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Michael Powell’s final spin

5 comments on Michael Powell’s final spin

Michael Powell’s final spin

: As he leaves the FCC, Michael Powell finally gets the guts to say no to the so-called Parents Television Council and now he tries to take credit for everything from iPods to blogs… though I fail to see what the FCC had to do with either. He said on FoxNews:

If I tried to capture in a nutshell, we tried to do one thing, which was to get the law right in a way that would stimulate innovative technology and put more power into the hands of consumers. And I think all you have to do is walk into an electronics store today and look at a TiVo or buy an iPod, or look at some of the phones that are available today, and you will see the vision coming into fruition.

If you look at the Internet and the role that it played in the election and the political campaign, if you look at the fact that an Internet blogger can bring challenge to a network as formidable as CBS, you realize that more and more democratization of technology is leading to strong consumer value and that’s what we’re most proud of. And that’s what we really wanted to focus our agenda on.

[Hat tip: TVSHenry]

5 responses to “Michael Powell’s final spin”

  1. Richard Bennett Avatar
    Richard Bennett

    This isn’t spin, Jeff, it’s the truth. The FCC deals with a lot of technical issues that most bloggers can’t begin to understand, and on all of those issues (spectrum allocation, interference measurement, broadband access, digital rights, VoIP) Michael Powell is the best FCC commissioner ever. Unfortunately, those who aren’t capable of understanding these issues have created a smokescreen around him based on the issues that they think they do understand, such as dirty words and media ownership, but even on that front they’ve been backing the wrong horse.
    The simple-minded have a tendency to personalize policy they don’t like. Thus, people who are scared of the PATRIOT Act lashed out at John Ashcroft as a symbol of their civil liberties fears, when any attorney general would have done substantially what Ashcroft did under the Act. If you don’t like the FCC’s role in levying fines against tasteless programming such as the juvenile Howard Stern show you need to CHANGE THE FUCKING LAW instead of demonizing the people whose job it is to enforce it.
    I don’t know why Michael Powell stepped down as FCC commissioner with two years left in his term, but if the flak you lobbed at him on the juvenile Howard Stern issue was a big part of it you have a lot to answer for. If that’s the case, it was a war between Michael Powell, technical visionary and friend of the Internet and Howard Stern, pornography voyeur and friend of the fart joke, you chose the wrong side, and society suffered.

  2. BTD Greg Avatar
    BTD Greg

    I’m with Richard. The FCC did, in fact, do a lot in the fields of telecommunications and technology to facilitate the the expansion of information, especially with regard to broadband. It’s understandable people wanting to fixate on Janet’s boob, but there was a heck of a lot more going on during Powell’s tenure than wordrobe malfunctions. Powell isn’t so much trying to take credit for all of this stuff, he’s just saying that the FCC was helping to make sure policy moved in that direction. And, for the most part, I think he did.

  3. Jon Avatar
    Jon

    One of Michael Powell’s legacies will be to lay bare the painful schism between economic conservatives and social conservatives when it comes to decency issues. A plague on both their houses.
    For more, see:
    “Markets, Morality and Monday Night Football”

  4. EverKarl Avatar
    EverKarl

    I think the most balanced piece on Powell’s tenure ran in The Hollywood Reporter. RTWT.

  5. HH Avatar
    HH

    Thanks for the hat tip Jeff. :)