Obama Spokesperson: His Commitment To Net Neutrality Hasn't Wavered One Bit
The Obama transition team is reaffirming his complete commitment to net neutrality and is disputing a much-discussed report today claiming that the President-elect is softening his support for it or shifting his position on it.
Obama transition spokesperson Nick Shapiro told us moments ago that Obama's position -- strong support for net neutrality -- hasn't changed.
As we noted below, The Wall Street Journal set off a bit of a Web explosion today by reporting that support for net neutrality is eroding and asserting that that Google is supposedly turning against the idea and has approached major cable and phone companies with a secret proposal to "fast track" its content.
The Journal story (which was strongly disputed by Google and many others) also suggests, based on scant evidence, that Obama's position may have softened. But the paper didn't appear to contact the Obama team for any comment.
So we did. Asked if the Obama camp had shifted its stance in any way on net neutrality or softened its commitment to it, Shapiro answered: "No." Even limited public declarations (such as this one) from the Obama transition team about the incoming administration's priorities have been few and far between.
Separately, writer and net neutrality activist Timothy Karr writes in the Huffington Post that Obama's support for net neutrality has historically proven reliable:
The president-elect has made numerous public statements on the campaign trail and published a detailed policy document placing Net Neutrality as his top priority. He's explicitly opposed paid "quality of service" arrangements and was also a co-sponsor of the Dorgan-Snowe bill that is the strongest Net Neutrality legislation ever proposed.
We now know that according to Obama's transition team, his positions haven't changed.
I have to applaud you, Greg, on this novel approach to reporting: your insistence on contacting the individual in question rather than indulging in a bunch of tea-leaf reading of the reactions of associates of the individual in question.
So last century of you, ya know?
December 15, 2008 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's true! I've noticed that too.
December 15, 2008 11:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
heh, thanks -- only in our oddball media climate could such a thing be a compliment!
December 15, 2008 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
But what about BLAGOJEVICH!
We need more INFORMATION!
December 15, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
oddball media climate
I've often thought that there should be some sort of term limits for journalists who cover politicians.
It's not feasible, and, let's face it: the current state of the newspaper industry will be imposing term limits of a different sort, whether we want them or not. But one of the problems I see in political coverage is that journalists tend to become deeply familiar with the officials that they're covering (policies, behavior, etc), and hence, lose their perspective for what's actually newsworthy. So many political reporters dismissed both candidate's speeches this summer as "routine stump speech", without realizing that for many, it wasn't routine at all, because many people weren't following politics to the degree reporters were.
So I think part of the breathless coverage of Obama and his upcoming Administration is due to this familiarity, combined with a need to get a story, any story. If they weren't so familiar with him, and the people around him, would it be different? I don't know, but there needs to be some way to break up that familiarity that grows between reporters and politicians, while not simultaneously losing the institutional knowledge of reporters. I don't know how to do that.
December 15, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
You've put your finger on something. Not just the familiarity, which is certainly a factor, but the quid pro quo of wanting to butter up someone so you can get them to come on your network or whatever. Too cozy!
Let's hope TPM always keeps its nose clean!
December 15, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I echo this sentiment. Indeed, as I was coming in to work today, it occurred to me that I count on TPM very much as a source of political news, and that I trust its credibility.
If only you could expand coverage. In time, in time. Soon enough there with be the TPM Page Three girl. (or not).
December 15, 2008 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, but the WSJ story is just pathetic. How do you comment on a shift in a president-elect's policy without calling the president-elect's people? That's Journalism 101. What happened to this country's newspapers when basic "check it out" reporting is ignored?
December 15, 2008 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's unnaturally cozy, and, it leads to some very close-mindedness.
I've been on the same faculty committee that oversees some aspects of curriculum. The pool of faculty members who are interested in this is finite, and we tend to get re-elected to the same positions. This year, several new faculty members joined the committee, and it was refreshing to have to respond to questions about why the heck we took the particular path that we did, for particular issues. It was refreshing to have to reconsider certain issues from the vantage point of a new faculty member.
If you have the same reporters interviewing or commenting on the same group of politicians, year after year after year, they're going to start speaking and responding in politicalese, there own little language, thereby cementing the clique of the insiders who know stuff versus everyone else. So instead of a serious discussion about torture in mainstream media, we have this fixation on this moron from Illinois.
Blags tried bribery. That's definitely a problem. But the continued effort to link Obama to this in spite of evidence to the contrary reveals the pathology in our press today--they think it's important, and therefore, they'll make it important. For some of our press, that is.
TPM the strong exception.
December 15, 2008 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
The media is looking for any evidence of a change in policy. This creates drama for them to create miniscandals around.
December 15, 2008 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
And from what I have seen in other places, it also conveniently fits in with a frame that the right-wing is trying to push, that Obama is not going to live up to anything he promised in the campaign. (Funny that so far the only real bitching I've heard in that regard is coming from people who didn't vote for him anyway!)
December 15, 2008 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
All developments in the story so far seem to reinforce my suspicion that Kumar, Rhoads and the Faux Street Journal are really carrying water for the anonymous "major cable operator" executive they quoted -- the one who said, "If we did this, Washington would be on fire" -- whose real intent is to muddy the waters on the issue of Net Neutrality in the hopes of weakening Obama's support for it.
By the way, the WSJ has made this article freely available, not behind a subscription login.
December 15, 2008 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why am I not surprised by the WSJ fake controversy.
December 15, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's 1/8 byte or less!
December 15, 2008 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink