Open meetings, public records laws not only concern

As a law professor with administrative law focus, I read Diane Heldt's well-written “Iowa Public Radio attorney: IPR not a government body” story, March 26, and found it offers me a delicious final exam essay question.

As a former Federal Communications Commission commissioner, I see more here than Iowa's open meetings and public records laws.

There's a reason why Iowa's public universities hold licenses to this multi-million-dollar statewide network.

Frieda Hennock, the FCC's first woman commissioner, set aside the low FM frequencies for non-commercial “educational” stations.

Today's Iowa Public Radio is neither non-commercial nor educational. Indeed, it's baffling why schools that think they're misunderstood don't use this valuable resource to tell their story. “Self Help for a Helpful University,” http://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2013/03/self-help-for-helpful-university.html.

I'll leave the legal opinions to others, but running commercials on a station licensed as non-commercial isn't the only problem.

If the universities want to fritter away what their stations could contribute to the schools' mission, that's one thing. But if IPR is truly “not a government body,” and a part of neither the Regents nor the state schools, there is, minimally, at least an ethical and moral issue as to whether the schools should continue to hold their valuable licenses to these “educational” stations.

Nicholas Johnson

Iowa City