FCC Buries Blooper Video Featuring Chairman's Gaffe
The Democratic-led FCC put the kibosh on its videotape of a news conference last Thursday in which Chairman Julius Genachowski committed a verbal gaffe. Reporters attending the briefing were told the session was being taped for the "FCC Live" section of the agency's website, where videos are posted of commission events. Journalists were instructed to identify themselves upon asking questions and speak only into a microphone.
But the agency, which repeatedly has pledged to operate in a more open and publicly accessible manner, buried the video after the chairman provided some erroneous information. Genachowski twice told reporters that a proposed communications network for emergency responders would require $16 billion to $18 billion in congressional funding.
After some news outlets cited those figures in breaking stories, FCC officials contacted reporters to say Genachowski misspoke -- and meant to say $12 billion to $16 billion. The video never surfaced publicly and the "FCC Live" section of the agency's website doesn't mention that a Feb. 25 press conference ever occurred. "We recognized the mistake and corrected it that same day. We are not planning on posting the video in the interest of not providing the public with misinformation," an FCC spokesman said.
As to Genachowski's revised cost estimate: what's a few billion among friends?
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