(More Genachowski, Plus Video Tour of His Office)
Everyone seems to regard you as someone who “gets it.” You led the Obama campaign’s technology task force, which was all about New Media. So what different approaches are you taking with the FCC at a time at a time of such massive transformation?
The first thing is to take seriously the changes in the media landscape and how they affect the important goals for the country.
In the recovery act passed in February, Congress entrusted the FCC with responsibility for developing a national broadband strategy. We should have had such a strategy 10 years ago -- we are falling behind on connectivity and speed.
Why does it matter?
This is our generation’s major infrastructure challenge -- it is to us what railroads and electricity and highways were to previous generations: connecting all Americans for commerce, a platform for commercial activity and for entrepreneurs to start and grow.
It also is a platform to promote a whole series of public benefits that we have always regarded as important: connectivity for news and information, making sure that everyone has access to health care, education.
How active should the government be in all this?
There are two core pieces that I think are appropriate to focus on. One is universality -- making sure that everyone has access to high-speed broadband.
The other is openness. The openness of the internet has been an essential part of its success so far. It’s why so many new businesses have started on the web. It’s been the greatest force for innovation that we have ever seen, in both commercial enterprises and services that are important to our democracy -- new forms of information, new forms of journalism, new forms of connecting people, new sources of content.
Where do you stand on indecency?
Parents have real concerns about the media that their kids are exposed to. As a parent, I share those concerns.
When we were kids, we had a couple of TVs in the house, and we got a few over-the-air broadcast channels. My parents could think about what rules they wanted to set: How many hours of week should we watch and which channels. Parents today are looking at a very different world.
There's still the TV in the house, but it gets a lot more channels. Parents are also thinking that, well, there is a computer over there, and I want my kids to be doing their homework and to have access to all this information -- but there are things about it that concern me.
They worry about the mobile phone in kids’ pockets. I want to be able to reach my kid. I want my kid to have a phone in case of emergency. But I’m also worried about the device that these kids carry around.
So parents feel a lot of frustration. But I'm an optimist about the ability of technology to address some of these issues and empower these parents.
