:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 1.06.2005 ::

:: Media Hack ::

An Obscene Waste of Energy
From Wired News
» The FCC has some meaningful duties, but regulating content shouldn't be one of them. Commentary by Adam L. Penenberg.

in April 2004, Lynn Woolley, author of The Last Great Days of Radio, suggested scrapping the agency entirely, because the FCC "in its current form has proven itself to be so destructive to the industry -- particularly radio -- that it would be better to abolish it and start over."

In June, digital libertarian Declan McCullagh argued that the agency was "no longer necessary" and does "more harm than good." He estimates that some technologically backward decisions have cost Americans tens of billions of dollars.

Less than two months later, Ayn Rand Institute writer Robert Garmong called the FCC's very existence "a flagrant violation of the right to free speech." While the agency justifies regulating broadcast content because the airwaves are supposed to be public property, "just as the government does not own -- and so has no legitimate control over -- the presses of The New York Times, so it has no business regulating what may be broadcast over airwaves."

Recently, even FCC chairman Michael Powell has seen fit to criticize the agency he heads. In a December interview, he explained, "When something happens that (the FCC) doesn't understand, kill it. We tried to kill cable. We tried to kill long-distance. When (MCI founder) Bill McGowan starting stringing out microwave towers that threatened AT&T, the FCC tried to stop him. The FCC tried to kill cable because it was going to threaten broadcasting."

Although a great believer in smaller government -- Powell views himself a "Reagan-era child" -- he doesn't call for the end of the FCC. If he were philosophically consistent, though, he might.

So is getting rid of the FCC a good idea?

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 10:34:00 AM [+] ::
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