Diversity

Research already shows that existing disparities related to broadband access are not race-neutral. Logically, that means that the analysis of these disparities should also not be race-neutral. Demographic data on broadband deployment is a win-win and will help industry, policy makers, public interest groups, and civil rights organizations create policy solutions that address the digital divide among varied racial groups in rural communities.

If Democrats take back the House in November 2019 could have more minority representatives in Congress than it's had in its 230-year history. And Congress would finally start to look more like the country it represents. But while voters across the country are increasingly choosing to elect candidates who look like them, the media covering Congress are still lagging far behind with regard to diversity: 83% of the workforce at US daily print and online media outlets is white, and 87% of leadership positions are occupied by white reporters and editors.

Although newer technologies have captured the public’s imagination and purse, the Federal Communications Commission continues to regard free over-the-air broadcasting as the lifeline for millions of Americans. Certainly, the deliberate exclusion of people of color from ownership of the airwaves would be profoundly anti-competitive. What could be a more inefficient deployment of resources than having the entrepreneurial, managerial, and creative wealth of one-third of the country unable to find expression in the nation’s most influential industries?

Major changes are afoot in Hollywood, spurred by a pattern of rapid corporate media consolidation. While these mergers have received critical attention, the conversation has largely ignored something else big: the implications that this media maneuvering may have for diversity in media representation. More specifically, given Hollywood’s historically barbed relationship with onscreen diversity, it makes sense to ask: How might issues of diversity play out in—and affect—the merger review process, if at all? Could it actually make things worse?

I’ve spent just over 30 years working to ensure that all Americans benefit from accessible, affordable, and open communications networks that promote democratic values. But none of that would have been possible without Everett Parker’s accomplishments. As this audience knows well, Everett worked hand-in-hand with the Rev. Martin Luther King and the civil rights community to challenge the broadcast license of WLBT-TV, a Jackson, Mississippi, station that broadcast racist propaganda and refused to cover the civil rights movement.

Whether they are Wi-Fi kiosks, urban sensors, fiber networks, or built-from-scratch “smart” neighborhoods, new urban technology deployments are under the microscope. Despite the potential of these projects to drive innovation and economic growth, they are often met with mixed reception and a myriad of justifiable questions. Take the Quayside project in Toronto led by Sidewalk Labs.

In the latest episode of the podcast Crazy/Genius, we ask why the dream of the digital revolution has proven so disappointing for some of its early advocates. One of those dreamers was Meredith Broussard, a computer scientist and a data journalist, who entered Harvard University in 1991, just months after Tim Berners-Lee launched the first website. “The early Internet was deeply groovy,” Broussard said, a place where idealistic young men and women thought they could redesign the rules of society.

The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) are challenging the Federal Communications Commission's proposed incubator program, petitioning the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review one element of the program—its comparability standards of ownership rule waivers—which they said was arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion, and thus illegal. MMTC and NABOB support the underlying goal of helping diversify media ownership and the incubator program specifically.