Genachowski should balance his spectrum policy team with a broadcaster

[Commentary] As long as Duke Law Professor Stuart Benjamin remains an adviser to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, everything that comes out of the commission relating to broadcasting will be suspect. How much of this or that policy is intended to achieve the stated goal (more diversity, localism, better kids' programming) and how much meant simply to weaken broadcasting so that the FCC can recover the spectrum for other purposes? So far, Chairman Genachowski has shown little interest in broadcasting. It's come up primarily in the context of a proposal to shift some of the broadcast spectrum to wireless broadband operators. That has put broadcasters on the defensive, afraid to even talk to the FCC about spectrum. The presence of Benjamin is now pushing broadcasters from defensiveness to hostility. It wasn't just what Benjamin said, it was how he said it. To him, over-the-air broadcasting is something to scrape off your shoe before stepping into the future. For the record, Benjamin isn't advocating driving broadcasters out of business. He just wants to drive them off the airwaves. He believes that they can continue as cable channels and that idea has some merit. He also opposes indecency regulation. But Chairman Genachowski should at least add some balance to his spectrum policy team. He should hire an adviser or two who has actually worked in broadcasting and believes in its future as an over-the-air medium. And if the broadcasters' mobile DTV effort fizzles and their over-the-air audience continues to dwindle and it comes time to talk about a spectrum deal, the broadcasters will have someone at the FCC they can talk to, someone they can trust.