The FCC at NCMR: A National Town Hall
Presenters
- Mignon Clyburn
Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission
Mignon L. Clyburn was nominated to the Federal Communications Commission on June 25, 2009, and sworn in on Aug. 3, 2009. Commissioner Clyburn has a long history of public service and dedication to the public interest. Prior to her appointment to the FCC, Ms. Clyburn served for 11 years on South Carolina’s Public Service Commission (PSC) as the representative for the state’s Sixth District.
During her tenure at the PSC, Commissioner Clyburn participated in numerous national and regional state-based utility organizations. Most recently, she served as chair of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ Washington Action Committee and as a member of both the association’s Audit Committee and Utilities Market Access Partnership Board. Commissioner Clyburn is also a former chair of the Southeastern Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
Commissioner Clyburn was elected to the South Carolina PSC following 14 years as the publisher and general manager of The Coastal Times, a Charleston-based weekly newspaper that focused primarily on issues affecting the African-American community.
- Michael Copps
Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission
Michael J. Copps is the senior member of the Federal Communications Commission. He began his service in 2001 and was sworn in for a second term in 2005. Until 2001, Copps served as assistant secretary of commerce for trade development at the U.S. Department of Commerce. In that role, he worked to improve market access and market share for nearly every sector of American industry, including information technologies, telecommunications, aerospace, automotive, environmental technologies, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, textiles, service industries and tourism. Copps devoted much of his time to building private-public sector partnerships to enhance our nation’s success in the global economy. From 1993 to 1998, he served as deputy assistant secretary for basic industries, a component of the Trade Development Unit. Copps moved to Washington in 1970, joined the staff of Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.), and served for more than a dozen years as administrative assistant and chief of staff.
A native of Milwaukee, Wis., Copps received a B.A. from Wofford College and earned a Ph.D. in U.S. history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He taught U.S. history at Loyola University of the South from 1967 to 1970.
- amalia deloney
Grassroots Policy Director, Center for Media Justice
amalia deloney is a Guatemala-born activist, cultural worker and former senior fellow with the Main Street Project in the Minneapolis area, where she was based until joining the Center for Media Justice as their grassroots policy director. Nationally, amalia is a board member of the Indigenous Women’s Network, Progressive Majority’s Racial Justice Advisory, and the Media and Democracy Coalition. Additionally, she serves as a field representative for the American Indian Treaty Council and has participated in U.N. meetings, such as the Working Group on Indigenous Populations and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. amalia has more than 15 years of experience in community and cultural organizing and community education. Her specific focus includes human rights and anti-racism education, cultural rights, the production of knowledge and movement building.
- Robert W. McChesney
Media scholar
Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2002, he co-founded Free Press, and he served as its president until April 2008. McChesney also hosts the Media Matters weekly radio program on NPR-affiliate WILL-AM. McChesney has written or edited 18 books. His most recent book, written with John Nichols, is the award-winning The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again (Nation Books, 2010).
In 2008, the Utne Reader listed McChesney among their "50 visionaries who are changing the world." In 2001, Adbusters Magazine named him one of the "Nine Pioneers of Mental Environmentalism." In 2006, right-winger David Horowitz included McChesney on his list of the "101 most dangerous professors in America." In 2010, McChesney received the Dallas Smythe Award for his contributions to the study and practice of democratic communication. Along with John Nichols, McChesney was awarded the U.S. Newspaper GuildÕs 2010 Herbert Block Freedom Award.
Prior to entering graduate school in 1983, McChesney was a sports stringer for UPI, published a weekly newspaper, and in 1979 was the founding publisher of The Rocket, a Seattle-based rock magazine. At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in McChesney's hometown of Cleveland, the founding of The Rocket is credited as the birth of the Seattle rock scene of the late 1980s and 1990s. In his spare time, McChesney writes about professional basketball for a number of websites.
- David Shuster
Emmy Award-winning journalist
David Shuster is an Emmy Award-winning journalist based in Washington, D.C. He's a recipient of the prestigious “Bugle Award” by the 1.3-million member organization Disabled American Veterans. The annual honor recognizes journalists who bring attention to disabled veterans. In August 2005, Shuster reported from the eye of Hurricane Katrina as it made landfall in Biloxi, Miss. Shuster’s reports aired on MSNBC and NBC Nightly News. Shuster also spent several weeks reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina from New Orleans.
In 2004, Shuster led Hardball's daily reporting for MSNBC on the 2004 presidential campaign. As part of this coverage, Shuster headed up the MSNBC "ad watch team," fact-checking and analyzing more than 150 campaign commercials throughout the course of the election. He also covered national political conventions and all of the presidential primaries.
From 1996 - 2002, Shuster was a Washington, D.C.-based correspondent for the Fox News Channel. He was at the Pentagon on 9/11 and led Fox’s coverage of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. During the Clinton administration, Shuster led Fox’s coverage of the Clinton investigations, including Whitewater, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Starr report and the Senate impeachment trial.
Video
Audio
- When
- Friday, April 8, 2:30pm - 3:45pm
- Where
- Cityview Ballroom
map (pdf) - Track
- Plenary and Keynote Sessions
Federal Communications Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn will be in Boston to address and hear from the media reform community. At this session – the first of its kind at a National Conference for Media Reform — the commissioners will speak about the pressing media issues facing the country, join a conversation with journalists and activists, and take questions from the audience at NCMR and those watching online.
