mediageek

Author: Paul

  • Progressives’ Paradox — Senate Commerce Committee Votes Up on LPFM, Down on Net Neutrality

    Oh, those party lines. Senate Commerce Committee Republicans showed themselves to be 92% against ensuring internet freedom, with 11 out of 12 voting against a net neutrality amendment to the big telecom bill (S.2686) today. That was a much narrower loss than a similar amendment suffered in the House, due to the fact that all…

  • Minidisc Arrival

    My new Sony MZ-RH1 (oh, how I wish electronics could have actual names, rather than arcane model numbers) arrived this afternoon, one day early. I went home to make sure it didn’t sit out on the front step unattended for half the day. I’ve had a chance to unpack it and take a quick look,…

  • Latest, Greatest Minidisc Recorder Now Available and In Demand

    Without fanfare or any real announcement from Sony, the MZ-RH1 minidisc recorder is now shipping from a variety of sources in North America. This recorder, which may be the last new model ever produced, finally fulfills most of the promise of the minidisc format… a mere fourteen years after MD was first introduced. Already it…

  • From the AMC: Representing Detroit – Audio

    I recorded audio from the panel on independent media in Detroit that happened Sunday afternoon. The panel featured Catherine Kelly, Michigan Citizen; Ron Scott, Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality; Roshaun L. Harris, Hush Your Mouth! newspaper; moderator: Jenny Lee, Detroit Summer. The audio is posted in MP3 and ogg vorbis on the radioshow page. John…

  • From the AMC: Is This What Democracy Looks Like?

    I’m sitting in the Student Union at Bowling Green State University, where it is unusually temperate for late June, attending the 7th annual Allied Media Conference. I hear there are over 400 people attending, and it looks to be the most diverse group I’ve seen at this conference yet. The first session I attended this…

  • FCC Pulls the Scab off the Media Ownership Sore

    With a full Republican-majority commission, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin finally took the wraps off his proceeding to revisit media ownership rules [link to press release PDF]. Not unexpectedly, this new proceeding threatens to be just as bad as the last one in 2003. I’ll let Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein explain why [PDF]: First, the process does…

  • Path for LPFM through the Telecom Bill Forest?

    Thursday at 2 PM EDT the Senate Commerce Comittee will begin marking up and possibly voting on the ironically titled Communications, Consumer’s Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006. It’s the Senate version of the COPE Act, whose primary purpose is to speed the entry of the big telcos, like AT&T and Verizon, into the…

  • Self-Aggrandizement and the Axis of Justice

    I will indulge, momentarily: Jake Sexton is the webmaster for Axis of Justice, the social justice organization formed by Tom Morello of Audioslave and Serj Tankian of System of a Down. Jake did an interview with me on net neutrality which is now featured at the AoJ site. Jake also is the sole proprietor of…

  • HD/IBOC Radio Pioneer Hears the Call of Interference

    Harry Helms points me to a view on digital/HD/IBOC radio coming from the owner of one of the first stations to start broadcasting in the format, Robert Conrad, president of WCLV-FM, Cleveland: The initial appeal to the consumer was to be improved quality of sound. But, frankly, the difference between a high quality analog signal,…

  • Did Your Rep Sell Out the Internet?

    You might be surprised, though it might not be pleasant. My own Congressional Rep, Tim Johnson voted in favor of the COPE Act (even just hours after having skin cancer surgery). His vote isn’t a surprise, he’s a real milquetoast Republican that tends to sway with the party most of the time. But some Chicagoans…