Civil Rights at FCC Worse Off Than Year Ago, 23 Groups Say
The state of civil rights at the FCC has worsened in the past year, said 23 groups representing minorities, women and African-American newspaper publishers that wrote the agency on the same subject Feb. 16, 2010. “We did not think it possible that a year later, the status of civil rights at the FCC would get even worse, but it has,” said a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Fourteen months after the regulator’s report on its work on lifting barriers that keep minorities from entering the media and telecom markets was due to Congress, it “still has not” been submitted, the letter said. The FCC this summer updated its draft of the report (CD Aug 19 p3), a document that’s required under Section 257 of the Telecom Act, but it remains on the list of items circulating for a vote and an agency official said it hasn’t been approved by all commissioners.
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The agency also was criticized for not making equal employment opportunity decisions, a failure of enforcement that the letter said hasn’t been seen since the EEO rules were adopted in 1969. Signers of the letter included the NAACP and Rainbow Push Coalition along with groups representing black elected officials, native Americans and the National Newspaper Publishers Association, which represents community papers targeted at blacks. It was made public by the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, whose head has criticized the Genachowski FCC for not adopting the council’s recommendations on diversity and being slow to act in other areas affecting minorities. The letter is at http://xrl.us/bijssz.
"With less than two years remaining” in the term of President Barack Obama, “there’s not a lot of time left to reverse the tailspin in which minority businesses, entrepreneurs, employees and executives in media and telecom find themselves,” the letter said. The commission replied that it considers work “upholding and fostering” the civil rights of all Americans a priority and has made “great strides.” A commission spokesman pointed to its work with Comcast and NBC Universal -- whose deal was completed last month -- a recent order that fixed the implementation of a channel set-aside condition of the 2008 order approving Sirius’s purchase of satellite-radio rival XM, and work with Congress to resolve a dispute over Arbitron’s Portable People Meters. Detractors of those devices say they undercount minority radio listeners.
The March 3 FCC meeting “will build on” such efforts by tackling “real-life issues and concerns facing Native Americans and finding new ways to bring 21st century technologies to their communities,” the agency spokesman said. “We will continue to push forward with strong, sensible ideas that will actually make a difference.” The letter signers said an order set for a vote at next month’s FCC meeting -- which would make it harder for radio stations to move from rural to urban areas (CD Feb 22 p6) -- would negatively affect most minority broadcasters.
The FCC budget won’t fully pay for new studies on how the commission can meet the Adarand Supreme Court decision that made it harder for the government to single out groups to benefit from rules, the letter said. “While the Commission did follow through on its pledge to underwrite the new Adarand studies we have been seeking for ten years, the funding level was half of the need and the description of the item in the budget limits the grant to broadcast-related research only -- excluding telecom and, in particular, telecom auctions,” the letter said. “The Commission appears to be writing off forever the possibility of ensuring that minorities and women will be significant licensees of wireless spectrum.” The commission’s budget for the fiscal 2011 proposed $1 million for new-entrant studies and would be the first time in 10-plus years that such work would be funded by the agency, its spokesman said.
MMTC Executive Director David Honig tried to get FCC action without going public and before sending the letter, the latest of several his group signed, he told us. “We ran out of options” after speaking with agency officials and meeting with them “at length” and having written them “quieter letters,” he said. “Promises were made -- `we're working on it,’ etc. But nothing ever happened. Or is likely to, unless we try, diplomatically but publicly, to hold them accountable.” Since last year’s letter from many of the same groups, the commission “promised to correct the problems we pointed out” but “nothing happened,” Honig said.
"It would be good to see more done at the commission to encourage diversity,” an issue that can’t be addressed by EEO enforcement, the Section 257 report or any other one action, said Vice President Nicol Turner-Lee of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which follows diversity issues and did not sign Tuesday’s missive. But “unfortunately, EEO enforcement has not been something that has been effectively implemented” and Adarand studies are needed, she said. Studying the high court’s ruling is “a data issue” and “we cannot come up with narrowly tailored policies if we do not have the data,” Turner-Lee said: “If we're not seeing new data come out -- whether it’s Adarand or the triennial report -- we cannot come up with policies that will stimulate participation or innovation in this sector” by minorities.