Running The FCC Ain't Easy

from the trying-to-make-informed-decisions dept

While Michael Powell has taken an awful lot of flak for some of his positions at the FCC, every interview I read with him suggests that he's one of a very few politicians/bureaucrats who actually has a thorough understanding of what he's talking about. The latest is an interview with Powell done by Declan McCullough at News.com. There are a few obvious questions about the high profile decisions, and then a long talk about issues related to regulating VoIP. Powell understands that it's a different world than traditional telephone, and knows that the FCC needs to look into how the old laws might not apply. He also gets in some good quotes about all of the newspapers that absolutely freaked out about the change in media ownership rules - and takes particular issue with those who say that "democracy is threatened" if the proposed changes went through. His complaint (though, it should come as no surprise) is that most of the debate on the topic was driven by soundbites, rather than informed discussion (isn't that how debates work these days?). On the threat to democracy question, he says: "My democracy was imperiled by Hitler. My democracy was imperiled by the Civil War. I'm not sure my democracy is being imperiled by 'American Idol.'"