Kudos on Broadband but a Long Way to Go on Communications

Passage of the Infrastructure legislation on November 5 was truly historic—surely the biggest boost ever to bringing high-speed broadband to every American household. While we get about the job of building broadband, we need to take up other communications issues that have been of even longer gestation and which have just as much, maybe more, urgency for our country. High on my list is media reform. I have written before in this space about the need for comprehensive action to provide us with the news and information that citizens in a self-governing society must have if they are to redeem the promise of democracy. I have suggested action on four fronts:

1. Anti-trust. The giants who control both traditional media and online media wield more power and influence than any business should be permitted to deploy in a democratic society.
2. Public interest oversight. Industry is not going to fix itself. We must restore and expand public interest oversight for telecom and traditional media, and develop such obligations for online media too.
3. Public media. Public and community media have long been our news and information jewel, but are under-funded and lack the resources to do the job we need for them to do. We need to be talking about a truly significant boost to the public media budget.
4. Media literacy. We need a major online K-12 program in our schools to teach our kids and grandkids how to make productive use of their online experiences, as well as teacher training and adjustments to our school curricula to make this education available to everyone.

[Michael Copps served as a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission from May 2001 to December 2011 and was the FCC's Acting Chairman from January to June 2009.]