The departure of Free Press Executive Director Josh Silver is...

is leaving to form a new group, the Democracy Fund, and will be replaced by Managing Director Craig Aaron. “I don’t think it makes much difference,” said an FCC official. “Free Press serves a constituency and it’s a constituency that will remain the same.” An official at another public interest group said Free Press’s Washington, D.C., office operated largely independently of its Massachusetts headquarters. “Josh was very good at providing overall vision and direction, keeping the faithful pumped, and bringing in money -- basically what you want from an executive director,” the source said. Senior Vice President Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project said that, “in organizing a mass constituency on media policy issues, Josh has accomplished something that many others had tried, and failed, to do.” Commissioner Michael Copps said that “many of the causes” Free Press “champions are causes for which I also have fought. Due in no small part to the efforts of Josh and the dedicated staff at Free Press, the voices of millions of Americans that would otherwise have gone unheard have been heard here at the FCC and in the halls of Congress.” Silver, who has been at Free Press since it was founded in 2002, said his new group will aim for “reforming the media and reducing the influence of the K Street lobbying juggernaut.”