Abstract

FCC: It Could Get Worse

The article looks at the impact of the resignation of U.S. Federal Communications Chairman Michael Powell. On the long list of resignations of Cabinet members, agency heads and political appointees that has accompanied the launch of the second Bush term, no member of the Administration's team left under quite so dark a cloud as Michael Powell. The decision of the chair of the Federal Communications Commission to step down was met with near-universal sighs of relief--from the citizen activists and members of Congress who had battled his ham-handed efforts to allow Big Media to get even bigger, of course. As Representative Maurice Hinchey, the New York Democrat who was in the forefront of the fight against Powell's rule changes, notes, a bad turn has been avoided, but "we still have a long way to go toward achieving honest and balanced reporting" and toward the development of regulatory structures that "provide greater rights to smaller media outlets who too often are silenced by the media giants." Bush will definitely have an opportunity to appoint a new chair, and if, as some predict, former wireless industry lobbyist Kathleen Abernathy also leaves, he could radically reshape the commission. There is no way that Bush is going to put a champion of the public interest in charge of the FCC.