The Hundt-Powell Debate
Surrogates for Obama, McCain Face Off
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/15/2008 4:59:00 PM MT
Last week in Washington, D.C., Reed Hundt, a former Federal Communications Commission chairman and campaign advisor to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), traded policy positions with Michael Powell, a former FCC chairman who is advising Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
The squared circle was a Federalist Society luncheon at the National Press Club, where the sparks flew early and often over network neutrality, Iraq war coverage, media ownership and overall regulatory philosophies as they mixed policy positions and their own views with jabs at the opponent.
Hundt even had a second in his corner for the fight -- his son, Nathaniel, one year out of college and already a field organizer for Obama. "He won three of the four states in which he was organizing," the proud papa said before doing battle with Powell.
B&C was at a ringside table for the bout, including the following excerpts from the blow-by-blow.
Network neutrality: Obama is for regulation that would assure network neutrality. Hundt said, “Net neutrality is basically the broadband, future-oriented version of common-carrier [regulations], which worked in this country to provide an absolute rule against discrimination for decades and decades. And only those who are not willing to embrace the future are reluctant to take that same principle and apply it to broadband. Net neutrality is a principle of free speech, free choice and sound economics.”
Powell said McCain also favors network neutrality but thinks a regulation mandating it is wrong. "Sen. McCain has always embraced a free and open Internet,” he added. “He does not currently support network-neutrality legislation. The reasons are quite simple. If any of you had attended some of the net-neutrality hearings that have taken place under the auspices of the FCC, you watched a table of highly talented Ph.Ds in network architecture battling over what practices constitute reasonable management and what practices constitute discrimination of bits. We're not confident that that argument is right to be resolved by the United States Congress. You need to recognize that net-neutrality legislation would be the first fateful step of inviting the federal government to regulate the nature of the Internet."
Ownership limits: Hundt said Obama “doesn't think there should be any more media consolidation until new policies are developed to promote diversity and localism. When you put those policies in place, then you are permitted to build on top of it a clear and understandable antitrust paradigm that could be followed by everybody in the industry.
What we have had for the past seven-and-a-half years is no antitrust policy and the approval of everything."
Powell said, “Sen. McCain believes that with regard to ownership and diversity, one thing he has spent a lot more attention on is creating more opportunities for diversity. He was one of the most vocal supporters for a reformed tax-certificate policy to allow minorities to own more stations. He has tended to try to address those issues by creating more opportunities for entrants. The second thing, he believes that the system is broken. Is it sensible that we somehow don't count in the market definition cable television when setting broadcast-ownership limits as if it somehow just doesn't even exist? I think that, without reaching a specific conclusion of where those limits should be, Sen. McCain feels that we have led ourselves to a relatively irrational regulatory regime.”
On media consolidation and the war in Iraq: Hundt said, “Speaking personally, the most glaring example of [homogenous media] was documented in a recent Senate report about the way the administration misled the United States people concerning the reasons for going into Iraq. That was aided and abetted by the mainstream media in the United States, in my perception.”
He continued, “If you look at the polls, it took a very long time, principally driven by people like Sen. Obama standing up and the Internet being available, for Americans to begin to realize that they had been buffaloed and deluded by the Bush/McCain administration. Is there a direct and obvious correlation between media concentration and that particular, successful effort? I don’t know that that can be proved. But there is an absolutely clear basis just from this major story alone to argue for network neutrality so that there can’t be a concert of action between network-access providers and the government to censor or discriminate against those who would like to have the truth get free.”
Powell disagreed. “I take a little bit of issue with Reed,” he began. “I’m not necessarily one to defend the media’s editorial judgment, but don’t pretend there was a shortage of views represented in the information cosmos about the war. [It was aided by] the rise of blogging and alternate media and its ability to organize opinion. If anything, I think one would amazed by the speed with which the counter-message eventually took hold.”
Debate Examines Candidates’ Telecom Policies
06/10/2008Obama Makes Network-Neutrality Pledge
10/29/2007Diversity coalition takes argument to FCC
04/03/2003Net Neutrality Back in Spotlight
11/09/2007McCormick Says No to Network Neutrality
05/14/2008
