Chopra, Genachowski to Use Media and Government Report to Guide Policy
The federal chief technology officer and the FCC chairman will use a report on media and government to guide policy, they said at an event announcing the report that included two former FCC chairmen and a Google executive. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra said open-government guidelines for federal agencies that the Office of Management and Budget is close to distributing will be informed by the report. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said he and colleagues “will study this report very carefully.”
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“The FCC is acutely aware of the dramatic changes overtaking the media industry,” Genachowski said. He used the report to put in a plug for “a free and open Internet” and “digital literacy,” which are among the document’s recommendations. “I certainly hope that private sector innovation meets many of the challenges identified in this report,” he said. New media are “disrupting many industries” including those overseen by the FCC and “putting real stress on journalism,” Genachowski said.
The report fits with “a great deal of work that we're committed to doing” including open-government efforts, Chopra said. In several weeks, the OMB will “deliver” principles to “hardwire” agency accountability, he added. “We don’t necessarily know to what end and what purpose that information will have value,” but information the government makes public will be used by some people, Chopra said. The report “will be a powerful foundation for the open government initiative at the White House,” he said.
The report’s 15 recommendations include requiring “government at all levels to operate transparently” by giving citizens low-cost and easy access to public records. Civic and social data should be made available in standardized formats that allow their use by the public. “Ambitious standards” should be set for nationwide broadband availability and public polices should stimulate consumer demand for high-speed Internet services, the document said.
The report found that one-third of rural communities have no access to broadband “at any speed,” said Marissa Mayer of Google, co-chair of the commission. “We must create informed communities, those where government is open” in an age in which Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube “have all become platforms for political debate,” she added. Former FCC Chairmen Reed Hundt, a Democrat, and Republican Michael Powell also sat on the commission. “Every kind of technological advance has kind of thrown things off,” so “the worst thing we can do is to be railing against the tides,” said President Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute, a study sponsor.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has discussed the report with its staff at a time that “the stars are in alignment” for change, as at the time of the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act, said CPB Chairman Ernie Wilson. “If we fail to seize these opportunities, it will be our fault, it will be my fault.” The CPB, Knight Foundation -- also a sponsor of the commission -- and National Public Radio will pay just under $4 million over two years to hire 12 journalist-bloggers to work at public stations around the country and produce “in-depth reporting on topics of local relevance,” Wilson said.