FCC Circulating Order With Eye Toward Multilingual Alerts, Wheeler Tells House Democrats
The FCC is circulating an order to help the agency achieve “fuller understanding” of what entities are doing and can do “to facilitate the distribution of multilingual alert content to their communities, and to further advance their abilities to reach…
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populations where English is not well understood,” Chairman Tom Wheeler told several House Democrats in a letter dated Dec. 22 and released this week. Congressional Black Caucus Chairman G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., led a Nov. 2 letter pressing for an emergency alert system to make alerts available in languages beyond English and urging the FCC to “take the next step before the next disaster strikes,” citing “extreme weather events due to climate change on the rise” and intense and damaging storms in recent years. Thirteen Democrats signed the letter, including Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. The FCC has taken several steps in recent months toward that goal, Wheeler told them, including the order (see 1601080047 and 1601070061) on circulation. The order “addresses the Petition for Immediate Interim Relief filed by the Independent Spanish Broadcasters Association, the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, Inc., and the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council,” Wheeler said.