The Federal Communications Commission has considered four aspects of diversity: 1) Viewpoint diversity ensures that the public has access to a wide range of diverse and antagonistic opinions and interpretations provided by opportunities for varied groups, entities and individuals to participate in the different phases of the broadcast industry; 2) Outlet diversity is the control of media outlets by a variety of independent owners; 3) Source diversity ensures that the public has access to information and programming from multiple content providers; and 4) Program diversity refers to a variety of programming formats and content.
Diversity
Agenda for August 2, 2018 FCC Meeting
The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on the subjects listed below on Thursday, August 2, 2018:
Facebook agrees to prevent discriminatory advertising
Facebook can no longer block minorities or other groups from seeing advertisements, according to an agreement with Washington state. Facebook signed a binding agreement to modify its advertising platform so third parties can’t discriminate based on ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, according to Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson. Facebook must make the changes nationwide within 90 days, according to Ferguson’s office. Will Castleberry, Facebook vice president of state and local policy, said the company worked closely with Ferguson’s office to reach the agreement.
FCC Announces Tentative Agenda for August 2018 Open Meeting
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the following items are tentatively on the agenda for the August Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, August 2, 2018:
FCC Chairman Pai Proposes Broadcaster Incubator Program Requirements
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that he has circulated a proposal that would establish the requirements to govern the incubator program that the FCC decided to adopt in 2017 to support the entry of new and diverse voices into the broadcast industry. The proposal, which the FCC will vote on at its August Open Meeting, outlines a program in which established broadcasters would pair with small aspiring new entrants or struggling broadcast station owners who lack access to capital and operational experience, among other things.
Coming Home: August FCC Meeting Agenda
Leading off our August agenda will be 5G, the next generation of wireless connectivity. We’ll finalize the rules for the auction of airwaves in the 28 GHz band and the auction of the 24 GHz band, which will follow immediately afterward. These will be the first auctions of high-band spectrum for 5G services, but they won’t be the last. Specifically, I’m excited to announce my plan to move forward with a single auction of three more millimeter-wave spectrum bands—the 37 GHz, 39 GHz, and 47 GHz bands—in the second half of 2019.
From Availability to Accessibility: Hyper-Local Public-Private Partnerships
In 2016, Libraries Without Borders established the Wash and Learn Initiative (WALI) to expand the access and accessibility of information to families waiting for their clothes to wash and dry in laundromats. This article discusses the private-public partnerships between small, mom-and-pop laundromat businesses and library branches that have made this work possible. For our laundromat partners, we have heard that WALI libraries provide them with a direct means to give back to their communities.
Chairman Pai Statement on Proposal to Improve Enforcement of EEO Rules
On July 3, 1968, the Federal Communications Commission first concluded that equal opportunity in employment was essential to the public interest, and committed to ensuring that the national policy against discrimination in hiring applied to broadcast licensees. To mark the 50th anniversary of this decision and to improve the Commission’s enforcement of its equal employment opportunity (EEO) rules, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai shared with his colleagues a proposal to shift agency staff responsible for enforcing the FCC’s EEO rules from the Media Bureau to the Enforcement Bureau.
2018 Research: Women and people of color in local TV and radio news
The percentage of women and people of color in TV newsrooms and in TV news management are at the highest levels ever measured by the RTDNA/Hofstra University Newsroom Survey. About a quarter (24.8%) of newsroom staffers are people of color--11.&% African American, 10.8% Hispanic or Latino, 2% Asian and .3% Native American. That is still well below minority representation in the population as a whole, which is about 38%. Highlights:
Women are underrepresented in many technological occupations, but have increasingly made inroads into the field of civic technology, a sector of digital technologies, platforms, and services which enable progress toward the public good. Civic tech provides a toolbox for citizens and governments to enhance open government, spur community action, and combat inequality. The growing inclusion of women in this field adds their unique experiences and perspectives to the development of transformative technology solutions, reinforcing the role of greater diversity in the workforce.
The Unsettling Hum of Silicon Valley’s Failure to Hire More Black Workers
Tech companies know that they have a race problem. But their efforts to address it have so far yielded little. Facebook Inc. says that 3 percent of its U.S. workforce is black, up from 2 percent in 2014, while black workers in technical roles stagnated at 1 percent. Only 2 percent of Google's workers are black, a figure that has remained static for the past three years. The Alphabet inc unit's efforts to increase that have sparked an internal backlash, with one former employee suing because of perceived discrimination against white and male candidates. Among 8 of the largest U.S.