Cleaning Up the Airwaves

[Commentary] Can Tom Wheeler make good on the President’s early promises to make the U.S. a 21st Century digital nation that reflects the diversity of our country?

The Federal Communications Commission is the key federal agency for our digital age. It regulates all wired and wireless communications service, including how all of us get Google and Facebook and everything else we call the Internet. Founded during the early progressive era, it is tasked with getting the powerful corporate interests that dominate the media and telecommunications industries to act in the public interest. Since the Reagan administration, determining just what is in the public interest has too often been confused with finding the middle ground between competing business interests. Many of us in the progressive community hoped President Obama would establish an FCC that would advance vigorous local competition, hold accountable local broadcasting and telecommunications companies, and promote both the diversity of local voices and greater ownership opportunities for women and minorities. The Genachowski FCC promised to pursue these goals; like other federal agencies led by Obama appointees, it was going to be data-driven. Instead, progressive regulation has stalled or regressed over the past four years. In juggling the competing interests of industry groups—the NCTA, the CTIA, and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB)—the FCC has failed to advance media diversity and to enforce net neutrality. Chairman Genachowski failed, in other words, to keep candidate Obama’s two key promises.