Jonathan Adelstein

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jonathan Steven Adelstein is currently one of the United States FCC Commissioners.

Jonathan S. Adelstein

He was sworn in as a member of the Federal Communications Commission on December 3, 2002, and sworn in for a new five-year term on December 6, 2004.

A life-long public servant, Adelstein has dedicated his career to fighting for the public interest. As a Commissioner, his approach is guided by the key principle that the public interest means securing access to communications for everyone, including those the market may leave behind.

Adelstein is a particularly strong advocate for media diversity and localism, and works diligently to encourage increased voices on the airwaves to support a well-informed citizenry. He has worked to promote access to telecommunications and media outlets by minorities, rural and low-income consumers, people with disabilities, and non-English speakers.

To ensure that all consumers have access to the latest telecommunications systems no matter where they live, Adelstein has strived to improve universal service. He has also encouraged broadcasters to use the digital transition to better serve their communities with local, public affairs and other cultural and educational programming. He has advocated for a substantive national broadband strategy with aggressive goals and specific policy recommendations. He also has played an active role at the Commission in promoting new policies that improve access to spectrum by both large and small companies so that consumers can continue to maintain those connections in our increasingly portable world.

Adelstein has been a national leader on combating the negative effects of the increasing commercialization of American media. Most recently, he spearheaded vigorous enforcement against reported violations of federal payola rules – a payola scandal that he believes may represent the most widespread and flagrant violation of any FCC rules in the history of American broadcasting. The effort resulted in an historic settlement with a number of major radio companies that establishes strong procedures to prevent future recurrences of payola.

Before joining the FCC, Adelstein served for fifteen years as a staff member in the United States Senate. For the last seven years, he was a senior legislative aide to United States Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), where he advised Senator Daschle on telecommunications, financial services, transportation and other key issues. Previously, he served as Professional Staff Member to Senate Special Committee on Aging Chairman David Pryor (D-AR), including an assignment as a special liaison to Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), and as a Legislative Assistant to Senator Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (D-MI).

Prior to his service in the Senate, Adelstein held a number of academic positions, including: Teaching Fellow in the Department of History, Harvard University; Teaching Assistant in the Department of History, Stanford University; and Communications Consultant to the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Adelstein received a B.A. with Distinction in Political Science from Stanford University, an M.A. in History from Stanford University, studied at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and is a graduate of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, the Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society and the Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honor Society.

Adelstein was born and raised in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Plays the harmonica, and once took harmonica lessons from Howard Levy.^[1]