isn't at the meeting and is doing something else but all these people are ensuring bp is doing what they need to do. >> in a few moments fcc commissioner michael cox on the communicators. this week on "the communicators" a discussion on issues before the federal communications commission with michael copps, the ranking democratic commissioner. >> we are pleased to welcome back to "the communicators," fcc commissioner, michael copps, also joining us is jonathan from communications daily where he serves as the assistant managing

editor. commissioner copps, we appreciate you coming over and talking about the issues facing the fcc, and i want to jump right in with one of the issues that is a little bit now angeles right now and it deals with the court case, the comcast the case, net neutrality and the ftc. there is a provision in the house financial regulatory bill that would give the federal trade commission the power over the internet thus taking away from the fcc. what do you think about fed and did i interpret correctly? >> i don't know if it is taking the we were sharing. this is a huge infrastructure or ecosystem of information technology and a broadband that we are talking about. i don't think that anyone agency or office has a monopoly on addressing it. i think the ftc has things they should be doing and the fcc both

agencies interested in their responsibilities. they both have jurisdictions. >> would you say the fcc jurisdiction has been lessened because of the court case? >> i think the fcc jurisdiction has been lessened by the horrendous policy decisions made back in 2002 and in 2005 which issued a kind of guilt institution to the courts to say you've done harm. >> jonathan make? >> a quick follow-up referring to the 2002, 2005 decision on the cable modem classification i guess that brings us to the present now where we've had at the comcast ruling by the ftc circuit april 6. the big question right now the telecom circles of the fcc should proceed with net neutrality is something we've spoken about before and

passionate about is reclassifications it is taking broadband service from a title i trey title ii common carrier service. the only way to concede that the fcc can proceed right now and continue its net news, the preceding and act like of that become an order. >> well, the short answer is yes i think that is about to go but before we get into all of this i think it might be helpful for your listeners to really understand what is at stake. we have this absolutely mindboggling new information infrastructure. we have this evil thing -- he evolving telecommunications structure that offers promise and potential for the american people to change for the better and create opportunity to help design jobs and take care of themselves and engage in the civic dialogue and the question is what rights are consumers plan to have to control their

online experience. if it's been to the to the maximum extent possible getting the consumers control over where they go on the internet, with applications they can run on the internet, web devices they can test with transparency and expect for the companies to provide the internet services and expect some competition, too peery are we going to work for that or is this going to become the promise of the keepers and the toll booths and the answer on that it to me is clear. we've got this wonderful technology probably the most formative technologies since the printing press from the standpoint of doing all the things i said before. and we've been heading down the road the last eight years saying that is not even that communications advanced communications. so let's call it something else. we went through this ridiculous intellectual charade in 2000 and

in 2002, 2005 and called it something it is and was stopped calling it what we had been calling it. so, we ended up robbing these advanced communications of all of the protection that the generations of reformers and consumers and advocates had worked so hard to grasp under the telecommunications plain old telephone service, consumer protection, privacy, security and safety for the public. so why don't consumers have a right to expect that's going to transfer as telecommunications evolved instead of zero no, we are going to move everything to broadband eventually. broadcast, everything is going to be on that. but start from blank and no consumer protection or privacy. and a tragic to think that as we

move toward this all encompassing ego structure or ecosystem. when we went through that charade of reclassification i don't think the folks behind that were really looking to make sure title i could serve the cause they were looking to get us out from under that and responding to the special interests who basically said he gives us a free hand. so fast forward to the question which i am not trying to ife and i think the background is important. i think what we did was not sustainable from the standpoint into the courts told us that, to mike and i think the courts could have taken a little more expansive view of title i than they did. do i think it shows something more deference it is absolutely zero, yes i do. this ecosystem is evolving very quickly. we don't have a year or two years or three years or five

years to come up with wonderful new permutations of the title i authority and every time we do that the cleanest way to do this, the best way to do this in my mind the only viable way to do this is to be classified. the short answer to the question is yes. >> within that also lead to court cases? >> everything we do out of the nine years i've been here at least the court case when you go into court you want to have the best case possible, the strongest case possible and that is the strongest way to go to say we are calling this would is and for people have always called we are calling it with the american people think it is what's treated that way. rather than trying to invent all of these wonderful new ingalls and it will be like death from a thousand cuts. >> you were in the majority now and is it fair to say that you were the only commissioner who has said out loud that we need

to mifsud from title i title ii? >> i'm only going to speak for myself. i've said out loud and i will say it again the reclassification as a title ii service on the symbols that we will have a majority at least is in favor of doing that. >> let me ask you what the impact of not a around you said you wanted the commission sooner rather than later. this shouldn't be a multi-year stage for the reclassification. but since have you gotten, sometimes commissioners meet with investors and go to new york and san francisco to wall street about the investment community's reaction but alone the telecommunications industry reaction? should there be three classification? would there be a flight from these more risk adversity in terms of investment strategy? >> i don't think there will be a flight from the most transformative infrastructure

change that's taking place in the economy right now. the future is going to be in this. we have a broadband plan that's indicated to building a broadband ubiquitous lee. the places where it is not going now will be hugely transfer limited in terms of jobs and all of that. so i would hope that the investment, emt and the political community and the legal community and the traditional community and all of us would take an expensive look at that and step back a little bit. there is no reason that it should do that, calling something what it is and exercising some measure of public interest oversight should scare investors off and investors need confidence. if they need a sense of a shorty of the rules and that is another reason not to go down this experimental routt are we going to try this ankle in title i or this or this? and they are going to sit there and say why don't we just make a decision, this is going to be the rule of the road and i think

that investors understand what the game ase and they get back in and they are going to be a bigger fashion when we get on with building the infrastructure support into the future of every citizen in this country. >> let me ask about another way to provide certainty. and is that something you've spoken very highly so it was 2006 the was an industry public-interest compromise that was later enshrined in the fcc rules of digital to cast what sorts of ads you can show and for how long. do you think that there is any way that all sides in the mant neutrality reclassification debate could get together present the commission with some sort of voluntary solution that might be able to get around the court cases that some say the concern in the investment community the the commission doing something in a mandatory way. >> i think that would be a happy

outcome to have that undertaking and conversation hopefully leading to a consensus and i think that chairman schakowsky -- genachowski would be encouraging circumstances like that at the end of the day we get that consensus and i am assuming the people would be willing to realize the risks and provide the basic guidelines upon which the commission is going to proceed so that would be a period voluntary way but just have it out there as a voluntary guidelines our commitment were probably it would be better for the commission to find some way to work and affiliate itself with that city would have the rules of the road so that when you went to court you were going to court again with your best foot

in some solid ground. >> the consensus in the up being adopted as the rule of the road. >> it would be good to have that way that would be my reaction at this point. >> commissioner copps, are you pleased that the rollout of the national broadband plan so far? >> i think it is the result of the liberals open and transparent process and i have seen in my nine years at the fcc with many workshops we had hearings thousands of pages of records so it was really in doubt and the chairman had lots of folks within the fcc some folks he brought in but the most wonderful team we have to focus on this infrastructure challenge and i think it was comprehensive it doesn't mean that it's exactly the plan i would have written for any other commissioner might have reckoned but i think that it was

something i've been waiting for for nine years and would call other times i've been on the show i said why doesn't this country have a national broadband strategy wire remember 15 or 20 or 24 on which you and i were talking here. let's get in the game and do what every other industrial country in the face of this green earth does and i sampled broadband plans and finally we got the new administration and the congress who said this is in trouble to america's recovery and we investment in the future and they charged us with developing that but i was happy to see them say we should have a broadband plan that was music to my years and they said have the fcc did and i think the fcc did a good and incredible job in trying to put something together. we got along way to go and there is lots of tease there might be

some variations along the way and some things we think are going to work don't end up working and you have to be flexible. >> to follow-up to that answer. number one do you agree with the former fcc chairman reed hundt when he said the broadband is the national media? >> there is no question in my mind but broadband is so fundamental to the future of the media, how quickly and how much of the media is going to migrate to broadband is an open question and makes two years, three years, five years i am not at all ready to say we can forget about traditional media now and fast forward and just worry about the of media in the future. we do need to have that discussion. i've been calling for that for years. what happens if and when of radio television moves and newspapers or continued and diminish how to protect the public interest and that is a

conversation we need to have. but for the next i think many several years the folks in the traditional media, the newspapers and broadcast stations are still going to produce overwhelming bulk of the news and information the country gets anywhere now between 80 to 95%. even the news the folks read on the internet comes from the newspaper and broadcast stations. not as much as it used to be because the crisis we have had in journalism and the industry in general. the best news is, fortunate but it's coming from there, and we need to figure out what happens to the journalism, what happens to the diminishing news and information in this probe of possibly years as we migrate to the new media because i don't think that this country can really afford to have four or five or six or ten more years of the kind of disintegration and dimunation of journalism that we

have seen in the last 15 or 20 years with newsroom shoppers investigative reporting being an endangered species. we of 27 states i am told, 27 states no longer having a credit report on capitol hill. if it is one of the functions of journalism to hold the powerful accountable how do you hold them accountable? rac get down at the fcc. we have got folks like jonathan and a few others, but we don't have as many reporters covering the that place, covering what mike copps is to ignore julius genachowski or anyone else. it's good to have that coverage and the people need to have that coverage. so i think that -- and this is probably a longer discussion -- but i think from some of the bad private-sector decisions that have been made and the bad public sector with traditional media that we are skating close to denying the american people the depth and breadth of information that they needed to dispatch and discourage the

responsibilities as citizens and final spot, i am worried that the new media is starting down the road of traditional media. too much consultation to private sector decisions, too many bad public sector decisions. >> and i think that jonathan make will have a followup on that. but first, one more follow-up with regard to broadband. do you see if i universal service fund -- how do you see it being effected with money going towards traditional telephone services and broadband and do you see the need for increasing the usf? >> we need the universal, they are critical to reach an objective spirited fight no means it is it the only tool that will get it to ubiquitous been deployed in the country and obviously private-sector investment is a locomotive in this economy and always has been and always will be. but universal service fund can play i think eight mightily

important role in supporting that. it is necessary to modify that funding and make it primarily a broadband fund. we still have some challenges as you know and the invoice and some places indian country and other places like that where we are lucky if you have two-thirds of the folks we even have behalf service, so we can't get out of that business but by and large we need to transform it into the infrastructure in the future and universal service has a role to play in that and by a understand about the contribution factors and all of that, people get nervous and i get nervous, too but it's generally not going to get done on the cheek and by not in to making promises that we will hold the universal fund at such a level forever and ever. i don't think that is the way the wake intelligence policy judgments. sprick this is the c-span's "the communicators" period. our guest is fcc commissioner michael copps. jonathan make of communications daily is also with us.

>> commissioner copps, you raise an interesting number of points about traditional and new media and some of the of course relates to the execution of the national broadband plan, which we were just speaking about. succumb to take one data point if you will, and part of the plan seize tv stations and large markets essentially getting back some or all of their spectrum so that there can be more, faster wireless broadband. as that occurs what concerns does that phrase in your mind about continuing to have these as you would like to see vigorous public interest oversight of tv stations if there are fewer of them and some of them are getting back a chunk of their weight how do you achieve both of those things? >> i'm glad you asked that question and i am hoping that is a question that we will be alive to. there is no question in my mind we need spectrum for wireless technologies. exactly how much, i don't know.

we will be doing some measurements and congress is considering a spectrum inventory bill so we would understand exactly how much spectrum is being used in the country this minute as the three of the stock and nobody has a clue how much is being used and how much of it is just kind of sitting there and would be available for other uses so the first thing to do is get that kind of a field for it, but we do know that we are going to need more spectrum. i think there are some areas in the country where some of the broadcast spectrum might be freed up but it raises a lot of questions of how you do that first fall you need to have some congressional authority to do that and we will have to see how that evolves. but to me, all spectrum is public interest spectrum whether it's utilization and every sphere and sector all across about is what needs to be viewed in the public interest but the broadcast spectrum is

particularly public interest oriented because we rely so heavily on it to inform the american people. my advice to the broadcasters is this. if you really want to make sure that spectrum is not going to be too much of taking away the developed where the best public use is right now. i said years and years ago we are going digital. we are going to have all of this multitask opportunity so that in the same -- with the same amount of spectrum that you broadcast on one channel you can not only do i guess, you can do three or four of their program streams and those program streams could reflect your local, and tease. that is broadcasting strength, local context, local communities. so you can do a better job of covering the diverse elements of the community. whether they are contributing, what issues are they interested in, you can do a better job of covering the local politics.

every time we have an election i search on tv for coverage in the local places because they don't do a very good job by and large of covering all of those things. so that is really public interest broadcasting. it's an independent producers' showcase local musical local talent, and all the rest. and had they done that, and i am not saying nobody has done that but it hasn't reached anywhere near critical. the bottom of the spectrum is not -- most of it is not being used for purposes like that could have it be used like that people would be much more reluctant to come up with ideas for that. i want to see the spectrum used for public understand when the time comes a sitcoms that we are going forward with this plan, that's kind of how i'm going to be looking at it. of that spectrum is being used for the enhancement of the public interest in the local areas for the enhancement of localism and diversity i would

be a touch more amendable to keeping the spectrum in the hands of broadcasters. >> i guess in a way it is a double-edged sword. you are saying in part of broadcasters or some has brought the present state on themselves but on the other hand they can show the air waves should not be repurchased by doing more than the public interest. that's me talking. >> hall, though, can you get by tv stations which there's been variable publicly and also from the lobbying groups here in washington and national association of broadcasters and association for the service television they have set look, our members are not -- we want to serve the public. we want to use all of our spectrum but we can't do that while also serving the public interest if we have to give back some of the spectrum. so how can that be balanced? >> they can engage in the discussion and this discussion with the nab as recently as

yesterday why don't we keep this up? these folks are a little bit on the defensive with regard to some of the spectrum finds that are out there, spectrum fees and all of that so i think the time would be right for them to engage in some discussions with folks who wish broadcasting a fulsome future. that shouldn't be hard to do. i travel around this country talking about not only to the association zubrin washington, but i talked a lot of state broadcasters. there are a lot of broadcasters in this country who is plame in the public interest still burns brightly. it's more difficult for them to do their job in the consolidated environment that we have evolved into in this country. it's harder and harder to justify the expenditure on local news while wall street is saying well, you made 10% last year, you've got to do 15% this year. so you struggle and cut and get to 15 and they say sorry, you've

got to get to 20, you've got to keep the investment community happy. that's not -- that's not the future for the kind of news and information that this country needs. and that was the deal in the first place. you guys get this spectrum, the public spectrum come people spectrum for free in return for being good stewards and providing people the news and information that they need. >> well, what about an update on the nbc comcast potential merger? >> i don't the but the update would be. i have always said that the would-be -- that remains a steep climb in and i have not been jury enamored with industry consolidations in the past. i think it has been highly destructive for not only the public interest. i think a lot of companies, too. i think there are a lot of broadcasters to might be looking back and saying maybe that i perspective phrase that they got involved in simply cannot be

good after also there is a lot of them that want to do a good job. we have to create an environment in which it is possible. we have got to do a better job of getting the the news and information -- that is the biggest challenge facing us in the communication field right now. that is the number one thing that i respond to because i really am worried about how do we get information out to the american people that this is not a new problem in the united states of america. you can go back to the founding fathers and you can find the quotes from george washington, thomas jefferson, james madison saying that the infrastructure of that day, which was newspapers, was vitally important to everybody in the country. so they found a way to support that information infrastructure with postal subsidies for newspapers. they didn't pick newspapers. they didn't pick winners and

losers. there were partisan papers on all sides. they said all the newspapers could postal subsidy. newspapers should be able to ship to knees dippers for free and there should be subsidies to get them out there. that was the premise of their experiment of their democracy in the country they were building. they really didn't know if they could make that republic work in the far-flung countries. so they said we got to get information out to the american people. and that is the same challenge that we have now. they found ways to do it. we found ways to encourage that with spectrum for the broadcasters. and now we have that in challenge again. so the technology has changed, the window changes, the democratic, small d changes. spec jonathan make, final question. >> following on the concern about any media transaction, comcast says if you, the fcc and

the justice department allow us to buy nbc universal, nbc will be a stronger property that is committed to keeping it over the air. so are their -- a two-part question -- is there a way that would actually be beneficial to the public interest? and then you often have talked about transparency, while keeping in mind how can the commission make sure that interviews of the deal is as transparent as possible? >> i think we should have some hearings on it. i think we should have public hearings. it's not without precedent at the fcc we did that back with aol in the case some years ago. we had done it on other occasions, too. and i think -- i think you would really have to look. there are a lot of questions to be asked. is this going to have an impact on consumer rights and cable and have access to -- is it going to have an impact on access to the internet? what's it going to do to

programming? what is it going to do to local news and all of those things? stronger in b.c.? yes, we could use a stronger in b.c. in some ways. maybe not in others. so we really have to get in and measure that. and again, audience a guy who is about localism and diversity, and i think democracy first as when you have that control in the community to the extent possible in broadcasting and newspaper samples arrest and we've been heading in the wrong direction the last 25 or 30 years. >> as always commissioner copps, we appreciate your coming on "the communicators" to talk about the issues facing the fcc. jonathan make of communications daily, thank you also.