Panelist Bios

Ben Compaine

Ben Compaine was most recently Research Consultant for the Program on Internet and Telecoms Convergence at MIT. From 1994 to 1997 he was the Bell Atlantic Professor of Telecommunications at Temple University. From 1986 to 1994 he was President and Chief Executive of Nova Systems, Inc., a software firm. He is the author, co-author or editor of ten books. His best known book, Who Owns the Media? was published as an all-new third edition in 2000. Other books include The Digital Divide: Facing a Crisis or Creating a Myth? (2001) and The Information Resources Policy Handbook (1999). His articles have appeared in trade, popular, and scholarly journals. A graduate of Dickinson College, he received his M.B.A from Harvard University and Ph.D. from Temple University. He has been a consultant and invited speaker at conferences and seminars in the U.S., Europe, South America, Asia, Australia, and Canada. On media industry structure issues, he believes that much of the debate is misinformed and ignores massive changes in the information industry, the global economy, and social dynamics. Compaine has never worked for or been paid by a major media company.

Dr. Mark Cooper

Dr. Mark Cooper is Director of Research at the Consumer Federation of America where he has responsibility for analysis and advocacy in the areas of telecommunications, media, digital rights, economic and energy policy. Dr. Cooper holds a Ph.D. from Yale University and is a former Yale University and Fulbright Fellow. He is the author of Media Ownership and Democracy in the Digital Information Age (pdf)

Thomas W. Hazlett

Dr. Hazlett is currently a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a columnist for the Financial Times’ New Economy Policy Forum, a Senior Research Associate at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, and a Fellow of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies. His research focuses on law and economics, with particular emphasis on telecommunications policy. From 1984 through June 2000, Dr. Hazlett was a professor at the University of California, Davis, where he taught economics and finance and served as Director of the Program on Telecommunications Policy. In 1990-91 he was a Visiting Scholar at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, and in 1991-92 Dr. Hazellet served as Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission. He has been widely published in academic journals and a number of news and opinion periodicals. His book (with Matthew L. Spitzer), Public Policy Toward Cable Television, was published by the MIT Press in 1997. He has provided expert testimony in Congress, in federal and state courts, for the Department of Commerce, and for the FCC. He has also served as a consultant to numerous private firms, the State of California, the Congressional Budget Office, federal agencies, and municipal and foreign governments. Dr. Hazlett received his Ph.D. in economics from U.C.L.A

Professor Jerry Kang

Professor Kang is a Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School during 2003-2004 where he teaches courses in communications policy, Asian-American jurisprudence, and civil procedure.

Dr. Kevin Kawamoto

Dr. Kevin Kawamoto is the author and editor of two books, respectively, on digital media: Media and Society in the Digital Age, published by Allyn & Bacon, and Digital Journalism: Emerging Media and the Changing Horizons of Journalism, published by Rowman & Littlefield. He was the technology studies manager at The Freedom Forum Media Studies Center when it was located at Columbia University in New York City and taught courses in digital media as an assistant professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he also received his Ph.D. in communications. He has given presentations at more than 30 mostly media-related conferences or seminars and currently works in public relations. He is currently writing a book about public relations and digital media.

Cheryl A. Leanza

Cheryl A. Leanza is the Deputy Director of Media Access Project-- a non-profit, public interest law firm which promotes the public's First Amendment right to hear and be heard on the electronic media of today and tomorrow. In August 2003, MAP filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in an effort to abolish the FCC's new media ownership rules on behalf of its client, the Philadelphia-based Prometheus Radio Project. Ms. Leanza has played an active rold int his litigation, and participated in oral arguments held in February 2004. Ms. Leanza joined MAP after working on common carrier issues for more than two years at the Federal Communications Commission. While at the Commission she worked towards the implementation of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Ms. Leanza is currently.

Mark Lloyd

Mr. Lloyd is the Executive Director of the Civil Rights Telecommunications Forum, a project created to bring civil rights principles and advocacy to the communications policy debate. Mr. Lloyd also serves as General Counsel and a member of the Board of Directors of the Benton Foundation, a national foundation based in Washington, DC which promotes media in the public interest through its work with the foundation and non-profit community. Previously, Mr. Lloyd worked as a communications attorney at the Washington, DC law firm of Dow, Lohnes & Albertson, where he represented commercial communication companies, including Cox Broadcasting, Comcast Cable, Black Entertainment Television, Inc., and a variety of noncommercial companies including Ohio State University Broadcasting, WETA, and the Instructional Television Council. In addition, Mr. Lloyd has nearly twenty years of award-winning experience as a journalist. A recipient of the University of Michigan's Avery Hopwood writing award, Mr. Lloyd wrote regularly for the Michigan Daily and the Westland Eagle, he has had articles and commentary on communications and affirmative action issues printed in the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, and FOCUS magazine. He is also a former broadcast reporter, talk show host, and producer of radio and television programs which have aired on both public and commercial stations, locally and nationally. He is the recipient of an EMMY, a CINE Golden Eagle, and a variety of other awards for his work in television and radio. Mr. Lloyd has also served with the 1992 Clinton Transition Team and in the Clinton White House advising the President and the Office of Domestic Policy on personnel, policy, and organizational issues related to arts and communications. Mr. Lloyd received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan, where he majored in both Political Science and Journalism, and his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center.

Peggy Miles

Ms. Peggy Miles is the President and Founder of Intervox Communications, considered the leading digital broadcasting company providing Internet interactive project management and implementation, Net broadcasting consultation and electronic commerce solutions. Ms. Miles is also founder of webcasters.org - International Webcasting Association and Executive Editor of “Digital Media Magazine” (formerly Streaming Magazine). In addition she has authored several books on digital broadcasting including Internet Age Broadcaster, Internet World Guide to Webcasting: the Complete Guide to Broadcasting on the Web and NAB Executive Technology Briefing - DTV and Digital Broadcasting (forthcoming).

David Oxenford

David Oxenford is a partner in Shaw Pittman's communications group. His practice focuses on broadcast issues, representing broadcast stations, financial institutions, consulting firms, program providers, and others involved in the broadcast industry. He currently concentrates on transactional and regulatory matters, including counseling clients on issues relating to the Internet. In the past, he was active in complex multiparty comparative litigation before the FCC. Mr. Oxenford represents a number of state broadcast associations, and is a frequent speaker before state and national broadcasting association meetings and continuing legal education seminars. Mr. Oxenford earned his J.D. from Emory University Law School and his B.A. from the College of William and Mary.

John Palfrey

Mr. Palfrey serves as Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and is a Lecturer on Law here at Harvard Law School. His research interests include the Internet and democracy, intellectual property, and technology law as it relates to commercial transactions. His recent work includes "Public Participation in ICANN" (along with co-authors Noah Eisenkraft, Clifford Chen, and Sam Hwang) and a working paper entitled "The End of the Experiment: How ICANN's Foray into Global Internet Democracy Failed." Mr. Palfrey is also a member of the research team of the Digital Media Project. Previously, Mr. Palfrey was with the law firm Ropes & Gray, where he worked on intellectual property, Internet law, and private equity transactions. Mr. Palfrey is also a co-founder and a former officer of a venture-backed technology company. He also maintains a blog. Mr. Palfrey has degrees from Harvard College, the University of Cambridge, and Harvard Law School.

Adam Clayton Powell III

Adam Clayton Powell III is a leading broadcast reporter, executive, author, and thoughtful analyst of new media technology. He is currently a Visiting Professor at USC Annenberg's School of Journalism where he teaches courses in broadcast journalism and new technology. Powell is the co-author of "Lethargy `96: How the Media Covered a Listless Campaign," and he has also contributed to: "NextMedia Reader: New Technology and the American Newsroom," "The Internet for Broadcasters, Demystifying Media Technology" and "Death by Cheeseburger: High School Journalism in the 1990s and Beyond." Mr. Powell has served as general manager of Howard University’s WHUT-TV and as Vice President/Technology and Programs for the Freedom Forum. In his 15 years at the Freedom Forum, Mr. Powell developed and supervised new media conferences and seminars and training programs on Internet- and computer-based media and information technology for journalists, educators, policy makers, and researchers. He created the weekly "Newseum Radio" public radio magazine program and a 24 hour Internet audio service. He also led a series of programs focusing on media in Africa. Mr. Powell has also been a reporter and producer at WCBS-TV in New York and spent several years with CBS News as a manager of radio and television news for the network, covering events ranging from manned space flights and elections to urban unrest and the Iran hostage crisis.

Professor Frederick Schauer

Professor Schauer is the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Formerly Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, he is the author of The Law of Obscenity (BNA, 1976), Free Speech: A Philosophical Enquiry (Cambridge, 1982), Playing By the Rules (Oxford, 1991), and the recently published Profiles, Probabilities, and Stereotypes (Harvard, 2003). A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Schauer’s most recent article, "The Boundaries of the First Amendment," will be published in the April 2004 issue of the Harvard Law Review.

Shari Steele

Ms. Steele currently serves as the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation--an organization that seeks to protect civil liberties and educate the public about civil liberties issues related to technology. Prior to becoming EFF's Executive Director in 2000, Ms. Steele served as EFF's Legal Director for eight years. She is also co-founder of Bridges.org, a nonprofit working to ensure sound technology policy in developing nations. She has spoken widely on civil liberties law in newly emerging technologies, including on the CBS Evening News, C-SPAN's Washington Journal, The Today Show, CNN, the BBC, and National Public Radio. She has spoken about Internet law as part of the Smithsonian Institution's lecture series on the Internet, the ABA's TechWorld Conference, the National Law Journal's annual Computer Law Conference, and the National Forum for Women Corporate Counsel. A graduate of Widener University School of Law, Ms. Steele later served as a teaching fellow at Georgetown University Law Center, where she earned an LL.M. degree in Advocacy. Ms. Steele also holds a Master of Science degree in Instructional Media from West Chester University.

Bruce A. Taylor

Mr. Taylor joined the Department of Justice on January 26, 2004, as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division. He will work primarily on federal obscenity prosecution issues. From 1989-1994, Bruce was at the Department of Justice as a Special Attorney in the Criminal Division’s National Obscenity Enforcement Unit and then a Senior Trial Attorney in the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section. He has served as an Assistant Attorney General of Arizona in 1989 and was an Assistant Prosecutor and Assistant Director of Law for the City of Cleveland, where he handled 600 obscenity cases and 100 appeals from 1973-78. Since 1973, he has prosecuted nearly 100 state and federal obscenity jury cases, as well as trials on prostitution, RICO, child pornography, and child sexual abuse, has written over 200 appeal and amicus curiae briefs, presented over 50 appellate arguments, and has represented public officials, law enforcement personnel, and citizens in civil lawsuits on civil rights, zoning, Internet pornography, nuisance abatement, injunctions, forfeiture actions, criminal procedure, defamation, and First Amendment challenges to federal, state, and municipal laws. Since 1995, he was President and Chief Counsel of the National Law Center for Children and Families in Fairfax, Virginia, where he assisted prosecutors, police, legislators, and public officials with laws and cases involving obscenity, child pornography, commercial sexual exploitation, protecting minors from Internet pornography, and trafficking in persons.

Dr. David Weinberger

Dr. David Weinberger is a co-author of the bestselling book, The Cluetrain Manifesto and author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined. He is a frequent commentator on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" and "Here and Now," is a columnist for KMWorld, and has been published in many magazines including Wired, Harvard Business Review, Salon, The NY Times, and Release 1.0. He is also the author of three weblogs: Joho the Blog, Loose Democracy, and Many2Many. David was Senior Internet Advisor to the Dean campaign and was recently accepted as a Fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto.

Matthew Zinn

Matthew Zinn is currently Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary, and Chief Privacy Officer for TiVo Inc. In this role, Mr. Zinn is responsible for all of the company’s legal, public policy, and consumer privacy issues. Previously, Mr. Zinn was Senior Counsel, Broadband Law and Policy for MediaOne Group Inc. in Denver, Colorado. In this role he developed strategies and advocacy positions on video and high-speed data issues, including privacy, negotiated carriage deals with television programmers, and provided legal support to MediaOne’s corporate marketing, sales, and operations. Prior to MediaOne, Mr. Zinn was Corporate Counsel for Continental Cablevision in Los Angeles, California. Before moving west, Mr. Zinn worked for the law firm of Cole, Raywid & Braverman in Washington, D.C. representing communications clients before federal, state, and local government agencies. Mr. Zinn holds a juris doctorate from the George Washington University National Law Center and a bachelor’s of arts degree in political science from the University of Vermont. He is a frequent speaker at conferences addressing legal and policy issues confronting the multi-channel video industry.