mediageek

Author: Paul

  • Jon Stewart Calls Out Nexstar and VP/COO Duane Lammers

    And I believe that he called them “pussies,” for not airing “Book of Daniel” earlier in the year. Kudos to the Daily Show research department. But the real point of the segment that aired on tonight’s Daily Show was to follow up on a piece he did a couple nights ago making fun of Nexstar‘s…

  • A Thin Facade of Democracy that Fred Upton Doesn’t Even Try To Believe

    Aw, come on, you didn’t think that debates in committee and on the House and Senate floor really amounted to anything, did you? Rep. Fred Upton, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sure as hell does, and was remarkably candid about that fact last week, as reported by the Cox News Service: The…

  • An Hour on Net Neutrality with McChesney and Co.

    Yesterday’s edition of Prof. Bob McChesney’s weekly radio program was dedicated to net neutrality, with guests Tim Karr of Free Press and Adam Green, of MoveOn.org, which I think only recently joined the campaign. It’s a packed hour and worth listening to, especially since guys like Karr have been pretty much living and breathing net…

  • Little Telcos’ Merger Challenge Adds New Wrinkle to Net Neutrality Fight

    Last year the dual mergers of AT&T with SBC and Verizon with MCI passed the justice department with nary a speedbump and only the most minimal of conditions. Those mergers also gave reason to kick off the campaign for network neutrality, because it was the newly engorged and emboldened AT&T and Verizon which started making…

  • The Internet as We Know It Is an Accident, but the Design Isn’t. For the Telcos, It’s Just an Excuse.

    Earlier this week Tim Berners-Lee, the architecht of the world-wide web, posted a short essay on network neutrality. Like other wise commentators such as Vint Cerf and Larry Lessig, Berners-Lee argues that without net neutrality being law the US’s dominant telephone companies will inhibit the future introduction of innovative internet technologies all in service of…

  • mediageek video blog #2: space is the place

    The sleepy college towns of Champaign-Urbana, IL wake up with a vengeance in late April and early May with the arrival of spring. There are tons of events and festivals over the course of about three weeks between the defrosting and the end of the university semester. Two weekends ago was one of the newer…

  • Political Economy by Any Other Name Is Apparently a Fresh, New Idea

    Perhaps this is nothing new, but I’m starting to really notice a severe lack of awareness of critical traditions within the A-list blogosphere/digerati culture. Back in March, Andrew took note of a proposal to create a new “interdisciplinary discipline’ of Critical Information Studies, which he concluded, “sounds very like the areas covered by Political Economy…

  • Want To Know What the Telcos Are Really Up To? Ask the Guys on the Line.

    Craig Newmark, of Craigslist fame, was in on today’s SaveTheInternet conference call, too, though he kept his few comments pretty short. But he brought one very interesting insight to the table, addressing one of the telco lobby’s loudest arguments against network neutrality: the likes of AT&T and Verizon haven’t discriminated against any internet content yet,…

  • A Right-Wing Perspective on Saving the Internet as We Know It

    I just finished listening in to a national conference call put on by the SaveTheInternet campaign. The call was advertised to reporters as a meeting of “strange bedfellows,” because in addition to usual suspects from Public Knowledge and Consumer Federation of America there was the inclusion of Craig Fields from Gun Owner’s of America. Fields…

  • Pushing Net Neutrality: Coalition to Save the Internet

    If one thing has become clear with this year’s session in Congress, it’s that some serious organizing has to happen if our congresscritters are going to be pressured into keeping the internet free of speedbumps and corporate-imposed taxes. Legislators might get the issues, but they need to be convinced that their constituents care about them.…