Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) told FCC nominees Mignon Clyburn and Meredith Attwell Baker that the FCC was broken, and he expects them to fix it. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) asked Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor about the Internet and the First Amendment. And the mainstream media's racist and sexist coverage of Sotomayor's nomination is making Mary Alice Crim of Free Press angry.

The House considers legislation on protecting consumers from online marketers' secret data mining for behavioral advertising. Julius Genachowski become Chairman of the FCC, and the Personal Democracy Forum mashed up politics and technology for the sixth year.

The Broadband Internet Fairness Act would help prevent overcharging by Internet Service Providers by requiring the companies to submit their pricing schemes to the Federal Trade Commission for approval. And the Allied Media Conference incorporates a wide range of issues and artists, educators and social justice organizers who use media as a tool for change.

Cell phone policies are being investigated by Congress, and the FreeMyPhone campaign is harnessing consumer anger over closed wireless networks in hopes of creating policy solutions to open them up. And the Bronx News Network is bringing local news to underserved areas in the northwest Bronx.

Local radio wins a victory in the courts and gets a hearing in Congress. And the ACLU helps lead the way in unblocking Web sites based on "viewpoint discrimination" in Tennessee and Indiana schools.

Good planning is important for communities that want to fund their Wi-Fi networks with federal broadband stimulus money. And the Performance Rights Act would compensate performers and record labels when their songs are played on the radio.

A rich discussion about the future of journalism, the importance of public media and the urgent need for high-speed broadband access throughout the United States took place in Washington, D.C., as stakeholders from each sector sat together to talk about issues of content production and infrastructure.

At a moment when technology and media are rapidly changing, the Free Press Summit explored the future of the Internet and the fate of journalism in the 21st century. More than 500 people packed a room on the seventh floor of the Newseum in Washington, D.C., to discuss the state of journalism, public media and the Internet in America.

People in prison and their families are paying excessively high telephone bills to keep in touch. And in Chicago, four top TV news stations will share newsgathering resources, but one top station refused to join them.

The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on “The Future of Journalism.” And a new study from the Future of Music Coalition examines playlist data from across the country to determine if FCC efforts to diversify music on the radio have made an impact.