The FCC has struggled for years to retain women, promote African Americans, hire Hispanics, and attract diverse engineers and economists, according to government data. Annual reports to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission show the communications regulator is below the average of the U.S. workforce by such measures. President-elect Joe Biden is expected to make diversity a focus and to name the first permanent female FCC chair. Only one woman, then-Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, has been acting chair.
The FCC has struggled for years to retain women, promote African Americans, hire Hispanics, and attract diverse engineers and economists, according to government data. Annual reports to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission show the communications regulator is below the average of the U.S. workforce by such measures. President-elect Joe Biden is expected to make diversity a focus and to name the first permanent female FCC chair. Only one woman, then-Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, has been acting chair.
One lawyer recalled not getting assigned to a project because the attorney making the assignments said “the client didn’t like working with women.” Another woman remembered a senior attorney telling her, “You don’t seem like a lawyer to me.” Other women pointed to articles placing the female co-author’s name after the male co-author’s, although the submission listed the woman first.
In an era of the Me Too movement and Black Lives Matter, running the companies and institutions that dominate the communications universe largely remains a white male affair, according to our analysis of the board membership of major companies, trade and interest groups. Women hold 12% of board seats among broadcasters and 28% among MVPDs and programmers. People of color are harder to find on those boards: 6% at broadcasters, 28% at wireline and wireless operators.
Fewer than two in 10 state utility regulators were people of color (POC) in 2020, while more than one in three were women, showed a Communications Daily analysis of National Utilities Diversity Council (NUDC) data. More than half of the commissions or equivalent bodies had zero POC as members. Six had no women and four had none from either category.
With national issues related to diversity having ramifications for media and telecom, Communications Daily has reported on that impact throughout this past year. The stories in this Special Report are the work of five Communications Daily journalists who spent part of 2020 covering those issues.
Government responses to the January 2018 false missile emergency alert in Hawaii (see 1801160054) resulted in fixes, but there's room for improvement, said emergency communications officials and lawyers in interviews. The false alarm drew scrutiny from the FCC, Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Hawaii agencies (see 1804110064). Some are pushing to bring back legislation filed last Congress to address some of the issues identified in reviews of the incident. Telecom-focused lawmakers said they're considering just that.
The FCC routinely released public safety and emergency communications documents in the evening, outside the time frame that experts recommend. This trend, seen on many other issues at the commission over more than a decade, possibly deprived stakeholders from being fully and timely informed on important issues. From Jan. 1, 2018, until Oct. 25, when Communications Daily filed a Freedom of Information Act request and the practice ceased, four such items were made public later than 5:30 p.m. Eastern when the commission's business hours end. That's according to results from the FOIA request and our database.
During a massive emergency like California’s 2018 Thomas Fire, people are “just hungry” for information, said Brian Uhl, emergency manager for the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management. “It’s extremely important to provide alerts in multiple languages if your jurisdiction has people who speak multiple languages.” The county gets emergency alert system messages in both Spanish and English. But it's one of the few localities where this happens. And that concerns some. The reasons multilingual EAS isn't common are complex, and though some support FCC action, others are focused on local control.
With scattered holes in enhanced 911 coverage around the U.S. slowly getting filled in, there's no consensus on when or if the U.S. ever will get universal coverage. Experts told us the issue could be mooted by next-generation 911 systems, though many communities without E-911 still are working toward that less-advanced goal. For a Special Report story on NG-911's rollout in New Jersey (see 1904230021).