FCC Asks Professors for Help More but Not Consistently

The communication that has taken place between the commission and academic researchers unaffiliated with any company or other entity lobbying the commission has focused on specific subjects, not on how to improve the overall relationship, said professors of telecommunications, journalism, media and law. They said officials with the Office of Managing Director asked professors to make filings on the FCC’s data improvement initiative, with replies due last week (CD Sept 15 p7), and staffers putting together the Future of Media project have asked questions of academics. Deadlines to seek FCC contracts to do research for the 2010 congressionally mandated media ownership rule review are among those that are too short, some professors said.

"The commission’s earned an `incomplete,'” said telecom law Professor Rob Frieden of Pennsylvania State University, who filed comments on the data project. “I certainly see indications of commitment to do better, but they've got a long way to go” because the regulator most often “engages in results-based decision making” and so reaches out to academics with specific subjects in mind, he added. Greg Elin, chief data officer in the managing director’s office, was credited by Frieden and others with encouraging them to participate in rulemakings at the FCC, something they said officials hadn’t done before. “I was very happy” to hear from Elin, and “I'm seeing a difference that’s much more positive,” said media and public policy Professor Danilo Yanich of the University of Delaware, who filed comments on the data proceeding after Elin called him. “It takes a while to change the operating procedure of an agency as large as the FCC, and folks are trying diligently."

The work by Steve Waldman and colleagues on the Future of Media project has brought many questions to Chairman Bob Papper of Hofstra University’s Journalism, Media Studies and Public Relations program, who conducts surveys for the Radio Television Digital News Association. “Over the years I have on rare occasion heard from anyone within the FCC,” Papper said -- probably twice before this year in the 16 years he'd done work for RTDNA. “I'll get a question here and I'll get a question there” now, and a few months ago he got a request for proposals for the first time from the commission, for studies on media ownership. “I was not convinced that this was a serious reaching out -- it wasn’t accompanied by any note, and it was just so random,” he said. “One day I got an e-mail with a link to these” contract proposals.

Papper and some who did previous media ownership research for the commission passed on this latest opportunity, saying there wasn’t enough time to complete the requests for quotations or do the work. “They absolutely raised the correct questions, and I would have liked to have done the research for all of them,” said Yanich. “There wasn’t time even to get an [RFQ] through university research offices, to get it signed off on,” as is needed for all grant applications, he said. “I talked with at least three people who said to me, `Gee, that was really cutting it tight,'” with about three weeks to reply. The commission did get praise from Yanich and colleagues at other schools for a transparent process to seek research, after the 2006 media ownership review was criticized for not casting a wide net for research.

There was an “adequate period of time for people to prepare their proposals” and the RFQs had a page limit so they didn’t need to be exhaustive, Levy said. “Plenty of people were on notice even before the RFQ was issued that we were interested in studies of this nature.” Professors have participated in phone calls and meetings with commission officials and spoken at workshops on media ownership and on development of the National Broadband Plan, he said. “You'll see a lot of academics participating” at workshops, Levy said. “It’s good to sort of keep this general contact and it’s good for us to remember in particular proceedings to take the step to reach out to the academic community."

Members of academia “have a lot of resources” and “skills” to bring to the commission, Levy said. During “the current administration and certainly as a 30-year employee, most of the time the agency has absolutely been interested in making use of the expertise of the academic community,” he said: “We can certainly benefit from the perspective” professors bring though “there is room for improvement” and the commission isn’t “resting on our laurels."

The FCC did “systematic outreach” to academicians shortly after Genachowski became chairman, said Barbara O'Connor, who retired last month from California State University at Sacramento’s communications program and who submitted research for the last review. “It was sort of like they were developing their work plan, and I was heartened by that,” she said. “They need to do that on more issues, like net neutrality” and “it does need to be more systematic.” The FCC “could encourage academics more,” and “they have been reaching out,” said law Professor Allen Hammond of Santa Clara University in California, who worked with O'Connor on the 2007 paper for the agency on TV ownership rules and diversity.

Researchers in various fields contend that the commission never had a close working relationship with many professors who work outside Washington and weren’t already active in policymaking circles. “I've just never seen that the FCC has been much interested in the data that I have,” said Hofstra’s Papper. For Hammond, “it’s also a matter of whether academics want to establish relationships with the FCC.” He said, “It’s a two-way street. I think the academics also need to expand their outreach,” and anyone can learn from the Federal Register of pending rulemakings and comment on them. Some pointed to the naming of Stuart Benjamin last year as the FCC’s first scholar in residence.

A recent open letter to Genachowski signed by the deans of major journalism schools asked him to keep their programs in mind at “this constitutive moment in media history.” The letter, which ran as an ad in the Columbia Journalism Review, said, “When contemplating policy changes or changes to law, regulators and lawmakers should regularly call on our expertise at hearings and in requests for comments.” Some signers of the letter said they do feel engaged with the FCC and it and other federal agencies have reached out more to their cohort.

"I think they have done a great job,” said Dean Nicholas Lemann of Columbia University’s journalism school. “I was asked to come to Washington to talk to the chairman last summer,” and “I feel very listened to by” the commission, he told us. “The people on Capitol Hill and in the federal agencies are more interested now about hearing the ideas of academics,” said Dean Ernie Wilson of the University of Southern California’s communication school. “The academics have to be able to frame their research in ways” that are “relevant to the policy makers,” said Wilson, who’s also chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “As we do that more, the staff at the FCC will increasingly find ways to turn to schools.”