MICHAEL POWELL AND THE PRESS

I was worried at the appearance of nepotism in the appointment of Michael Powell to run the FCC, but I had no doubts about his abilities. Everyone I spoke to about him at the time – and everything I read about him – showed him to be a competent, smart guy. Now he’s been unfairly savaged by the press, I feel even more supportive of him. His most recent sin was the following quote, printed in several papers, about the so-called “digital divide” in which only the wealthy and white are allegedly on the Internet: “I think there’s a Mercedes divide. I’d like one, but I can’t afford it.” A good line – and true, which is why, in Washington terms, it was a gaffe. But then look at the context. Here’s the full quote, reprinted in the Washington Post yesterday: “”I also think the term [“digital divide”] sometimes is dangerous in the sense that it suggests that the minute a new and innovative technology is introduced in the market, there is a divide unless it is equitably distributed among every part of the society, and that is just an unreal understanding of an American capitalistic system … [Mercedes Quote here] … I’m not meaning to be completely flip about this — I think it’s an important social issue — but it shouldn’t be used to justify the notion of, essentially, the socialization of deployment of the infrastructure.” Amen. A serious and good point, leavened with a gripping illustration. All unforgivable in D.C. Depressed yet?