Readers may recall that the issue of an independent and objective Inspector General for the FCC has been a recurring theme here. Basically, FCC has never had an IG who wasn’t a hand picked favorite of the Chairman and hence lacked any credibility with respect to misdoings internal to FCC.

Perhaps the 8th Floor finally listened, because on the FCC website now is a job announcement for the IG position. Now there is only a minimal 2 week (in August) open period which no doubt means that the new IG has already been preselected. But for a long time, this has been virtually standard practice in FCC for all senior civil service jobs and no doubt is common elsewhere in the federal government.

Hopefully this means that the new IG will be in place by the end of the year. We look forward to announcing who the selection is and hope the Commission follows our earlier recommendation that he/she be a career IG staffer from another agency with a great track record and no ties to the FCC leadership.