Diversity

NBC senior political analyst and frequent MSNBC "Morning Joe" panelist Mark Halperin has been accused of sexual harassment by five women while at ABC News in the early 2000s, according to a CNN report.

The co-author of the best-selling book "Game Change" didn't dispute the allegations, telling CNN that he's "deeply sorry" and will be taking a "step back" from his daily duties to deal with the situation. "During this period, I did pursue relationships with women that I worked with, including some junior to me," Halperin said in a statement to CNN. "I now understand from these accounts that my behavior was inappropriate and caused others pain." Halperin, now 52, was ABC's political director at the time.

The National Hispanic Media Coalition is threatening to rally Latino leaders against Verizon for its removal of Univision from the Verizon Fios service. Verizon's blackout comes as the country recovers from Hurricane Katia and a pair of earthquakes, all of which hit in September.

In a letter to Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, the group's president and CEO Alex Nogales said the NHMC "is outraged that at a time when catastrophic events have occurred in Mexico and Puerto Rico, Verizon has chosen to blackout Univision, the primary source of news for millions of Spanish-speaking and bilingual Latinos residing in the United States." Verizon removed Univision from its network Oct 16 when the two could not reach an agreement. Univision President and CEO Randy Falco charged Verizon with not acting in good faith in a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai.

Verizon gave Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai its side of the carriage dispute with Univision that has resulted in those networks being off Verizon pay-TV and wireless platforms. Verizon SVP Kathleen Grillo said that despite Verizon's efforts over the past two months, Univision sought unreasonable terms and price increases--more than double its current rate despite declining viewership, says Grillo. She said Univision initially asked for a 170% increase and did not come off that figure "materially"--it ultimately dropped to 130%--in subsequent negotiations, including an offer that came Oct. 16, five hours after the expiration of the contract.

Grillo said it was clear that they were at an impasse and that a further extension--there had been an initial 16-day extension--would not result in a reasonable rate. Grillo also said Verizon had an obligation to customers to negotiate a reasonable rate to protect them from "unwarranted" price increases.

The National Hispanic Media Coalition is threatening to rally Latino leaders against Verizon for its removal of Univision from the Verizon Fios service. Verizon's blackout comes as the country recovers from Hurricane Katia and a pair of earthquakes, all of which hit in September.

President Donald Trump once joked that Vice President Mike Pence “wants to hang” all gay people, The New Yorker reported. The publication also reports that President Trump has mocked Vice President Pence for his views opposing abortion and LGBTQ rights. President Trump jabbed at Pence after a legal scholar told the pair that if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, many states would probably legalize abortion. “You see?” Trump reportedly said to Pence. “You’ve wasted all this time and energy on it, and it’s not going to end abortion anyway.” And when the meeting began to focus on gay rights, Trump reportedly pointed to Pence, joking, “Don’t ask that guy — he wants to hang them all!” One Trump campaign staffer also told The New Yorker that Trump used to ask people leaving meetings with Pence, “Did Mike make you pray?"

Women in the US are substantially more likely than men to say gender discrimination is a major problem in the technology industry, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in July and August. The survey comes amid public debate about underrepresentation and treatment of women – as well as racial and ethnic minorities – in the industry.

Critics of Silicon Valley have cited high-profile cases as evidence that the industry has fostered a hostile workplace culture. For their part, tech companies point to their commitment to increasing workforce diversity, even as some employees claim the industry is increasingly hostile to white males. The new survey finds that roughly three-quarters of Americans (73%) say discrimination against women is a problem in the tech industry, with 37% citing it as a major problem and an equal share citing it as a minor one. But 44% of women say it is a major problem, compared with just 29% of men. And roughly a third of men (32%) say discrimination against women is not a problem, compared with 17% of women. Younger women are more likely than older women to view gender discrimination as a major problem in the tech industry. About half (49%) of women younger than 50 say this, compared with 39% of women 50 and older.

The New York Times has created a "gender editor" position, naming former Newsweek editor Jessica Bennett to the new role. "Jessica is the author of Feminist Fight Club, an illustrated battle manual for fighting sexism at work, and a coveted campus and corporate speaker on gender, identity and digital culture," reads a press release from The Times. "At Newsweek, she coauthored a cover story about the women who had sued the magazine for discrimination in 1970, and as executive editor of Tumblr, she helped oversee the first live-GIFed presidential debate. She also once interned for the late Trump biographer Wayne Barrett," the announcement continues. The paper adds that Bennett will lead "a multi-pronged initiative to deepen the engagement of female readers around the world."

Reps Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) and Emanual Cleaver (D-MO), two black lawmakers, sharply rebuked Twitter this week for serving as “an avenue to spread racism and bigotry” — and threatened regulation if the tech industry as a whole doesn’t identify and suspend the accounts behind those messages. The calls for action came in a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sent on Oct 3.

For them, the tipping point appears to be reports that Russian agents sought to stir political unrest ahead of the 2016 presidential election by stoking racial tensions, even running ads targeting groups like Black Lives Matter. “As a result of the far-reaching nature of Twitter’s technology, we have seen an effort to undermine our democracy, create or fan flames of racial divisions, and spread hate speech that can ultimately cumulate into violence,” the two Democratic lawmakers wrote. “We are disturbed by the ease in which foreign actors were able to manipulate your platform to advance anti-American sentiments that both exacerbates racial tension and ultimately threatens our democracy,” they continued. “More importantly, we are disappointed by the silence from you and others in your industry on ways to counter such blatant manipulation of this medium to build racial animosity, the consequences of which are quite literally life threatening.”

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Ajit Pai, a former Verizon lawyer, has spoken eloquently about the “digital divide” and his commitment to resolving it. His solution? Creating the same market conditions that fueled the divide in the first place.

Pai’s approach is a field of dreams that suggests, “If we let them (internet service providers, or ISPs), they will provide it.” But that business model, at least for many of the large incumbents, has left far too many offline. Pai has suggested that broadband deserts are created by the boogie man of government regulation. But ISPs will invest only when they need to and they likely don’t see the need to right now. The problem we face is getting service to those who are too costly to serve. Pai needs to see that the pattern of exclusion in broadband results from the failure of business models, not merely the presence of regulations.

[Maya Wiley is a Henry J. Cohen Professor of Urban Policy & Management at The New School.]

In this case study, we argue that barriers to broadband access, one aspect of the digital divide for low income communities of color, stem from a myriad of factors including deregulation of the telecommunications industry and a history of segregation of and disinvestment in neighborhoods of color. Specifically:
The deregulation of the telecommunications sector in the 1990s allowed sweeping consolidation of the industry and created a broadband market with significantly less competition between firms, steeper prices, and slower speeds compared to other industrialized nations.
Regulators do not hold internet service providers (ISPs) accountable to universal build out requirements, which the government enacted in exchange for granting monopolies in the market. This monopolized and deregulated environment has allowed ISPs to upgrade digital infrastructure in the most profitable, high-income areas first. The persistence of de facto racial segregation of neighborhoods means such investments (and lack thereof) result in digital redlining of a disproportionate number of neighborhoods of color and rural areas of all races.