Since February, 2004, I have worked as communications director for Public Knowledge, a small public interest group working in the areas of intellectual property and digital rights for consumers. The issues that we deal with put us up against some of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the country – the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Public Knowledge meets those groups head-on at the Federal Communications Commission and on Capitol Hill.
My job is to make certain that our viewpoint gets across to reporters, who are generally accustomed to hearing from the larger, more well-established organizations but not from consumer groups such as ours. We are not only quick to respond to actions on Capitol Hill and at the Commission, we also are equally forthright about seizing on PR opportunities to get our message across, whether it directly involves PK or not. We were, for example, the ones to spread the story about the MPAA and the National Football League trying to shut down innovative TiVo technology. We were involved in the issue generally, but in calling the story to reporters
To the extent that reporters now call me before I can call them, and they do, I consider myself having made progress. By keeping in constant contact with reporters, feeding information they might be interested in, and making sure they are kept up to date on fast-moving issues, I have raised PK’s profile.
In addition, I am deeply involved in larger projects and in the legislative strategy of PK’s issues. I serve as spokesman for the Personal Technology Freedom Coalition, a group of about two dozen companies, associations and public interest groups working for “fair use” legislation. I attend Coalition meetings, as I do group meetings on a variety of other issues, including on legislation to rewrite copyright law and to impose new ground rules on the availability of data bases to the public on which PK is involved.
While at PK, I maintain a freelance PR consulting practice, doing work for trade associations and companies. At PK, I’ve expanded my PR skills that have developed over the years, combining my journalism background with those of my earlier PR jobs.
I served from late 1999 to early 2001 as the communications director for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the Commerce Department agency responsible for telecommunications policy. Working for Assistant Secretary Gregory L. Rohde, I was the agency’s principal spokesman to the press, while serving as a senior staff member who also was part of policy formation for all areas of the agency’s responsibility. I modernized the distribution of agency releases and created opportunities to take advantage of agency policies, scheduled interviews and created news events, and organized briefings for reporters as agency and other Administration officials attended the World Radio Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. I also wrote news releases on agency activities and release of agency reports, He also wrote speeches on a variety of telecommunications topics.
I was a full member of the agency’s policy-making apparatus. He attended all senior staff meetings at NTIA, as well as weekly meetings with White House telecom staff and sessions of the Administration’s E-Commerce Working Group. I also was a member of the project team that produced the October 2000 version of the Falling Through the Net report on the Digital Divide, helping to shape the study, writing and editing chapters and, reverting to type, participating in the press aspects of the project’s release. I also coordinated the release of other agency reports with the White House.
In the corporate world, I was the communications director for the Washington, D.C., office of Qwest Communications International, the long-distance company that took over the former Baby Bell, U S West. I reported directly to the head of the office, Lauren “Pete” Belvin, who was formerly telecom counsel to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), and to the PR staff at company headquarters in Denver. I was the press contact on Federal regulatory and legislative issues. Questions to Qwest reporters from around the country were funneled to me when the Federal Communications Commission made an important decision, or when telecom legislation was prominent in Congress. Art also arranged press events for visiting Qwest executives, including the company chairman, and for Ms. Belvin.
I have also worked at two small consulting firms, largely on telecom issues. At Simon Strategies, founded by Gregory C. Simon, a former domestic policy adviser to Vice President Al Gore, I worked with the Catholic Television Network (CTN) to help the group maintain access to radio spectrum it was planning to use to for educational purposes. At LawMedia Group I worked on projects for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) to promote their broadband policy, including successfully advising them to take a more active role on Internet issues, and for Voice for Choices and AT&T on issues related to local competition. In each of those positions, Art pitched stories, helped to draft op-eds and releases and participated in issue strategy.