Copps Seeks Fast Work by Filled-Out FCC on Fifth Internet Principle

President Barack Obama “mentions broadband all the time,” said Susan Crawford, on his National Economic Council. “He’s also mentioning newspapers these days and these two futures, I think, go together.” Crawford said “networks of newspapers may” be needed to help the industry. In interviews later, newspaper and broadcast officials agreed there’s much to be worked out as they deal with Web competition. Crawford compared lawyers to newspapers in that both must be “gatherers” of information and not just “purveyors.”

“I assure you that the administration at the highest levels really cares about broadband” and “really wants to engage” on the issue, unlike the Bush administration, Crawford said. “I think it’s pretty obvious that 3 Mbps is not functionally equivalent to 100 Mbps,” though needed speeds vary by uses, she said. “If you're in a doctor’s clinic, high speed is going to mean 100 Mbps” at least.

Healthcare costs could be slashed by using super-fast Web connections and newer imaging technologies to avoid invasive procedures, Crawford said. But broadband would have to be everywhere, she said. That also would enable school classes “where the distance is actually eliminated, where you're able to feel part of the experience of the classroom without leaving your job, your family.”

As “one of the first fruits of our reconstituted Federal Communications Commission,” Copps will work for an Internet nondiscrimination principle, he said. He has long supported banning content discrimination online (CD April 6 p1). But Copps hasn’t recently said it should be one of the first things the new FCC can tackle.

“Assuming that this interimship doesn’t last forever” and a permanent chairman is appointed, this and other matters that Copps considers high priorities can wait for a full commission, he told reporters. Copps hasn’t discussed a fifth principle with Julius Genachowski, who awaits a hearing on his nomination to become chairman. “I am not saying these are easy questions to solve,” but the agency can act “in the near-term future” in a way that wouldn’t preclude congressional action, Copps said.

Copps thinks the new commission could also make quick work of reducing the length of broadcast licenses from eight years to three and enacting localism rules, he told reporters. Asked if he’s examining how broadcasters can better serve their communities, he said “absolutely.” Copps added, “I would like to have a reasonable set of public interest guidelines,” given that the rules are dated. “I'm not looking for anything onerous, burdensome,” in the way broadcasters would reapply for licenses every three years, he said. Reducing license terms, “wisely reformed” by Congress to allow broadcasters to compete against pay-TV, would “harm localism by injecting greater uncertainty into a business model facing the worst advertising downturn in decades,” said an NAB spokesman.

Copps criticized broadcasters and papers over news coverage and other issues. He said there’s too much “infotainment” and not enough investigative journalism. “We are skating perilously close of depriving our fellow citizens” of information they need “to make intelligent decisions about the future of their country,” Copps told the conference audience. “We're not only losing journalists, we may also be losing journalism,” a problem that started long before blogging, he said. “Hypercommercialism and quality news make very uneasy bedfellows.”

Copps doesn’t favor mergers as a way to cut costs so papers and broadcasters can be more competitive. “As soon as this economy of ours begins to turn around, we'll start to again see an urge to merge” to reach “those elusive economies of scale,” he predicted. That will lead to more journalists losing their jobs and more newsrooms being closed, he said. “The unforgiving expectations of Wall Street and next quarter’s earnings reports have made life almost impossible” for journalists “and pulled them in directions they did not … want to go.”

There’s more investigative journalism now than in the past, said Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. “I don’t know what [Copps'] basis is for saying there is less investigative journalism. I think he'd have a tough time trying to prove that,” she said. “There is no question that there are financial pressures on television and radio stations,” but even with 1,200 fewer TV employees last year than 2007, stations aired more news, Cochran said. “It’s a time of change. There is no question about it. And the traditional media need to adapt.” A spokeswoman for the Newspaper Association of America declined to comment.

Consolidation has “advantages” and helps “the business be stronger,” said Scott Bosley, executive director of the American Society of News Editors. “There is a lot of pain when you have the layoffs, there’s no doubt about that, we've had far too many layoffs across the country,” he said. “But the fact is newspapers have the largest number of journalists in almost every community.” -- Jonathan Make

Free Press Conference Notebook…

The U.S. ought to consider PBSS -- “a public broadcasting system on steroids,” acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps said at the conference, alluding to the Public Broadcasting Service. “Other nations find ways to support such things” and it can’t “be done on the cheap,” he said. There should be a “permanent trust fund” for public broadcasting, instead of annual appropriations, Free Press Communications Director Craig Aaron said. “We need new policies to support media and I hate to break it to some of you, but the government is going to have to be involved.”

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“It’s true that access to broadband does not guarantee economic success,” but lack of it “will guarantee economic stagnation and decline,” said Susan Crawford, a member of the president’s National Economic Council. She lauded plans for super-fast Internet access in San Francisco and Lafayette, La. Lafayette didn’t “want to wait” for private providers to offer fast broadband and issued $125 million in bonds to pay for it, Crawford said. That led to “new competition in the last-mile from both cable and wireline providers,” she added. San Francisco will reach 5,000 low-income public housing units with fiber lines, “creating an open-gaming style platform where the city’s museums will create courseware,” Crawford said. “It’s an immersive environment for learning” that “would not work without high-speed broadband in place,” she said. “When you see this new platform, you'll be blown away, and we hope the kids will be, too.”

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“A dirty little secret” of the newspaper industry is that many papers have remained profitable during the recession, said Craig Aaron, Free Press’ communications director. “Doubling down on the bad policies of the past is the wrong thing to do” because more consolidation, such as between daily papers and radio or TV stations, won’t help what ails the industry, he added. “Journalism is a public service and it is not just another business.” The movement of news online has hurt the industry, he asked, but “even if we could put the Internet back in the bottle, why would we want to?”