McDowell, House Republicans Take Aim at FCC’s Revamped Website

The website came up as a topic briefly Tuesday during an oversight hearing by the House Communications Subcommittee. (See story above.) Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., told FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski he found it difficult to search for documents on the agency’s new website. Walden specifically asked how broadcasters should search and upload documents to the FCC website relating to the commission’s political file rule. Genachowski told Walden that broadcasters should search for the word “public inspection file” in the search bar on the FCC home page and links to the information they need will be listed in the search results. Walden replied: “I've never been good at navigating your site, by the way, but that is another issue for another day.”

Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., also expressed frustration with the new FCC website at the hearing and told the commissioners “some people are saying it is a little more difficult [to use] than the old one.” The concern expressed by House members picks up on continuing frustration with the new site on the part of many users.

Commissioner Robert McDowell said in an interview Tuesday the website was due for an overhaul when Genachowski became chairman in 2009. “He deserves credit for making that a priority,” McDowell said. “At the same time, the changes that are now in place were contemplated about three years ago and in Internet time that’s an eternity, so it’s probably time for a fresh look at a new design.” McDowell questioned who uses the new website. “I don’t know of a single FCC employee who does not use the transition button to use the old format, nor do I know of a practitioner on the outside who doesn’t also use the transition button to get to the old format,” he said. “The old format, as imperfect as it is, seems to be more efficient for them, based on what people are telling me."

But FCC Managing Director David Robinson, in charge of the FCC’s Web presence, defended the revised site. “We are proud of the work the FCC has done to improve our website,” he said Tuesday. “We'll continue to update the site with improvements large and small to fit the varied needs of all our users, including developing unique tools such as the Bill Shock Tracker, Small Biz Cyber Planner, and industry-leading mapping products. We welcome the input that helped inform many of the changes users see today.” Robinson told us he would encourage people to give the new site another chance rather than just clicking through to the transition site.

"Most of the people I talk to are still using the old website, and that goes for me as well,” said Free State Foundation President Randolph May. “I'm not sure whether the resources that went into developing the new site were worth it, considering that it is still easier to find most of what you are looking for on the old site."

"I have seen modest improvements, such as the way ECFS documents load, but I don’t know anyone who uses the new site,” said communications lawyer Andrew Schwartzman. “To the extent that there have been a few tweaks, they have done nothing to publicize them on the front page, or anywhere else that I have seen. The only exception to that was the creation of MyFCC, which I found to be useless.” An FCC spokesman said the changes have been publicized for those who watch more closely.

In a June 2011 interview, VanRoekel stressed that the FCC was continuing to improve its website, which, he said, targets a wider audience than the lawyers, journalists and others who use the FCC site almost every day (CD June 6/11 p2). The site has undergone numerous changes since, many based on feedback from lawyers and others who use the website every day. But the new site continues to take criticism. In February, the FCC’s Consumer Affairs Committee announced it is looking at the new website and whether it really is more consumer friendly than the old site (CD Feb 27 p6). Last December, the website was even lampooned during a staff Christmas carol, set to the tune “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.” “I know whom to blame for this catastrophe, a rogue named Steve who left the agency."

Other frequent users of the website told us they continue to have problems trying to navigate the new site. “Overall, the website remains difficult to navigate and counterintuitive, but there has been some improvement for individual bureaus, especially the Office of General Counsel,” said a top communications lawyer. “It’s still easier to use the transition site for now.”

"I gave up on the FCC’s new site months ago,” said Harry Cole of Fletcher Heald in an email. “I use a link to the older version of the site, which provides me reasonably direct access to the information that I generally need to find on the site. However, prompted by your inquiry, I have taken a look at the new version of the site for the first time in a long time. I acknowledge that a number of changes appear to have been made, but I remain skeptical of the overall utility of what appear to be a majority of the changes.”

Cole cited a recent blog by the FCC highlighting changes to the site (http://xrl.us/bngeg8). Among the changes highlighted by the FCC was the addition of a headline archives, improved homepage navigation to include bureaus and offices, expanded quick links and additional documents available in the FCC Newsroom. The blog also noted the creation of MyFCC. “Adding a ‘Headline Archives’ should have been a no-brainer -- in fact, such an archive should have been included from the get-go,” Cole said. “The cute ‘MyFCC’ function might be nice to use, if it were explained in useful terms that an infinitely unhip person like me might be able to grasp. But when the introductory page to that function advises me, in the first sentence, that ‘MyFCC’ is intended to allow me to ‘create a customized FCC online experience,’ my inclination is to back away slowly and find something else to do.”

The website also continues to attract some criticism based on responses posted on the website itself. “I find your new home page egregiously offensive, both emotionally and intellectually,” said one particularly strong posting (http://xrl.us/bnf995). “Why does the FCC feel compelled to compete with grossly over-hyped and over-dramatized TV news? Is this really the best approach to getting more citizens to educate themselves?"

But Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld said he understands what the FCC is trying to accomplish. “The problem is that there are two audiences. There are the people who are practitioners who use the website constantly and are probably still using the old website (like I am),” Feld said in an email. “We need to remember that while the FCC certainly should facilitate ease of use for regular users, the website also needs to work for the average person who is visiting for the first time and wants to know why they can’t reach 911 after last week’s storms, or who wants to complain that her local station won’t let her see its public file. It needs to work for folks at start ups trying to figure out how to apply for device certification or for an experimental license. Much as I and my colleagues here in D.C. think we are the only audience that matters, it’s not all about us."

Eric Gundersen of DevelopmentSeed.org also defended the new website. “I hope other federal agencies do the same to make the wonk [work] they do appeal to a wider audience,” he said. “It’s so much easier to find the data now than before” and the new website is faster, he said. The main problem is that people take time to adjust to something new, Gunderson said.

Meanwhile, official FCC blog posts are down markedly over the past two years. There has only been one posting so far this month and there was only one in June, while the FCC posted 39 blog entries in October 2010, the heaviest month to date. One FCC official said some of the posts created problems for the chairman’s office among other commissioners and so the falloff was understandable. “If they're not adding fresh content, then search engine spiders and people don’t have a reason to come back,” said Roy Morejon, president of Command Partners, a digital marketing agency.

President Barack Obama’s Open Government Directive issued in December 2009 required agencies to publish information online in open formats and to proactively provide information to the public (http://xrl.us/bne6f6). The directive encouraged many agencies to publish information through blogs, said Jed Sundwall, CEO of Measured Voice, a social media consulting group.

FCC launched its blog along with its official website revamp in 2010 to meet the open directives requirements (CD Jan 8/10 p7). “Government agencies should use social media more generally because citizens, public consumers, and stakeholders are starting to demand that kind of access,” Sundwall said. “People want a place where they can see [activity].”

Blogs are difficult undertakings for federal agencies due to the risk involved, said Feld, an active blogger. Readers tend to give blogs the same amount of weight and study as official communication, making informal blogging more difficult, he said. “Unless you're willing to take a certain amount of risk to make it more personal, it’s not an improvement over public notices,” and agencies typically don’t care for risk, he said.

A lack of focus and vision may have also contributed to the falloff in posts, Feld said. “They don’t have a good vision of what they think they want to do with it other than provide transparency,” he said, saying transparency isn’t enough. The FCC needs to determine its target audience and the message it wants to convey, Feld said.

"A good blog has to be purposeful,” Sundwall said. “It has to meet the audience’s expectations.” The decrease in posting may be due to VanRoekel’s departure last year, Sundwall said. “Blogs need to have executive support to succeed,” he said. Blog posting feels less like work to agency employees and more like playing second fiddle because blog writing wasn’t part of their training, Sundwall said. As a result, blogging isn’t taken seriously unless backed by executive support, he said.

Consistent posting, even if only once per month, is more important than volume, Sundwall said. “I don’t think readers are paying attention that much,” he said. “As long as you're somewhat reliable, you're fine.” Readers do notice more when posting dies, he said. “The blog is the public facing” of an agency, Morejon said. “If you don’t [blog], it almost seems like you're not transparent.”

Cole questioned the FCC’s continued emphasis on social networking. “What purpose, after all, does a blog serve within the scope of the FCC’s statutory duties and the Administrative Procedure Act?” he asked. “Blogging by individual FCC reps may provide those reps an opportunity to try to put a more human face on the bureaucratic machine -- and I want to be sure to emphasize that many at the Commission are extremely personable, helpful, people -- but in the end, regardless of their fundamental niceness and seeming reasonableness, the fact is that the FCC can act only in a limited number of ways (as dictated by the [Communications] Act and the APA). So, again, what is the purpose of the blog and why is it featured front and center on the homepage? That leads to an even broader question that troubles me about the FCC’s website. The overriding goal of the site -- at least as far as I can tell -- seems to be to encourage public interaction with the agency. ... I recognize that the commission has, in recent years, sought to re-cast itself as a ‘consumer protection’ agency, despite the fact that there is no historical or legislative basis for that claimed role as far as I am aware. And certainly, it’s hard to object to a public agency encouraging public involvement. But at some point, increased volume of incoming comments/complaints/discussions becomes ineffective, if not counterproductive. It amps up the level of overall noise without necessarily contributing substantially to the FCC’s ability to do its job. And it creates a smokescreen which hampers, rather than assures, the much-vaunted quality of ’transparency.'”