Stop Broadcast EEO Rule Enforcement, MMTC Asks FCC
The FCC should “take an extraordinary step” of not enforcing equal employment opportunity rules on radio and TV stations while it retools the regime, a group representing minorities said. After a year of taking no EEO enforcement actions as of Tuesday, the commission must restructure its system by moving staff overseeing the program from the Media to the Enforcement bureau, track existing cases so statutes of limitations aren’t again breached and work more with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council said. Broadcasters closely follow EEO rules, which they expend considerable time and attention complying with, industry lawyers and officials told us.
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The 10 EEO cases decided by the FCC between 2004-2007 led to fines of $97,000, 1 percent of those levied in the same period 10 years ago, MMTC Executive Director David Honig wrote Chairman Julius Genachowski. The last year of no enforcement of those rules, as occurred through June 29, was the 52 weeks ended June 1969, before those rules were in place, Honig added. “The decline in EEO enforcement cannot be attributed to court decisions. Instead, they are an indication that EEO has been a low priority for the Commission for far too long."
"The EEO audit program is a meaningless exercise in paperwork and postage,” Honig wrote in a letter he circulated late Tuesday. The regulator found no station engaged in discrimination and so “discriminators have been passing their audits with ease,” he continued. “The FCC’s audits -- over the course of five years -- have identified at only 24 licensees in the nation that supposedly were not compliant. If there is a saving grace, it is that a station only experiences one of these audits once every 20 years.” The commission endeavors to audit 5 percent of radio, TV and cable licensees each year, the agency has said.
For Commissioner Michael Copps, “exercising really credible EEO enforcement is something I have always considered an important FCC obligation,” he said Wednesday. A Media Bureau spokeswoman declined to comment on Honig’s letter. “NAB supports equal opportunities and increased diversity in broadcasting,” a spokesman for the group said. Representatives of Free Press, Media Access Project, National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and Rainbow/Push Coalition had no comment on Honig’s request.
"FCC EEO enforcement has no apparent mission, no focus, no data for evaluation, and no results except sanctioning the innocent while ignoring the guilty,” Honig wrote. “Such a program only creates the false sense of security when the constable is on duty yet asleep.” The number of staffers devoted to EEO enforcement should be tripled by the FCC, it should issue an order adopting Form 395 annual employment reports and quintuple the percentage of licensees audited each year, the council said. “Conduct some of the audits with on-site review of hard-copy documentation, and revise the audit instrument so that it uncovers discriminatory applicant screening at the points of recruitment, interviewing and selection.” Honig called misplaced the total of $24,000 in fines levied by the agency on June 29, 2009, since many of the recipients carried minority-targeted programming.
"There are always opportunities to better the rules, especially with Web-based tools,” which the FCC has kind of “downplayed” in recruitment for radio and TV station jobs since not everyone has Internet access, said industry lawyer David Oxenford of Davis Wright. Broadcasters and their state associations -- many of whom Oxenford has conducted EEO presentations for, including Wednesday -- are interested in the subject, he said. “There are many many broadcasters who are intensely, intensely concerned about these rules just because they are in place and because of the FCC’s enforcement.” Radio and TV stations with more than five full-time employees must take steps like running ads in local media besides those outlets, working with community groups to find applicants and working with employment agencies, he said.
The freeze Honig seeks would cheer broadcasters happy for a pause in answering audit questions and his proposal seems “intended to get the FCC to sort of regroup and redouble their efforts,” said lawyer Francisco Montero of Fletcher Heald, with radio and TV clients and on the council’s board. “Broadcasters come in every shape, size and color but as a general rule broadcasters are going to have very mixed feelings” about audits because they often “don’t like having to call their lawyers about EEO audits at a time when the broadcasting industry is struggling,” said Montero, not involved in the letter’s preparation. “The broadcasting industry has seen a lot of discrimination and the number of minorities is very low.”