Andy DehnartSurvivor Cook Islands winner Yul Kwon is the new deputy chief of Consumer and Governmental Affairs at the FCC. That bureau of Federal Communications Commission “develops and implements the Commission’s consumer policies, including disability access” and “serve[s] as the public face of the Commission through outreach and education, as well as through our Consumer Center, which is responsible for responding to consumer inquiries and complaints,” according to its web site.
In other words, if someone complains to the FCC about content on a reality show that’s been burned into their kid’s virgin eyes, it goes to Yul. Sort of.
The press release [PDF] announcing his appointment mentions his appearance on the show, and points out that his “diverse career spans across law, technology, business, and media,” most recently “lecturing at the FBI Academy.”
In an August interview with the San Francisco Business Times, Yul said, “The FBI was looking at out-of-the-box, unconventional methods of teaching agents how to interact with people. This has become much more of a prerogative after Sept. 11 and they realized that interrogation techniques, traditional methods of interrogation, don’t work. … Of all the things I’ve done since the show, that’s the one I’ve enjoyed the most.”
Here’s the FCC’s full announcement:
Deputy Chief, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, Yul Kwon. Mr. Kwon’s diverse career spans across law, technology, business, and media. His government experience includes lecturing at the FBI Academy, drafting science and technology legislation as an aide to Senator Joseph Lieberman, and clerking for Judge Barrington D. Parker on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. In the business and technology sector, Mr. Kwon has held positions at McKinsey & Company, Google, and the Trium Group. He also practiced law as an attorney at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis and at Venture Law Group. In 2006, Mr. Kwon became the first Asian American to win the CBS reality show, Survivor. His subsequent media activities include working as a special correspondent for CNN and as a co-host for the Discovery Channel. Mr. Kwon obtained his B.S. degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University and his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he served on the editorial board of the Yale Law Journal.