mediageek

Author: Paul

  • FCC Gets Detention

    The full slate of FCC Commissioners will be making another rare appearance at the House, this time at Billy Tauzin’s Energy and Commerce Committee. Tauzin and many other Reps are pissed that the FCC went the compromise route on deregulating the mandatory sharing of local telephone networks by the regional Bell operators. And they’re especially…

  • Connecticut’s Progressive Radio News

    The Hartford Courant profiles the producers behind the very good and very consistent weekly radio news program, Between the Lines: “In a mongrel studio at Bridgeport’s WPKN-FM, Scott Harris and his production crew compete for space with old televisions, record players, cardboard crates and even suitcases. … “‘We’re always up front with the fact that…

  • Indy Film Trackin’ and Jammin’ the Mainstream

    Jason, of Micro-Film mag fame, passed along to me this Film Threat review of an indy documentary called Culturejam: Hijacking Commercial Culture. Although the reviewer comes off as kind of a butthead (despite giving the flick a positive review), I’m curious to see the movie. Culture Jamming is the territory where individuals take on the…

  • D.I.Y. Isn’t a Merit Badge

    A.J. over at Papercuts has some choice words on the Google-Blogger deal: “While Blogger doesn’t have the cool factor of Moveable Type, I like it because it’s easy to use, accessible from almost anywhere, and has provided me with a place to host the ‘blog ad-free with little fuss. The truth is sometimes in order…

  • All Your Blog Are Belong to Google; Will (the A-List) Bloggers Tolerate the Masses?

    It was bound to happen — Google is buying Blogger, the seminal blogging ap that put thousands of weblogs (including this one) on the ‘net. Logically, in the short term this will amount to a major step up in reliability for Blogger and Blogspot hosted users. In a way this sort of fulfills part of…

  • Mediachannel Going On Hiatus — How Do We Fund Independent Media?

    Yesterday I received an e-mail from mediachannel.org announcing that they’re going on hiatus due to funding problems: “We’ve had to make some difficult choices to insure our survival. We are sad to report that we are going on a temporary hiatus to cut our costs and give us some time to reorganize with some new…

  • Satellite Pawn

    Since the FCC and Justice Dept. rejected a deal to merge the US’s only two direct-satellite broadcasters, DirecTV and Echostar, DirecTV has been back on the block looking for a buyer. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has expressed interest in adding DirecTV to its inventory of European and Asian direct-broadcast satellite holdings. But last Friday the…

  • FCC Finally Announces Location for Public Hearing on Media Ownership & Mad Scientists Plan To Present Their Evidence

    For the record, in case you plan on being in the Richmond, VA area for the one and only FCC sponsored public hearing on media ownership, here’s the details: “As announced on January 23, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will hold a one-day field hearing on Thursday, February 27, 2003, in Richmond, Virginia, to facilitate…

  • Help Fix the DMCA

    My co-host on last Friday’s show contributed this news headline with a URL too-long to hear, remember and write down. So, here’s the headline and URL in question: Ever bought a copy-protected “CD” and found that it doesn’t play in a device like your car stereo or computer? Ever bought a foreign DVD only to…

  • FCC Commish Copps To Hold 2 New Public Forums, Chairman Powell Prefers the Internet

    Democratic FCC Commissioner Michael Copps continues his quest to get more public input on the issue of media ownership rules. On Wednesday he announced two more public hearings to be held in March at the University of Washington in Seattle and at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. After Copps made his announcement, FCC Chair…