Q & A with Marvin Ammori, General Counsel of Free Press

Tomorrow, our guest at the Berkman Center luncheon series will be Marvin Ammori, the General Counsel of media reform organization Free Press and HLS Alum '03. He'll be speaking on "Network Neutrality and the FCC’s Internet Policy Statement: Biased Thoughts from a Lawyer Working with SavetheInternet.com & Free Press." The event will be webcast at 12:30pm ET.

Berkman Center intern Yvette Wohn recently caught up with Marvin, who shared his thoughts on media reform and regulation, net neutrality, and the future of the internet.

Q. Why did you choose to work for Free Press? Where does your interest in media reform come from?

I chose to work for Free Press because I respected their work and their staff, and believed Free Press was surprisingly effective.  I was a fellow for two-years at Georgetown’s media policy clinic, where I was outside counsel to a range of organizations interested in media policy.  During those two years, I worked primarily on media consolidation issues—issues centered on how many television or radio broadcast stations any one entity could own, mainly at the local level. 

During that time, I worked with Free Press on the media consolidation issues and then on what was in January, 2006, a new, below-the-radar issue—network neutrality.  I was impressed with Free Press’s work on network neutrality.  Its goal is to make media policy a political issue and to involve average citizens in media issues shaping our democracy.  It has both a top-notch policy shop educating legislators and an impressive outreach operation that can excite and organize members of the public.  So, shortly after Free Press’s successes with network neutrality last year, Free Press’s policy director suggested I work for Free Press, on internet issues.  I worked out a way to do it, though it required deferring a professorship. 

I first got interested in media policy probably in college, from reading books and articles by scholars like Robert McChesney and others.  McChesney is one of Free Press’s founders; so, years later, we’re on the same team.  I first understood the critical role of law in media reform and media regulation when I took Yochai Benkler’s Communications course as a third-year at HLS, and then wrote my third-year paper under him.  That class and paper are among the main reasons I ended up working on these issues, happily on the public interest side.

Q. What is the core point of the FCC's Internet Policy Statement?

Good question.  It was adopted in 2005, apparently to appease those concerned about network neutrality after the FCC’s decisions to eliminate telecommunications regulation of network providers.  The FCC adopted four principles: that consumers were entitled to access (1) all content, (2) all applications, (3) to connect all devices, and (4) to enjoy competitive markets in content, applications, and networks.  The FCC claimed it would follow the Statement in its ongoing policymaking activities; the Statement, however, is not a legislative rule adopted by notice-and-comment, leaving its status unclear. 

Despite the Policy Statement, and shortly after its adoption, network providers announced an intention to discriminate among different services.  Some network neutrality advocates have argued the Policy Statement did not go far enough because it wasn’t a rule, because it didn’t explicitly address discrimination, or for some other reason.  The Statement has become central to every network neutrality debate and is a good launching point for thinking about network neutrality, how to regulate for network neutrality, how to enforce such regulation.

(More after the jump)

Q. Do you believe that network neutrality leads to objectivity in the media?

No, that’s not the point.  The point is more diversity in the media.  Network neutrality suggests that network providers, like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon, cannot block, degrade, or discriminate among providers of applications and content.  In terms of innovation, it fosters innovation in application-development.  In terms of speech, it fosters not objectivity but a wide diversity of speakers presenting a wide diversity of views.  Members of the public would benefit from having access to diverse views to form their own beliefs and opinions.  I’m not sure network neutrality promotes objectivity of internet sources—or that it prompts non-internet media sources to be more objective in response.  And everyone disagrees on what’s “objective.”

Q. What is the relationship between a neutral network and a sound business model?

Depends whose business model you’re talking about.  For a network provider like Verizon or Comcast, their business model is probably fine with or without network neutrality mandates.  Their profit may arguably increase without network neutrality, perhaps because the network providers could discriminate against services that would compete with non-internet offerings (like TV and phone service) or extort internet companies. 
For an application or content provider—or anyone hoping to start an online business or an online extension of a brick-and-mortar business—the lack of network neutrality could undermine any business model.  The network provider could at any time, secretly or openly, degrade your service.  For example, some network providers are degrading BitTorrent services, of course.

Q. What direction do you think congress is taking us in terms of executing freedom of speech? 

It depends which bills you’re talking about, and it seems like not much is getting done in Congress right now.  Congress is hopefully going to require better data collection regarding high-speed internet.  And the FCC and Congress seem to be moving towards promoting low power community radio. 
But the digital transition for broadcast TV and for broadcast radio could be better shaped to expand the speech opportunities of all Americans, rather than to grant windfalls to broadcasters.  And, of course, Congress hasn’t acted effectively on network neutrality yet.

Q. What relationship do you think the media has with democracy? In your experience, how has media affected democracy?

I’m giving a talk about that on Saturday…  I think the media have a remarkably important role.  Information shapes how people understand the world, both in terms of facts and priorities.  The media provide Americans with much of their information.  Some in media reform say that no matter what your first issue is (Iraq, healthcare, environment), your second issue should be media.  I have worked with people from diverse organizations interested in diverse causes who all say that if the media only did a better job regarding their cause, the world would be a better place.  And the best way for the “media” to do a better job is to have a more diverse, citizen-generated media, I think.

Q. In your opinion, do you think there have been any promising developments in congress or otherwise in creating access and awareness to new media/citizen journalism?

To the extent that open internet initiatives can support citizen journalism, yes, some promising developments, but not enough.  There is still no real national strategy for high-speed internet deployment and uptake.  There is no guarantee of network neutrality.  The spectrum white spaces issue remains unresolved.  The FCC’s upcoming auction of old television spectrum could have had better conditions.

There has been a recent apparent victory over low power community radio stations, and if the number of those stations is increased, more people will have access to the airwaves and gain experience working in the media (as journalists or whatever).

Q. Do you think certain limitations should be made in what kind of content is published on the Internet?

Some, like for spam and spyware. 

Q. Should network providers be considered a media companies?

To the extent that they own television channels (like HBO), sure, but otherwise, they should generally be pipes.

Q. What role can ordinary citizens play in the media reform movement?

A huge role.  Or at least Free Press is based on that belief and it was worked well so far.  It was ordinary citizens that sunk last year’s telecommunications bill, which was meant to sail through Congress, greased by the phone companies’ millions in lobbying and ads.  It would have been, among other things, a huge blow to network neutrality.  But millions of Americans signed petitions, called or wrote their Congressmen, personally presented their concerns to their representatives, and raised awareness about the issue.  For example, almost daily, ordinary citizens would post imaginative YouTube clips explaining or otherwise supporting network neutrality—even though these citizens were taking no direction from Free Press or the pro network neutrality coalition, SavetheInternet.com.  And then the clips would go viral because average citizens were spreading the word.  The tagline we at Free Press used—which some average citizen came up with—was “use the internet to save the internet.”

Q. This year is the Berkman Center's 10th anniversary. What do you realistically think the internet and media will look like 10 years into the future? In an ideal world, how would you want it to look?

I’m too much an idealist to speculate realistically.  Ideally… ten years from now our high-speed internet connections would look like what other countries, like Japan and France, have right now, today—twenty to 100-times higher speeds, symmetrical connections, lower prices, higher uptake, etc.  There would ideally be other changes, such as to copyright or privacy policies.  But since people matter as much as policies, ideally, those running the Berkman Center would run the Commerce Committees and the FCC.