Diversity Denied

[Commentary] I recently had an opportunity to address the annual Minority Media and Telecommunications Council Conference in Washington, DC. MMTC has for years toiled mightily to enhance the role of minorities in our telecom and media enterprises. But the current woeful state of diversity in our media goes beyond the ability of any single organization to resolve. Any proposal for truly meaningful remedies runs head-long into special interest opposition in the private sector and, more often than not, lack of interest in the public sector. Both sectors are at fault; both sectors are in default. The bottom line is that minorities have been grievously short-changed; diversity in all its many forms has been largely abandoned as a regulatory objective; and our civic dialogue has been diminished just when it most needs to be nourished. I want to expand upon my remarks at MMTC because we have to develop a sense of national urgency about this problem. Our country is now nearly one-third minority—yet minority issues and cultural contributions receive shockingly sparse attention in our media. When minorities are covered, it is too often in stereotype, too infrequently based on facts. Who at this moment can really claim there is anything approaching equitable, real-world coverage of minorities and their concerns? Why are there so few programs with a minority focus? With minority lead characters? Why are so many news interviews conducted with white males instead of people of color—or women, who are actually a majority of our population? At last report, people of color own about 3 percent of full-power commercial TV stations! And the numbers are only getting worse.