Ahead of an official announcement, word has skipped out that President Bush has named Kevin Martin the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Martin has been a commissioner at the FCC since 2001, after spending some time working for the president as an economic adviser.
While this doesn’t come as a surprise at all, it does raise some questions as to the direction the FCC will go in the future. Media watchdog Free Press founder Robert McChesney said, in a statement released Wednesday, that Martin “has not distinguished himself as a defender of the public interest during his tenure at the FCC.” Outside of many telecommunications industry issues currently on the table, media consolidation may be a major part of what Martin gets his hands on.
