Jeff Bayne

Jeff Bayne is a communications attorney and community media legal advocate who has served as legal counsel to the ACM and as a partner at Spiegel and McDiarmid, one of Washington's established public interest communications law firms. His work supports local governments, PEG access organizations, and community media interests through cable franchise negotiations, regulatory proceedings, federal communications policy, and the legal infrastructure that protects public, educational, and government access channels.

The legal side of community media has always been as important as the operational side. The franchise agreements, federal statutes, and FCC proceedings that determine whether PEG channels exist, how they are funded, and what protections they carry require practitioners who understand both communications law and the civic purpose of the field.

Jeff's work belongs in this archive because community media's survival has depended as much on attorneys willing to argue for it in federal proceedings as on station directors willing to keep their doors open.