberg are not the only people employed by The New York Times and Slate. Those organizations also employ Jack Shafer and David Brooks, whose comments about this matter stand in stark and towering contrast.

Still, it’s one thing when politicians propose restrictions on freedom of speech, and something else when journalists and commentators do so.

One might be inclined to dismiss this kind of commentary if it were an anomaly, a one-off event unconnected to other threats to freedom of speech.  But it’s not.  Early in this millennium the United States has arrived at a time when there is scarcely a special interest or single-issue group in the country that does not employ speech police with direct access to the media.

It’s a time when the latest edition of Huckleberry Finn will substitute the word “slave” for the “n” word.

It’s a time when, as reported here, journalists who break ranks and say something politically incorrect – whether on the record, off the record, while having dinner, whatever – are summarily fired.

Where will it all end?  There are two ways this nation could lose its freedom of speech.  It could happen by laws or regulations promulgated by government, but at the end of the day that would also require that the federal courts go along, something that, given the strong case law in opposition, is unlikely.

But the other way it could happen would be if uninhibited speech is strangled in the crib by political correctness, not only practiced but positively enforced by the political culture as reflected by and in the media.  It is this that is happening today, and the question going forward is how much further down that road will we travel before passing the point of no return?
                                               
The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not necessarily of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Funding Net Neutrality … And Worse

There are so many things wrong with the FCC’s codified “net neutrality” rules, the kindest thing one can say about those responsible is that they were all born yesterday.  But criticism of this monstrosity abounds already, and given the potential for it to be wholly or partly undone by the courts or Congress, no further discussion of its many flaws is either timely or necessary.

Just before Christmas, however, John Fund wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal that ought to be required reading for every media and communications mogul in America.  Titled “The Net Neutrality Coup,” Fund recounts the role played by a handful of large grant-giving foundations, and the beneficiaries of their largesse (“paid clappers,” in Ted Turner’s immortal phrase) in the promotion of this cynical creation of the “media reform” movement.

Perhaps the greatest value in Fund’s piece is his finding that most of those foundations that provided the lion’s share of funding for net neutrality were also among the biggest sources of funding for the earlier (and even worse) mischief, “campaign finance reform.”

Fund identifies by name a total of six grant-giving foundations and four operating organizations.  They are, among the former: the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, the Joyce Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the John and Catherine MacArthur Foundation.

The four operating groups are Free Press, Public Knowledge, Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and the New America Foundation.  What all of these groups – funders and recipients alike – share in common is that, to varying degrees, they are all liberal-leaning, or “progressive,” as they yearn to be called nowadays.

Missing from this list is another billion-dollar grant-giving group – the Knight Foundation – which, through the Knight Commission, has itself peddled  net neutrality, along with such pap as the need for greater funding of public broadcasting, and tax credits for investigative journalism.  Though we won’t know for sure until its report is issued, the FCC appears to have adopted the Knight Commission’s recommendations as a kind of blueprint in its approach to the commission’s so-called Future of Media initiative.

The reason all of this should be of the greatest importance to everyone, but particularly to titans of media and communications, is simple: The communications policy views of grant-making groups like the Open Society Institute and the Ford Foundation (not to mention Free Press) are inimical to the well being of media and communications companies.

It’s not entirely clear why the “progressive” moneybags’ lavish spending has not incited individuals with different political views, many of whom have amassed great wealth in the media and communications business, to fund non-profit organizations with more pro-business communications policy views.  Perhaps it’s because some of them, having gotten theirs and now in retirement, no longer care much what happens to the industry of which they were once a part.  Or maybe it’s because many don’t think of themselves, or want others to think of them, as “conservatives,” whatever that means in the context of communications policymaking.

But a likelier explanation is that many fail to understand what a threat to their own and their industry’s welfare some of these groups actually pose.  Perhaps because businessmen are very good at lobbying, and understand the ins and outs of PACs, they don’t see the need to engage their critics in the worlds of academia or think tankery.

It’s a mistake, that, because in truth it’s the people who deal in ideas – intellectuals and artists, activists and policy wonks – who are often the engines in the development of policy issues in which legislators and regulators are but the last people to board the train.  Witness, for instance, net neutrality.

As John Fund puts it, in the conclusion of his WSJ piece, “So the ‘media reform’ movement paid for research that backed its views, paid activists to promote the research, saw its allies installed in the FCC and other key agencies, and paid for the FCC research that evaluated the research they had already paid for.  Now they have their policy.  That’s quite a coup.”

                                                
The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not necessarily of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Net Neutrality: Solving Nonexistent Problems the Old-Fashioned Way

For all the reaction it elicited, Chairman Genachowski’s plan for codification of the so-called net neutrality rules, as suggested in a speech he gave Dec. 1, amounts to too little revealed, much less resolved, to allow for fully confident assessment.

This said, it’s not too early to observe that any public policy that is roundly condemned by Free Press, the Media Access Project, and the Nation magazine can’t be all bad.  And condemn it they have.  Under headlines like “Is FCC Peddling Fake Net Neutrality?” and “FCC Chair Genachowski’s ‘Fake Net Neutrality’ Scheme Threatens Internet Freedom, Digital Democracy,” the left’s unhappiness is as loud as it is music to the ears.

On the other hand, the chairman’s proposal has also attracted heavy fire from members of Congress, many but not all of them Republicans, and from the two Republican commissioners at the FCC.  In Congress, the general animus centers on the feeling that the FCC should at least consult with, if not defer to, the members about such things, while Republicans are especially angry that the chairman’s plan anticipates action before the newly elected members of the House and Senate are even seated.

Meanwhile, the service providers are somewhat divided, with some of them content to wrap things up in a way that falls far short of what they had feared, while others are troubled by the apparent lack of a sunset provision, and by the unsettled nature of many important details.

So philosophy on parade it is not.  It is, instead, equal parts partisan politics, an acknowledgment of the way the world works, and 100-proof deal making.  As such, it’s unsatisfying – like taking a shower with your socks on – but it’s not a complete surprise.  As reported here, it’s always been clear that Genachowski had the inclination, and the votes, to proceed with some kind of “net neutrality” scheme, even as it also has looked ever more problematical for him to go the whole nine yards, as in Title II “reclassification.”

More than this, there are aspects of the apparent plan – like its embrace of consumption-based billing – that are deeply satisfying.  It wasn’t all that long ago that Time Warner Cable had to abandon plans, in consequence of noisy opposition from the usual troglodytes, to do some trials of this kind of thing.  Charging more of those who use more is the way we price most things, of course, but that didn’t prevent groups like Free Press and Public Knowledge from piling on in opposition to TWC’s plans, nor from gloating when the company withdrew its proposed trials.

For now, the whole of this matter can be reduced to some questions, not all of them answerable.  Is Title I regulation better than Title II?  Yes.  Is this the best result one could reasonably expect from this FCC?  Probably.  Is it wise public policy?  No.  Will the FCC’s action, whatever it is, be the end of the matter?  Depends.  If, sometime in the future, a party with standing decides to sue the agency on the claim that it lacks authority to regulate the Internet in this way, it will have a viable argument with some case law to back it up. And if that lawsuit were to be resolved in a way that (once again) ordered the FCC out of the Internet regulation business, well, so much the better.

                                                
The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not necessarily of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

One Toke Over the Line

I know the law won’t be forgivin’,
But that’ll be the choice I made,
I used to farm for a livin’,
And now I’m in the growin’ trade.
— Levon Helm/Larry Campbell, “Growin’ Trade”

California’s Proposition 19, formally known as the “Regulate, Control & Tax Cannabis Act,” was a ballot initiative that would have legalized diverse kinds of marijuana-related activities and permitted local governments to tax the sale of the drug.  Despite early poll results showing that a majority approved of the initiative, it was rejected by voters on election day last week, 54 to 46 percent.

Contrary to the prevailing meme that everything political in the United States is predictably conservative or liberal, red state or blue, the story of Prop 19 is the story, among other things, of unexpected alliances and media diversity, and proof that complex issues can be covered in ways that do justice to that fact.

Powerful arguments, both pro and con, can be and were made in the debate over the initiative.  Those who favored it argued that it would yield an important new source of revenue in a state that is on its financial uppers; that it would result in significant savings due to the smaller number of individuals incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses; and that it would do damage to the Mexican drug cartels that provide much of the marijuana used by Californians and others.

Those who were opposed to Proposition 19 argued that it would not yield the financial benefits advertised; that it would greatly increase marijuana consumption with concomitant ill effects all around; and that it was made unnecessary by the earlier passage, and signing into law, of S.B. 1449, which decriminalized the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana.

Further complicating the matter, and an aspect of the initiative used in argument by the opposition, is the fact that, whatever California law might be on the subject, federal law makes possession a crime, thereby conjuring up an image of California cops looking the other way as federal agents continue to make arrests in the state.

Which is just to say that much of the debate about Prop 19 turned on the perceived strengths and weaknesses of specific aspects of the initiative, rather than on the larger question of whether citizens could or should be allowed to grow and use marijuana at all – a perspective perhaps mooted by the fact that a great many Californians are growing and using even now.

As drafted, the initiative would have allowed Californians to cultivate, for their personal use, 25 square feet of marijuana in their back yards, but enforcement, regulation, and taxation would be left up to the state’s 478 cities and 58 counties.  What confusion might result, some wondered, when abutting jurisdictions had different laws and regulations?  If, for instance, the standard was 25 square feet in one town but 30 in another, might this not make matters confusing for law enforcement?  Not only would they need to know at all times the different marijuana laws of abutting jurisdictions, but in busting the perps they’d need tape measures as well as guns and handcuffs.  Or what about the guy who scoped out his marijuana garden while using the product, such that it came out not to 25 square feet but 25 square yards?  (Well, that dude could just kiss his sweet cannabis goodbye.)

So anyhow, in this as in other ways, it isn’t easy being a Californian.  Their difficulties were compounded not just by the complexities inherent in Prop 19, but also by the unfamiliar alliances. Much of the state’s Democratic Party organizations (and all of the Libertarian organizations) came out in support of the initiative, but all of the major party candidates for statewide office – Republican and Democrat – opposed it.  (Even in San Francisco, for instance, Nancy Pelosi opposed the measure, while her Republican opponent supported it.)

Happy to report, this strange-bedfellows phenomenon extended even to the state’s leading newspapers.  Though there were some, like the San Diego Union, which editorialized in familiar ways (“No to ganja madness”), there were many who took what might seem like unexpected positions on the subject.  The conservative Orange County Register, for instance, though never taking an official position on the initiative, twice ran editorials that clearly leaned in favor of Prop 19.

Meanwhile, the more liberal Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle, along with the Sacramento Bee and the Mercury News, came out in opposition to the measure.  In all events, though, the truly encouraging thing about the media coverage is the thoroughness of it.  Despite the many complexities and competing views, the state’s newspapers did a good job of providing their readers with a comprehensive understanding of the nature and potential consequences of the initiative, intended and unintended alike.

That the vote went the way it did is a subject about which honest people can disagree, but there is something deeply refreshing about media coverage of a complex issue in which journalists and editorialists provide a window on all points of view, and illuminate the best arguments of the competing parties.  Were that the standard practice with respect to media coverage of all complex issues, journalism would enjoy a spike in its reputation and the nation would be better served.

                                                 
The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not necessarily of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Net Neutrality’s Poison Petition

For those in the communications policy business, perhaps the most jaw-dropping datum to issue from Tuesday’s elections is this: Of the 95 candidates for the House and Senate who signed a petition encouraging “net neutrality” regulation, all of them lost.  Not some of them.  Not most of them.  All of them.

It’s really quite remarkable.  Not even the Black Death killed everybody.  But there it is, a new world record for political toxicity.  The humorous aspects of this debacle aside, there is a serious lesson here: There is no appetite in this country for regulatory schemes whose effect is to promote government (and a few companies) at the expense of private-sector investment generally.

Yet this is precisely what net neutrality regulations, whether Lite or industrial strength, would do.  Intended or not, codified regulations would inevitably lead to government meddling in this freest part of the communications industry, and frustrate the kind of investment in the broadband infrastructure without which there can be no growth in this vital sector of the economy.

And for what?  As mentioned here, net neutrality is the condition that obtains today!  Nobody is being deprived or disadvantaged of anything worth talking about.  Indeed, a quick look at the kinds of organizations that have been promoting net neutrality pretty much says it all.

On the one hand we have groups like Free Press, whose interest in the subject is precisely because of the potential in governmental oversight to yoke communications companies to the agenda of the nation’s “progressives.”  While on the other you have a company like Google that, in the best tradition of crony capitalism, wants to tilt public policy in a direction that benefits its private interests.

It is widely believed that FCC Chairman Genachowski  would like the FCC to be relieved of the responsibility of taking on the task of codification of the net neutrality rules.  He is to be commended for his reservations, especially since he is under great pressure from the net neutrality lobbies to act.

The wise course now would be to let the clock run out on any kind of FCC action.  If the Republican gains in Tuesday’s elections don’t speak clearly enough about the matter, surely the fate of the hapless signers of the net neutrality petition does.

[Updated 11-4-10, 1:50 p.m. EDT, to reflect latest election results.]

                                                   

               
The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not necessarily of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.