Question for the FCC: Where are the Women?

Instead of looking for ways to help three or four giant, male-owned, male-run companies get even larger, the FCC should be spending its time assisting women and minorities in participating in our publicly owned airwaves.

Yesterday, the report that FCC Chair Kevin J. Martin was rushing into a vote on media consolidation, loosening the rules on cross-ownership of television stations and newspapers, was alarming and wholly unacceptable. We cannot allow control of the media, especially our publicly owned airwaves, to be held by a handful of men.

This is not an abstract question about ownership rights or corporate conglomerates. This is about the image of the world we see every day as reflected in the mirror of the media. Today, that picture is overwhelmingly selected and created by men. Women, who comprise nearly 52 percent of the population, own less than 3 percent of radio and television stations. Not coincidentally, women hold the same proportion percent of clout positions in the media. Fully 97 percent of the decision makers in the newsroom, the publishing house and the studio lot are men.

As a result, the image that we see of the world as reflected by the media is dangerously incomplete. Far too often, women's stories and women's experiences go unreported or underreported. And as Women's Media Center founder and activist Jane Fonda said, when the media does not reflect the vibrant diversity of the people on this planet, both the quality of journalism and the quality of our democracy suffer.

Certainly media consolidation plays a part in this. Since deregulation in 1996, as male-owned and -run companies have bonded with other male-owned and -run companies, women chase the ever-elusive prize: no matter how high a woman rises, it seems ever more levels of power are erected above her. As cross-ownership becomes the norm, and entertainment companies are responsible for newsrooms, the trickle down effect of exclusion asserts itself in those newsrooms, the most important connection and responsibility to the public.

On April 30, 2007, I testified [PDF] at one of several FCC hearings held on the topic of media ownership. At that hearing, I found that the idea that women have an important and distinct stake in this discussion seemed to come as a surprise to FCC representatives. That is probably why almost all key speakers were men and why the few women present addressed a nearly empty audience. Nevertheless, I, and many of my colleagues throughout the women's movement, spoke out against the threat that further erosion of media ownership rules poses to our democracy.

The bottom line is that there is a crisis of representation in the media and this is where FCC attention should lie. If you agree, please speak up and let the FCC know.

On behalf of this country's Invisible Majority, the Women's Media Center opposes FCC Chair Kevin J. Martin's reported plan to loosen media ownership. The proposed rules do nothing to include women and minorities, and until they do, should be opposed.

Comments

[TJS]

Oprah Winfrey owns a media company that has made her the richest person in show business. The last time I checked, Ms. Winfrey was neither male nor white.

[realitytrumpsbull]

I think th'innirnit is going to be the Great Media Equalizer, and give folks like Murdoch
an honest run for their money. While they're busy trying to sell soap, people on the web
are going to be discussing the news, and probably doing a better job of reporting it too,
when it's all said and done. They can broadcast
all their car commericals that they want to,
but what people wanna know is the 5 w's, hold the B.S. There's internet radio, too, if you
wanna get in on the ground floor for cheap,
and whatever it is XM radio, I don't know what
it costs to get a channel started there, if
it's the next big thing or just another useless
accessory, anyway, www. yourself to happiness
and put the Big Dogs out of business with
quality content while they try and keep
hyping overpaid athletes chasing a little
brown ball interspersed with junk food
commercials...

[godlessclif]

Randi Rhodes, Rachel Maddow, Laura Flanders.
Air America

Sue McMahon CNBC

Katie Couric
CBS

The View
ABC

Lots of women in the media, just not the right wing media. Fox babes like Lauran Greene are just eye candy and have no opinions.

[ihavenobias]

Well, I personally prefer to approach this issue much more broadly, because frankly the impact to the population is much more broad and has been negatively effecting just about everyone (directly or indirectly) whether they realize it or not.

PS---Us progressives shouldn't entirely blame this on republicans either. It was Clinton's FCC Telecom Act of 1996 that helped set the stage (after Reagan got the ball rolling) for this.

[NABNYC]

We need laws that prohibit any one person or entity, or entity with common owners, from owning more than one newspaper, TV or radio station.

We also need meaningful public access TV and radio so that people who cannot afford to buy a television station or radio station can nonetheless put on community-interest shows.

The internet makes it possible for people with little money to communicate by means of blogs and other systems.

Women and minorities are excluded from fair and equal representation in all institutions and businesses in this country. We now have a Supreme Court stacked with right-wing ideological fanatics who are intent on eliminating affirmative action, and therefore denying legal recourse to those who are excluded.

That means that the system will not change until and unless we get enough people to boycott the major media until diversity in ownership and equal representation in programming are instituted.

It also means that the effect of having the Democratic party sell us out, and become pro-corporate and anti-citizen in almost everything they do, is to take away all social progress made in this country from 1950 on.

Welcome to McCarthyism II where only white men have any rights, power, or money, and anyone else who doesn't like it better look out.

[BTN]

This media company is managed by women.
Does that count?

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=fsci
http://www.fsci.com/

[TheQuestion]

The women & minorities issue will be the last of your worries when one giant owns all the media and controls everything everyone sees in terms of news & media. Goodbye democracy. Hello 1984. This is not a theoretical concept this is real.

[dadw5boys]

YOU CAN'T EXCERISE TOTAL CONTROL THE CITIZENS IF YOU ALLOW THEM INTO SECRET MEETINGS.