The Federal Communications Commission has been around since 1934. And not once has a woman served as chair.
President Obama may soon need to appoint a new chair to succeed Julius Genachowski, who is expected to step down. The Women’s Media Center created a petition at Change.org urging the president to appoint a woman to succeed Genachowski. It’s within the realm of possibility: Two of the five current FCC commissioners are women. I’ve signed the petition, and I hope you will too.
This isn’t just about having more women in positions of leadership within the federal government. (But we need that too. Just yesterday another female member of President Obama’s cabinet stepped down. So far, all of the president’s top appointments for his new administration are men.)
This is also about who owns the media. White men own most broadcast TV and radio outlets. The FCC’s own data show that women own less than 7 percent of all broadcast licenses. And people of color own just 7 percent of radio stations and just 3 percent of TV stations. To make matters worse, the percentage of minorities in newsrooms has declined every year since 2006.
Is diversity a priority at the FCC? Well, consider that it took the agency 13 years to issue this data. And that’s a shame because diversity in media ownership expands the variety of options, voices and stories on our airwaves.
Right now we have a system where women’s perspectives are often missing. The presidential election dominated the 2012 news cycle, and guess what? 4th Estate’s report on gender and election coverage showed that men crowded out women in electoral reporting during the six months studied.
As in: Men wrote 72.1 percent of the print articles in major publications during the time of the study. Men were seven times more likely to be quoted in major newspapers and TV news programs. (Yes, even for stories on “women’s issues” like abortion, birth control, Planned Parenthood and women’s rights. No, really.) And as my colleague Amy Kroin pointed out, this trend held true for both conservative and liberal media outlets.
The biggest story of 2012 illustrates the larger problem. Women are underrepresented in print bylines, as expert sources in print and in television news broadcasts, as guests on talk shows and as creators, producers and directors of content. And men run almost every major telecom company. Read these and other sobering statistics in the Women’s Media Center’s “Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2012” report.
The Consumer Electronics Show is taking place right now in Vegas. I want to see a woman give a keynote address at the next conference, as Chairman Genachowski has in years past. I want to see a woman lead the fight in Washington for policies that connect more Americans to high-speed broadband. And I want to see someone who departs from Genachowski’s missteps — especially when it comes to diversity issues.
The new FCC chair will help shape the policies that define our media landscape and infrastructure for years to come. Sign the petition and tell President Obama to nominate a woman as the next FCC chair.
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
We’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!
With gratitude and resolve,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy