The Free Press Summit featured speeches from Acting FCC Chair Michael Copps and from Susan Crawford of President Barack Obama's National Economic Council. The summit also featured a panel presentation including former FCC Chairmen Reed Hundt and Michael Powell.

Check out written transcripts, audio and video of the presentations.

Read more about our featured speakers:

• Craig Aaron Senior Program Director, Free Press

  Craig Aaron leads all Free Press program, advocacy and communications efforts. He works in the Washington office and speaks regularly on media, Internet and journalism issues. His commentaries appear regularly in the Guardian and the Huffington Post, and he blogs at both SavetheInternet.com and StopBigMedia.com. He is a regular guest on talk radio shows across the country and is quoted often in the national and local press. Before joining Free Press, he was an investigative reporter for Public Citizen's Congress Watch, where he helped create and launch WhiteHouseForSale.org. Craig was also managing editor of In These Times magazine and is the editor of the book Appeal to Reason: 25 Years In These Times.

• Michael Copps Acting FCC Chairman

  Michael J. Copps is the acting chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. He was sworn in for his second term as a member of the FCC on Jan. 3, 2006, and has served as a commissioner since May 31, 2001. Copps served until Jan­uary 2001 as assistant secretary of commerce for trade development at the U.S. Department of Commerce. In that role, Copps worked to improve market access and market share for nearly every sector of American industry, including information technologies, telecom­munications, aerospace, automotive, environmental technologies, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, textiles, service industries and tourism. Copps devoted much of his time to building private-public sector partnerships to enhance our nation’s success in the global economy. From 1993 to 1998, Copps served as deputy assistant secretary for basic industries, a component of the Trade Development Unit. Copps moved to Washington in 1970, joined the staff of Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.), and served for more than a dozen years as administrative assistant and chief of staff.

• Susan Crawford National Economic Council

  Susan Crawford currently serves on President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council. She led the FCC review team during the presidential transition. Previously, she taught Internet and communications law at the University of Michigan Law School. Crawford previously served as a member of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and is a founder of OneWebDay. Crawford received her B.A. (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and J.D. from Yale University. She served as a clerk for Judge Raymond J. Dearie of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and was a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (Washington, D.C.) until the end of 2002, when she left that firm to enter the legal academy.

• Mary Alice Crim Free Press

  Mary Alice Crim is an outreach coordinator for Free Press and conducts a variety of advocacy, organizing and public education activities to broaden the movement for media reform. She also supports the planning and implementation of the National Conference for Media Reform. Before joining Free Press, Mary Alice received a bachelor’s degree in media studies and Spanish, with a minor in women’s studies, from Southern Connecticut State University.

• Reed Hundt Former FCC Chairman

  Reed Hundt was named chairman of the FCC by President Clinton and was sworn in by Vice President Gore on November 29, 1993. Before becoming chairman of the FCC, Hundt was a partner in the Washington office of Latham & Watkins, a national and international law firm. Hundt is currently a senior adviser on information industries to McKinsey & Company, a worldwide management consulting firm in Washington, D.C. He serves on the board of Intel Corporation and other high-technology startups. He is the author of You Say You Want a Revolution (Yale University Press, 2000) and In China's Shadow, The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship(Yale University Press, 2006).

• Alberto Ibargüen President, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

  Alberto Ibargüen is president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Ibargüen is the former publisher of The Miami Herald and of El Nuevo Herald. He studied at Wesleyan University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He practiced law in Hartford, Conn., until he joined The Hartford Courant, and then Newsday in New York before moving to Miami. Ibargüen is chairman of the board of the Newseum in Washington, D.C., a museum dedicated to free speech and a free press. He is a member of the boards of PepsiCo, AMR Corp., ProPublica and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has also served as board chair of PBS.

• Timothy Karr Campaign Coordinator, Free Press

  Timothy Karr oversees all Free Press campaigns and online outreach efforts, including SavetheInternet.com and our work on public broadcasting, propaganda and journalism. Before joining Free Press, Tim served as executive director of MediaChannel.org and vice president of Globalvision New Media and the Globalvision News Network. He has also worked extensively as an editor, reporter and photojournalist for the Associated Press, Time Inc., the New York Times and Australia Consolidated Press.

• Jennifer Lilley Lilley Planning Group

  Jennifer Lilley is president of the Lilley Planning Group. Over the past 15 years, she has focused on assisting communities with their planning needs and improving the interaction between the public and government agencies. Jennifer has provided recent facilitation and training services to the County of Ventura – Harbor Commission, to the City of San Gabriel Downtown Business District, and to the cities of Anaheim and Culver City in California. Jennifer has been a facilitator for America Speaks for their “Listening to the City – Rebuilding Together” and “California Speaks – Health Care” events. She will serve as the lead facilitator for the Free Press Summit discussion series.

• Michael Powell Former FCC Chairman

  Michael Powell was nominated by President Clinton to a Republican seat on the FCC, and joined the commission in 1997. He was named chairman by President Bush in 2001 and served until 2005. Chairman Powell previously served as the chief of staff of the Antitrust Division in the Department of Justice. Before joining the Antitrust Division, Powell clerked for the Honorable Harry T. Edwards, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and was an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP. Powell is currently a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute.

• Jessica Rosenworcel Senior Legal Counsel, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

  Jessica Rosenworcel is senior legal counsel to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, where she works on communications and media issues. Rosenworcel most recently served as senior legal adviser to Commissioner Michael Copps at the FCC, where she worked on media and broadcast issues. Previously, she served as competition and universal service legal adviser to Commissioner Copps. Prior to that, she served as legal counsel to the chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau. Before joining the commission, Rosenworcel was an associate at Drinker Biddle & Reath. She received her law degree from New York University School of Law and her undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University.

• Alexandra Russell Program Director, Free Press

  Alexandra Russell supervises advocacy, outreach, education and organizing initiatives for Free Press. Prior to joining Free Press, Alex served as foundation director and political director of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation & Lee Family Office and as director of Mass. Voters for Fair Elections. She has run grassroots campaigns with the PIRGs and earned her master’s degree from Boston University.

• Vivian Schiller President, National Public Radio

  A media executive and journalist with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry, Vivian Schiller joined NPR as president and CEO on January 5, 2009. She came to NPR from the New York Times Company, where she served as senior vice president and general manager of NYTimes.com. As president and CEO, Schiller oversees all NPR operations and initiatives, including the organization's critical partnerships with more than 800 member stations, and their service to the more than 26 million people who listen to NPR programming every week. Schiller is charged with assuring the fiscal and operational integrity of NPR, offering a clear and strong commitment to continuous strategic growth, and building the organization and its philanthropic base in ways that support the mission of NPR and its member stations.

• Ben Scott Policy Director, Free Press

  Ben Scott oversees all Free Press governmental outreach and regularly testifies before Congress and the FCC. The Washington Post called him a "driving force" in media and technology policy. Before joining Free Press, Ben was a legislative fellow for then-Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Ben has been quoted in publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and Salon, and featured as a commentator on MSNBC, BBC, PBS, C-SPAN, NPR and local stations across the country. He is the author of several scholarly articles on American journalism and is co-editor of the books Our Unfree Press and The Future of Media.

• Ram Shriram Founder, Sherpalo

  Ram Shiram is the founder of Sherpalo, a mentor capital firm that supports the development and commercialization of early-stage disruptive new technologies. Before launching Sherpalo, Ram served as an officer of Amazon.com, where he worked for founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and helped to grow the company’s customer base. Ram came to Amazon in 1998, when the company acquired Junglee, an online comparison shopping firm of which Ram was president. Before Junglee and Amazon, Ram was a member of the Netscape executive team, where he drove the many partnerships and channels that Netscape employed to get distribution for its browser and server products. Ram is a founding board member of Google Inc. and 247customer.com. He also serves on the boards of Zazzle.com and Predictify.

• Josh Silver Executive Director, Free Press

  Josh Silver oversees all Free Press programs, campaigns, fundraising and special projects. Josh, who co-founded Free Press in 2002 to engage the American public in media policy, speaks and publishes widely on media and technology issues. Josh was previously campaign manager for the successful Clean Elections in Arizona ballot initiative; director of development for the cultural arm of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; and director of an international youth exchange program. Josh has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal and featured in outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Salon, C-SPAN and NPR.

• Ray Suarez Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour

  Ray Suarez is the Washington-based senior correspondent for The NewsHour. Suarez has more than thirty years of varied experience in the news business. Before joining The NewsHour, he was the host of the nationwide, call-in news program "Talk of the Nation" for National Public Radio. Prior to that, he spent seven years covering local, national, and international stories for the NBC-owned station, WMAQ-TV in Chicago. Earlier in his career, Suarez was a Los Angeles correspondent for CNN, a producer for the ABC Radio Network in New York, a reporter for CBS Radio in Rome, and a reporter for various American and British news services in London. His writing has been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and many other publications. A life member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Suarez was a founding member of the Chicago Association of Hispanic Journalists.

• Megan Tady Free Press

  Megan Tady is a campaign coordinator for Free Press. She blogs at SavetheInternet.com and StopBigMedia.com, and writes a monthly column for InTheseTimes.com about media access, journalism and the Internet. Megan produced the documentary series "America Offline," interviewing people across the country about the digital divide. Prior to joining Free Press, Megan was a national political reporter for In These Times magazine, a staff reporter and editor for The New Standard, and worked extensively as a freelance journalist.

• Misty Perez Truedson Free Press

  Misty Perez Truedson is a campaign coordinator for Free Press and conducts strategic communications, organizing and online outreach activities to build the media reform movement. She works with community-based organizations, public interest groups, academics and other allies to encourage participation in Free Press campaigns and events, with a particular focus on the SavetheInternet.com campaign. Prior to joining Free Press, Misty was the statewide grassroots organizing coordinator for Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. She has a master’s degree in community development and planning from Clark University.

• S. Derek Turner Research Director, Free Press

  S. Derek Turner oversees Free Press policy analysis and regularly testifies before Congress and the FCC. Derek has written extensively on a wide range of media and technology issues. His reports have examined the state of broadband competition in America, the role of the Universal Service Fund in the 21st century, and the lack of female and minority media ownership. His landmark studies include: Down Payment on Our Digital Future: Stimulus Policies for the 21st-Century Economy; Shooting the Messenger: Myth vs. Reality in U.S. Broadband Policy; Broadband Reality Check; Off the Dial; and Out of the Picture. Derek holds a master’s degree in public policy from the Goldman School at the University of California, Berkeley.

• Tim Wu Columbia University and Chair of the Board, Free Press

  Tim Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School and is chair of the Free Press board, specializing in telecommunications law and copyright. He is the co-author of Who Controls the Internet? (Oxford University Press, 2006) and is a regular contributor to Slate magazine. In 2006, Wu was recognized by Scientific American magazine for his early writing on Network Neutrality. He previously worked at Riverstone Networks in Silicon Valley and was a law clerk for Judge Richard Posner and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Wu graduated from McGill University (B.Sc) and Harvard Law School, and he has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Chicago and Stanford Law School. In 2007, Wu was named one of Harvard University's 100 most influential graduates by 02138 Magazine. Wu is on the advisory board of Public Knowledge, is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and once worked at Hoo's Dumplings.