SCREENING OBAMA
One wouldn’t know it from reading the
Washington Post
or New
York Times, but some inside
the White House don’t think that President Barack Obama hit a
home run with his first national press conference last
week.
“It looked scripted beyond the scripted part, the speech,” says
one former communications adviser, who has been feeding notes and
suggestions to the White House team and worked with them on the
inauguration. “Every president has gone into one of these things
knowing that there were some pre-arranged questions or
journalists to be called on, but this one was pretty ham-handed.”
To that end, he says, the White House is looking to install a
small video or computer screen into the podium used by the
president for press conferences and events in the White House.
“It would make it easier for the comms guys to pass along
information without being obvious about it,” says the
adviser.
The screen would indicate whom to call on, seat placement for
journalists, pass along notes or points to hit, and so forth,
says the adviser.
Using a screen is nothing new for Obama; almost nothing he said
in supposedly unscripted townhall events during the presidential
campaign was unscripted, down to many of the questions and the
answers to those questions. Teleprompter screens at the events
scrolled not only his opening remarks, but also statistics and
information he could use to answer questions.
“It would be the same idea with the podium,” says the
adviser.
Obama had a teleprompter set up for his remarks last week, before
taking questions, but the White House couldn’t use the
teleprompter for anything but the remarks, because the
journalists were so close to the screens. Further complicating
matters, teleprompter copy can’t be easily updated in real time,
in a setting like a White House press conference.
DOCTRINE AIR DEMOCRACY
Senior FCC staff working for acting Federal
Communications Commissioner Michael Copps
held meetings last week
with policy and legislative advisers to House Energy and
Commerce Committee
Chairman
Henry
Waxman
to discuss ways the
committee can create openings for the FCC to put in place a form
of the “Fairness Doctrine” without actually calling it
such.
Waxman is also interested, say sources, in looking at how the
Internet is being used for content and free speech purposes.
“It’s all about diversity in media,” says a House Energy staffer,
familiar with the meetings. “Does one radio station or one
station group control four of the five most powerful outlets in
one community? Do four stations in one region carry Rush
Limbaugh, and nothing else during the same time slot? Does one
heavily trafficked Internet site present one side of an issue and
not link to sites that present alternative views? These are some
of the questions the chairman is thinking about right now, and we
are going to have an FCC that will finally have the people in
place to answer them.”
Copps will remain acting chairman of the FCC until President
Obama’s nominee, Julius Genachowski, is
confirmed, and Copps has been told by the White House not create
“problems” for the incoming chairman by committing to issues or
policy development before the Obama pick arrives.
But Copps has been a supporter of putting in place policies that
would allow the federal government to have greater oversight over
the content that TV and radio stations broadcast to the public,
and both the FCC and Waxman are looking to licensing and renewal
of licensing as a means of enforcing “Fairness Doctrine” type
policies without actually using the hot-button term “Fairness
Doctrine.”
One idea Waxman’s committee staff is looking at is a
congressionally mandated policy that would require all TV and
radio stations to have in place “advisory boards” that would act
as watchdogs to ensure “community needs and opinions” are given
fair treatment. Reports from those advisory boards would be used
for license renewals and summaries would be reviewed at least
annually by FCC staff.
Waxman and the FCC staff are also said to be looking at ways to
ease the “consumer complaint” process, which could also be used
along with the advisory boards.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is also looking at how it
can put in place policies that would allow it greater oversight
of the Internet. “Internet radio is becoming a big deal, and
we’re seeing that some web sites are able to control traffic and
information, while other sites that may be of interest or use to
citizens get limited traffic because of the way the people search
and look for information,” says on committee staffer. “We’re at
very early stages on this, but the chairman has made it clear
that oversight of the Internet is one of his top
priorities.”
“This isn’t just about Limbaugh or a local radio host most of us
haven’t heard about,” says Democrat committee member. “The FCC
and state and local governments also have oversight over the
Internet lines and the cable and telecom companies that operate
them. We want to get alternative views on radio and TV, but we
also want to makes sure those alternative views are read, heard
and seen online, which is becoming increasingly video and audio
driven. Thanks to the stimulus package, we’ve established that
broadband networks — the Internet — are critical, national
infrastructure. We think that gives us an opening to look at what
runs over that critical infrastructure.”
Also involved in “brainstorming” on “Fairness Doctrine and online
monitoring has been the Center for American Progress, a liberal
think tank, which has published studies pressing for the Fairness
Doctrine, as well as the radical MoveOn.org, which has been
speaking to committee staff about policies that would allow them
to use their five to six million person database to mobilize
complaints against radio, TV or online entities they perceive to
be limiting free speech or limiting opinion.
