Michael Copps Put the 'Public' in Public Servant

The first trip I took as a Free Press staff member nearly 14 years ago was to St. Paul, Minnesota, where, on a rainy Thursday night, 700 people filling an auditorium and overflow room. Many of them lined up for hours and hours to stand at a microphone and testify about the problems of the media. I’d never seen anything like it. People were there because a couple of Commissioners from the Federal Communications Commission had a radical idea: They should actually go out and listen to the public.  On another rainy night recently in Washington, I thought back to that trip and the many that followed. I was lucky enough to be invited to a dinner organized by the Benton Foundation to celebrate the legacy of FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps. Former commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Mignon Clyburn, numerous former Copps’ staffers, friends and allies gathered to toast the commissioner for his unwavering commitment to a more just and democratic media. Copps, now a Free Press board member and senior adviser to Common Cause, has many accomplishments to remember and celebrate — so many in fact that the Benton Foundation commissioned a historical study of his decade-long tenure at the FCC, The Media Democracy Agenda: The Strategy and Legacy of Federal Communications Commissioner Michael J. Copps.

[Craig Aaron is President and CEO of Free Press]