Back when the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996 was first enacted, you couldn't sell a story about phones or cable companies for love or money. Regulation by the Federal Communications Commission? Forgeddaboutit. "Boring," the editors would say. No one cares. Until about six months ago, if you uttered the words "Silicon Valley" in New York you were liable to get shot. "Broke," my editors said. "Over. Done. Who Cares?"

What a difference a few years and a Tom Friedman best-seller makes.

Last week, a pretty geeky story about how the FCC is going to loosen regulation in high speed Internet access made the front page of the New York Times' business section. A story about the two founders of Skype -- along with the requisite too-cool-for-school photo -- is a big feature in this month's Vanity Fair. The Times' Tom Friedman spent a little time last week with our own Andrew Rasiej and today, Sunday, Nicholas Kristof spends a little time out in Oregon waxing rhapsodic about the free wifi. Oh, and let's not forget the Times own editorial about PDF's kissing cousin, Technorati that ran last week. (Formal Disclaimers: PDF was founded by Rasiej, who is running for Public Advocate in New York City and Technorati's founder, Dave Sifry is brother of PDF Executive Editor Micah who is working on Rasiej's campaign).

But its coverage -- and the tone it sets -- is important for how other publications (mostly the glossy magazines), book publishers (who only really skim the Times' front page) and other, smaller papers see the world. The Times has decided Tech Matters. And so, it does.

The Times, of course, isn't the only paper paying attention. Take a look at this piece from the Times of Arcadian (LA) and Layfatte Parish's vote to build a super-fast fiber optic network. There plenty more stories like this around the country and hopefully, we here at PDF are going to write about a lot more of them in the weeks and months ahead.

Just as important: These are not the "GeeWizGoshGolly" piece of breathless anticipation (well, except for Vanity Fair) that have characterized earlier coverage of blogs, the Internet, broadband or anything digital. These are stories that assume the audience has an interest that is practical and informed. They are matter-of-fact accounts of what's going on.

This means tech - and the treatment of tech in legislation like the pending rewrite of the 1996 Act -- will matter more to consumers than it has in the past. It's too soon to say the technical is absolutely political but more and more, we're going to see the two areas connected when it comes to policy as well as campaigns and elections.

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