Jerry Brito

The FCC’s funny seal

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James Fallows has a great story in this month’s Atlantic that you should read. It’s ostensibly about Rupert Murdoch, but actually is more about media as a business and not sacred cow institution of democracy. Fallows does a good job of retelling the media ownership battle I got to witness first-hand at the FCC this summer. He lays out the key issues without tipping his hand too much. Also, Fallows’ portrayal of Michael Powell makes me like Powell even more (although I’m sure the same portrayal evokes disgust in other people). A sample:

He seemed affable and engaging�but eager to explain the rightness of his views, as if disagreement must be rooted in either emotion or illogic. This is an approach I associate with theoretical economists. Like them, Powell punctuates his explanations with “Let’s be honest about this” or “Once you move past the subjectivity and emotions …”

But the thing I want to bring to your attention is an observation that Fallows makes that I had also made soon after starting at the FCC: how ridiculous the commission’s seal is. Fallows writes,

But the official seal that hangs over the FCC’s hearing rooms is almost comically retro, with an eagle circling crudely drawn radio transmission towers while holding lightning bolts in its talons. It reflects not just the artistic style but also the technological attainments at the time of the agency’s creation, as part of the early New Deal, in 1934.

To me, it looks like a bald eagle that has been caught in power lines and is being electrocuted. You figure out the twisted symbolism.

Aug 15, 2003 | Comments