FCC Commissioner Clyburn Defends FCC's Critical Needs Study

Federal Communications Commissioner and former acting chairwoman Mignon Clyburn defended the commission's Critical Information Needs study, saying she would never try to chill speech or influence journalists and that the study was an effort to gauge the market, not shape it.

Commissioner Clyburn said that the intent of the study, which was put out for public notice last May when Commissioner Clyburn was heading the agency, was to "gather data and other information about whether there are any market entry barriers, preventing local communities from receiving important information." "As a person who spent 14 years running a small weekly, I would never be a part of any effort to chill speech, shape the news or influence news gatherers," she told her audience of media execs, lawyers and others. "I am about facilitating ownership and opportunities and making sound decisions about our most critical industries based on solid research and not rhetoric."