FCC Media Ownership Policy

Andy Schwartzman, the President and CEO of Media Access Project (MAP), has directed the organization since June, 1978. In recognition of his service as chief counsel in the public interest community’s challenge to the FCC’s June, 2003 media ownership deregulation decision, The Scientific American honored Mr. Schwartzman as one of the nation’s 50 leaders in technology for 2004.

other specializations: the FCC, media ownership limits, deregulation
Contact Andy

Michael Bracy, partner in the government affairs firm Bracy Tucker Brown & Valanzano. He also co-founded the Future of Music Coalition and currently serves as a board member and Policy Director and co-owns Misra, an independent record label based in Austin, Texas. Michael is known for his policy work in front of Congress and the FCC, including media consolidation, radio regulation (including Low Power FM), and ensuring public interest principles are at the heart of the legal structures that will help dictate new technological frameworks. Michael is a recognized public advocate both for the music community and for the need for increased citizen participation in the policy process. He has testified before the Congress and the FCC, and speaks often on these issues at conferences and in the media, including CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio, Washington Post, New York Times, Billboard and elsewhere.

other specializations: concentration in radio ownership, radio payola, low power FM radio, copyright policy
Contact Michael

Internet Policy

Dr. Mark Cooper, Director of Research of the Consumer Federation of America, has responsibility for analysis and advocacy in the areas of telecommunications, media, digital rights, economic and energy policy. He has provided expert testimony in over 250 cases for public interest clients. He is the author of Open Architecture as Communications Policy: Preserving Internet Freedom in the Broadband Era (Palo Alto: Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society, 2004) http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blogs/cooper/archives/openarchitecture.pdf, Media Ownership and Democracy in the Digital Information Age (Center for Internet & Society, Stanford University, 2003), http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blogs/cooper/archives/mediabooke.pdf, and Cable Mergers and Monopolies (Electronic download) (Economic Policy institute, 2002, paper), http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blogs/cooper/archives/Cable_mergers.pdf.

other specializations: consumer issues and the Internet, media ownership policy, broadband deregulation, economic and policy research, market structure analysis of media ownership
Contact Mark

Jeffrey Chester, founder and executive director of Center for Digital Democracy, has been an important force in public-interest media issues for more than twenty years. In 1996, Newsweek magazine named him one of the Internet’s fifty most influential people. His book on US media politics, Digital Destiny, was published in 2006 by The New Press.

other specializations: network neutrality, digital media, future of the Internet, Internet Freedom
Contact Jeff

Community Media

Hannah Sassaman, Program Director and rabble rouser at the Prometheus Radio Project. She recently helped coordinate the successful building of an FCC-licensed emergency radio station used by families displaced by Hurricane Katrina, in Houston. Hannah regularly facilitates workshops, radio plays, and movement building discussions at Prometheus’ Radio Barnraisings. Hannah has written for or been interviewd by Clamor Magazine, Social Policy Review, Radio World, The Nation, New York Times, and a variety of print, radio, and television programs and publications. Hannah is banned from all official National Association of Broadcasters events.

other specializations: low power FM radio stations, building radio stations, community radio, independent media, media ownership
Contact Hannah

Lauren-Glenn Davitian, Executive Director of CCTV- Center for Media and Democracy, is widely credited with establishing strong community access to cable television throughout Vermont. She is a well-known spokeswoman on behalf of public telecommunications and first amendment issues both locally and in the state capital. Ms. Davitian is currently working to promote community ownership of broadband networks in rural Vermont.

other specializations: PEG channels, cable access, cable regulation
Contact Lauren-Glenn

Media Justice

Malkia Cyril is the Director of Youth Media Council in Oakland, California. Malkia is a working-class Brooklyn native who has worked with youth, community and activist groups in the SF Bay Area for the past nine years. Malkia, a writer in multiple genres, was recently featured in the anthology The Future of Media: Resistance and Reform in the 21st Century edited by Robert McChesney, and has authored numerous articles and reports including “Young People and Decent Wages” (Winning Wages, 2004), “The Power in Our Hands” (Context Magazine, 2005), and “Speaking for Ourselves” (Yes Magazine, 2005). Malkia was also featured in the documentary film OutFoxed (2004), and her creative work has been published in sources from Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café (1994), to Tea Party magazine (2006), to Afrekete, an anthology of Black lesbian writing (1994), and In the Tradition, an anthology of young Black writers (1995).

other specializations: media monitoring and accountability, youth media, media diversity, media ownership
Contact Malkia

Karen Toering, Co-Director of Reclaim the Media in Seattle, is principal partner in The Gryphon Group, a media development and project management consortium. Karen co-founded The Albuquerque Project; promoting accountability in progressive media reform leadership, particularly in regard to the needs of people of color. She has served as Executive Director for two public access channels and the community media production facility 911 Media Arts. She is also a long-time regional leader in the Alliance for Community Media.

other specializations: community media, media accountability
Contact Karen

Community Broadband

Ben Scott, Director of the Free Press policy team in Washington, is dedicated to monitoring and analyzing media policymaking to increase public awareness and participation. He is the author of several scholarly articles on American journalism history and the politics of media regulation, as well as co-editor of Our Unfree Press and The Future of Media.

other specializations: community wireless, media ownership, Internet policy, spectrum, public broadcasting
Contact Ben Scott

J.H Snider, Research Director of the Wireless Future Program at New America Foundation, has been published in The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Atlantic Monthly. He is the author of Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick (iUniverse), a book on telecommunications and media politics; co-author of Future Shop (St. Martin’s), an early work on e-commerce; and co-author with Nigel Holmes of the Citizen’s Guide to the Airwaves (New America), an acclaimed poster that describes spectrum policy and politics in a format laypeople can understand. At the New America Foundation, Mr. Snider’s work focuses on the policy paradigm changing implications of emerging information technologies.

other specializations: telecommunications politics, e-democracy, spectrum rights
Contact Jim Snider

Spectrum, White-space

Michael Calabrese, Vice President of the New America Foundation, directs the Wireless Future Program. He has co-authored three books and published opinion articles in national publications, like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic Monthly.

other specializations: spectrum allocation, unlicensed spectrum access, TV band white-space, community wireless, public broadcasting
Contact Michael Calabrese

Harold Feld, Media Access Project’s Senior Vice President, joined MAP in August 1999 after practicing communications, Internet, and energy law at Covington & Burling. Mr. Feld served as co-chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association’s Online Committee, and has written numerous articles on Internet law and communications policy for trade publications and legal journals.

other specializations: municipal broadband, Internet policy, ownership proceedings
Contact Harold Feld

Gene Kimmelman, Vice President of Federal and International Affairs at Consumers Union, is a recognized expert on deregulation and consumer protection issues, particularly in the area of telecommunications. He is a frequent witness before congressional committees that set telecommunications policy. He was the lead consumer advocate on the omnibus Telecommunications Act of 1996 and was successful in seeing significant consumer protections added to the telecommunications deregulation legislation.

other specializations: digital television (DTV), consumer protections, antitrust law, cable television, media ownership policy
Contact Gene Kimmelman