O'Rielly Opposed To Allowing FCC Staff 'Editorial Privileges'
FCC staff shouldn't be allowed to have the "editorial privilege" of making substantive changes to an item after it’s approved by the commission, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly wrote in a blog post Monday. O'Rielly raised objections to the granting of editorial…
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privileges for the net neutrality order. Based on the name, editorial privileges may sound like they’d be limited to “non-substantive edits, such as correcting typos and updating cross-references in footnotes,” O’Rielly wrote, similar to technical and conforming edits in Congress. At the FCC, staff members “often do much more substantial editing, including adding substantive and significant rebuttals to Commissioners’ dissents and providing sometimes lengthy responses to ex parte arguments that had not been incorporated into the draft prior to the vote,” O’Rielly said. Such substantive changes should not “be made under the guise of 'editorial privileges,'” he wrote. “At times, changes seem intended solely to take further pot shots at dissenting Commissioners.” In the rare cases that substantive changes are needed, they should be approved by the commissioners who voted for the item, O’Rielly wrote. He criticized the agency practice in which dissenting commissioners are not asked about subsequent changes. “If the item is not fully baked in time for the vote, then the Commission should simply delay the vote by a month or two,” O’Rielly wrote.