Who Is the FCC’s Public?

The Washington Post reports on the rough makeup of the attendees at the FCC’s “public forum” on media ownership rules held yesterday in Richmond, VA:

“By midday, 195 of the People had made their way to the convention center here. One hundred nineteen of them were white men in suits; many of those men were grumbling about the trip down from Washington. Twenty-two people were scheduled to address the commission; 13 of them had traveled here from the District.”

Sounds more like a Communications Industry Retreat than a public forum.

Realistically, aside from well-funded lobbyists, who has the time and money to travel across the country to attend some FCC forum in Richmond? Maybe people who only live a couple of hours away and don’t mind missing some work.

Otherwise this qualifies as a public forum as much having the Supreme Court pick the President counts as democracy. Oh, wait…