Posted by lauraflanders at 8:49 am
May 7, 2010

Success on Net Neutrality

Public pressure works, GRITtv guests love to say. Now we have a new example. In an update on our last show, FCC chair Julius Genachowski says he’s now going to go ahead and regulate broadband under the same decades-old rules designed for phone networks.

This decision, as our guests Tim Karr and Amalia Deloney explained this week, will reiterate the FCC’s jurisdiction and their right to enforce Net Neutrality. The move will likely anger the telecoms. More importantly, it shows the value of organized pressure on government agencies. Groups like Free Press and the Center for Media Justice rallied their contacts and made call after call to the FCC.

In a way, the success is an example of just why Net Neutrality matters. Score another for a free and open Internet. The rapid-response organizing done online by Free Press and others was integral to this campaign. And it worked. The new regulations not done and dusted as they say, but so far so good. More info – guess where – online.

The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Support us by signing up for our podcast, and follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com.

Laura is a long-time journalist, author and media activist. She wrote the New York Times bestseller Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species and Blue Grit: Making Impossible, Improbable, and Inspirational Political Change in America. Before founding GRITtv, she started up and hosted “Your Call” on public radio KALW in San Francisco and RadioNation on Air America Radio. She is also a regular contributor to The Nation magazine and the Huffington Post. Flanders was founding director of the Women’s Desk at the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) and for more than 10 years she produced and hosted CounterSpin, FAIR’s nationally-syndicated radio program. Laura is a regular commentator on MSNBC’s The Ed Show where she has become the go-to source for reliable, progressive analysis of the day’s top stories. The Institute for Alternative Journalism named her one of ten “Media Heroes” of 1994 and she was recently awarded a NY Moves “Power Woman of the Year.”