BROADBAND-PLAN WORKSHOPS MAY SET PATTERN FOR OTHER FCC WORK

摘要

A series of workshops that the FCC will start Aug. 12 on the commission's broadband plan are seen as a model for other FCC action. Workshops probably haven't been used since William Kennard was chairman, said former commission lawyer Jonathan Askin, an associate professor at Brooklyn Law School. "It's a very interesting experiment," said Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld. "One of the issues here is, how do you have meaningful public interaction when you have thousands and thousands of people who want to be involved? How do you have a more open and transparent process? How do you give an opportunity for participation in a way that doesn't privilege insiders? How to manage that as a practical manner is something that people are still trying to figure out." nnFeld said the workshops appear to build on public hearings the FCC has held. "The past opportunities that we had, where we had public hearings and then people go up to have their two minutes as the microphone to say 'I think media concentration has been awful,' was kind of one step forward," Feld said. "Nobody really felt that that was kind of a meaningful, transparent discussion of the issues. It yielded data about who was upset and that there was certainly an organized movement out there. But it wasn't an open and transparent, substantive debate."