Last Night

I’m no veteran of public hearings. I’ve only previously attended a Seattle City Council hearing last year regarding the Comcast franchise renewal. With this tiny sample of experiences, I did find similarities between the two hearings. The testifiers ranged from those who had obviously written and rehearsed their comments to those who had scribbled something down on the back of used scrap of paper to those who had no notes at all. All spoke with passion.

What was different about the FCC hearing was that after the Commissioners and Jay Inslee and Sharon Maeda spoke there was a line of 10 “distinguished guests” that gave testimony. One or two represented the co-sponsors of the event like Mark Emmert and Kathy Gill of the University of Washington. All guests were allotted 5 minutes of time to speak. Few actually stopped at or within that mark. Distinguished? Yes. Respectful of the 50 or so other undistinguished speakers waiting to testify after them? No.
The Commissioners were attentive and polite in their reactions to the testifiers and applauded after most of them.

A couple of the speakers, especially John Carlson, used sarcasm and humor during their comments. There were also a couple of guys with hollowed TV sets on their heads walking around. Since I never heard them speak I don’t know what their message was if they had one.

Kathy Gill from the UW Department of Communication went where I decided not to go and brought up net neutrality.

Their messages were clear: current and potentially worse states of media consolidation are unacceptable. The testifiers were preaching to the choir so the affect of their views seemed at most symbolic.

That notwithstanding, it was a worthwhile time. I’m a government nerd, after all.