FCC Lobbying: A Handbook of Insider Tips and Practical Advice.

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Date: 01 March 2002
• Author: Sterling, Christopher H.
• Published date: 01 March 2002
• Author: Sterling, Christopher H.

FCC Lobbying: A Handbook of Insider Tips and Practical Advice, Erwin G. Krasnow, David R. Siddall, and Michael D. Berg, Washington: Telecommunications Reports International, 2001, 225 pages.

This handbook is exactly what the well-heeled lobbyist--or would-be lobbyist--needs. Three experienced Washington communications attorneys, with input from a number of other individuals, have pooled their backgrounds and insights to create a desk-top guide to working the FCC system, or, as they might prefer to say, making the system work. As immediate past FCC chairman Bill Kennard says in his brief foreword, "you need this book," and he goes on to note that even he "learned a thing or two" from it, despite a career as a practicing attorney before becoming a regulator.

Admittedly the world of Washington can be a morass, especially tot the noninitiated. Even those of us who live and work here can lose track of the roads that lead to the information we need, if only because those roads keep being rerouted. For example, agencies change their document release (or Web posting) process, rules concerning who can talk to whom are modified, people shift jobs, and computer systems designed to make things better often make them much worse. In addition, there is always the time factor; there is seemingly never enough time to get the information one needs, or to communicate views that must reach policymakers.

All of the aforementioned factors led these seasoned attorneys to...