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For Immediate Release
December, 01 2011, 09:39am EDT
Contact:
Jenn Ettinger, 202-265-1490 x 35
More than 50 Groups Urge FCC to Focus on Diversity in Ownership Review
On Thursday, more than 50 groups representing a wide range of women's, media and social justice organizations, including Free Press, sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency to make diversity issues a priority in its upcoming media ownership review. The letter comes as the FCC hosts a hearing on media ownership in Atlanta on Thursday evening.
WASHINGTON
On Thursday, more than 50 groups representing a wide range of women's, media and social justice organizations, including Free Press, sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency to make diversity issues a priority in its upcoming media ownership review. The letter comes as the FCC hosts a hearing on media ownership in Atlanta on Thursday evening. The event, featuring FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps, will be held on the campus of Georgia Tech from 5-8 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Free Press Senior Adviser Joseph Torres, who will be a panelist at the FCC event, made the following statement:
"It matters who controls our airwaves. Women and people of color deserve better opportunities to become broadcasters and to serve local communities. Unfortunately, policies that once existed to bolster ownership diversity are now gone. What's more, the FCC has allowed fewer and fewer companies to control more of the public airwaves. Allowing more consolidation will only further erode the diversity of our media system."
Thursday's letter follows one sent to the FCC two weeks ago by a coalition of major civil rights groups that urged the FCC to address longstanding inequality in broadcast ownership.
The signers of Thursday's letter ask that the FCC evaluate the impact of its media ownership rules on ownership opportunities for women and people of color; take proactive measures to promote ownership of broadcast stations by underrepresented groups; and guard against further erosion of media ownership among these groups by maintaining existing media ownership limits.
The full text of the letter is below.
The Honorable Julius Genachowski
Chairman
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554
Re: MB Dkt 09-182, 2010 Quadrennial Review - Review of the Commission's Broadcast Ownership Rules and Other Rules Adopted Pursuant to Section 202 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996
Dear Chairman Genachowski:
We, the undersigned organizations, urge the Federal Communications Commission to make diversity a central focus of its upcoming Quadrennial Media Ownership Rule Review.
The strength of our country lies in the diversity of our people. Our media system will better serve the public interest when it draws on the diverse backgrounds, perspectives and talents of the population. Unfortunately, ownership of the nation's media outlets consistently fails to reflect this diversity.
Women and people of color historically have been grossly underrepresented in ownership of radio and television stations -- media forms that use the public airwaves and rank as our nation's most popular and influential outlets. Women comprise over 51 percent of the population yet hold only 6 percent of radio and TV station licenses.And while people of color make up over 36 percent of the U.S. population, they hold just over 7 percent of radio licenses and 3 percent of TV licenses.[1]
The continued absence of FCC action in the face of deep and intractable ownership disparities is unacceptable. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently affirmed that "ownership diversity is an important aspect of the overall media ownership regulatory framework."[2] Yet the FCC has failed to adopt proactive policies to remedy these disparities. Furthermore, it has persistently neglected even to examine or address the impact of existing media market consolidation on broadcast ownership opportunities for women and people of color. The FCC must take care not to repeat the mistakes of prior administrations by "pun[ting] yet again on this important issue."[3]
Most importantly, while the FCC assesses the impact of its media ownership rules and pursues more active measures to address longstanding disparities in broadcast media ownership, it must not undercut the benefits of such measures by allowing greater consolidation of broadcast outlets.
Existing media concentration levels already limit ownership opportunities for historically underrepresented groups. Excess consolidation has crowded out female and minority owners, who tend to be single-station owners who cannot compete with consolidated groups for programming and advertising revenue. Allowing increased consolidation in local media markets would raise station prices and further diminish the already limited number of stations available for purchase. This would leave women and people of color with fewer opportunities to become media owners and promote diverse programming in local communities.
In conclusion, we urge the FCC to do the following:
- Evaluate the impact of its media ownership rules on ownership opportunities for women and people of color.
- Take proactive measures to promote ownership of broadcast stations by underrepresented groups.
- Guard against further erosion of media ownership among these groups by maintaining existing media ownership limits.
Absent these measures, ownership levels among underrepresented groups will continue to decline and the promise of a diverse media system that serves the information needs of all people will continue to elude our nation.
Respectfully submitted.
Access Humboldt
Alliance for Community Media
American Association of University Women
Asian American Journalists Association
Bitch Media
Center for Media Justice
Center for Social Inclusion
Common Cause
Digital Sisters
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Feminist Majority Foundation
Free Press
Future of Music Coalition
Hollaback!
Institute for Local Self-Reliance
International Museum of Women
Media Access Project
Media Alliance
Media Council Hawai'i
Media Equity Collaborative
Media Literacy Project
MomsRising
National Alliance for Media Art & Culture
National Association of Black Journalists
National Association of Hispanic Journalists
National Council of Negro Women
National Council of Women Media and Technology Task Force
National Council of Women's Organizations
National Hispanic Media Coalition
National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association
National Organization for Women Foundation
National Women's Law Center
Native American Journalists Association
Native Public Media
New Moon Girls
People TV
People's Production House
Prometheus Radio Project
Rainbow PUSH Coalition
Reclaim the Media!
Reel Grrls
Southern Connecticut State University Sexuality and Gender Equality Center
Southern Connecticut State University Women's Studies Program
SPARK Movement
Teen Voices Magazine
UNITY: Journalists of Color
Women, Action, & the Media
Women In Media & News
Women's Media Center
Women Who Tech
[1] S. Derek Turner, Out of the Picture 2007: Minority & Female TV Station Ownership in the United States, 2007, https://www.freepress.net/files/otp2007.pdf, and S. Derek Turner, Off the Dial: Female and Minority Radio Station Ownership in the United States, 2007, https://www.freepress.net/files/off_the_dial.pdf.
[2]Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC, 652 F. 3d 431, 472 (3d Cir. 2011)
[3]Id. at 471.
Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.
(202) 265-1490LATEST NEWS
Critics Urge Senate to Reject Trump's Deadly Rescission Package, Regardless of AIDS Funding
One humanitarian leader pointed out that the bill contains $1.3 billion in cuts to initiatives "every bit as lifesaving" as the AIDS prevention program that Republicans spared amid public pressure.
Jul 15, 2025
Progressives and public health advocates on Tuesday were among those urging U.S. senators to vote against Republican legislation that would let President Donald Trump claw back billions of dollars already appropriated by Congress, even as GOP lawmakers ditched plans to cut funding for an HIV-AIDS prevention program that has saved tens of millions of lives in Africa.
Politico reported that Senate Republicans will remove $400 million in funding cuts to the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), an initiative of former President George W. Bush credited with saving more than 25 million lives in Africa since its implementation in 2003.
However, the rescission package—a version of which was passed last month by the House of Representatives—still includes $1.3 billion in cuts to humanitarian aid programs that Jeremy Konyndyk, president of the advocacy group Refugees International, called "every bit as lifesaving as PEPFAR."
These include programs to fund public health, emergency food and shelter assistance, peacekeeping, economic development, and other essential aid that helps stabilize war- and disaster-stricken populations in the Global South.
"Even though the Senate has removed $400 million in PEPFAR funding from the rescissions package, another $500 million in global health funding could still be cut," Think Global Health managing editor Nsikan Akpan noted Tuesday.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said Tuesday that the White House has agreed to an exemption for PEPFAR funding via a substitute amendment.
"It's substantially the same package and the Senate has to work its will and we've appreciated the work along the way to get to a place where they've got the votes," he explained.
Jacob Leibenluft and Devin O'Connor, respectively senior adviser and senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, noted that in addition to cuts to critical programs, the rescission package, combined with the Trump administration's wider campaign of unlawfully impounding funds, "could also make it far more difficult for Congress to fund the government in a bipartisan way in the future."
As the pair explained:
Most of the funds in the rescission package were enacted in March legislation that was passed by Congress—including on a bipartisan basis in the Senate—and signed into law by the president to fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2025. To provide the 60 votes required to avoid a Senate filibuster, at least eight Democratic senators needed to join with 52 Republican senators to invoke cloture on the funding bill.
But presidential rescission requests operate under different rules and require only 51 votes to pass the Senate, so no Democratic votes are needed. If the Senate approves the package (which passed the House on a party-line vote), this would show that Republicans could quickly revise on a partisan basis, with merely 51 votes in the Senate, a bipartisan funding agreement reached only a few months earlier that required support from no fewer than 60 senators.
"Senators should keep those consequences in mind as they consider the president's current rescission request," Leibenluft and O'Connor advised.
The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen cited both PEPFAR and the billions of dollars in other cuts to foreign aid contained in the package as reasons to oppose it.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took aim at the bill's $1.1 billion in cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which funds PBS and NPR.
"Like all authoritarians, Trump doesn't like criticism or objective reporting. He just wants flattery," the senator said on social media. "That's why he wants to defund NPR and PBS. We need media in this country that is not owned by billionaires and corporate interests. I will vote to support public broadcasting."
The chairs of the Congressional Tri-Caucus—Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chair Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.)—on Tuesday led a letter urging senators to reject the rescissions bill due to CPB cuts.
"CPB's elimination would decimate public media infrastructure, as the vast majority of its funding goes directly to local stations, many of which rely on it for over half their operating budgets," the lawmakers wrote. "In rural and tribal areas, this would shut down stations that serve as lifelines for public safety, education, and culturally relevant programming. Eighty percent of Native American and Alaska Native communities are rural or remote, and public television is often the only station reaching them consistently."
Polling published Tuesday by Data for Progress revealed that the proposed cuts in the rescission package are deeply unpopular, with a majority of respondents saying that funding for global health programs, public broadcasting, and developmental aid should be maintained at current levels or increased.
NEW: As Senate Republicans approach the Friday deadline to pass Trump’s rescissions package, voters reject the proposed billions of dollars in cuts to global aid and public broadcasting.We find that less than 30% of voters want cuts to these programs.www.dataforprogress.org/datasets/pol...
[image or embed]
— Data for Progress (@dataforprogress.org) July 15, 2025 at 6:54 AM
GOP senators—who are under pressure, as the proposed cuts must be approved by Friday under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) of 1974, the law they are using to skirt a Democratic filibuster—say they hope to pass the entire package before next month's summer recess.
On Monday, a coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration, alleging it violated the ICA and demanding the release of $6.8 billion in approved education funds that the suit argues have been illegally withheld.
"Courts across the country have made it clear to Donald Trump that he and his administration do not have the authority to unilaterally block funding that Congress has already approved," Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement. "These education grants are designed to help Michigan students thrive. By freezing them, the Trump White House is not just breaking the law but jeopardizing our kids' future."
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In yet another controversial move from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons recently told officers that immigrants who arrived in the United States illegally are no longer eligible for a bond hearing as they fight against deportation and should be detained "for the duration of their removal proceedings."
The Washington Post first revealed Lyons' July 8 memo late Monday. He wrote that after the Trump administration "revisited its legal position on detention and release authorities," and determined that such immigrants "may not be released from ICE custody." He also said that rare exceptions should be made by officers, not judges.
The reporting drew swift and intense condemnation online. One social media user said: "Unconstitutional. Unethical. Authoritarian."
In a statement shared with several news outlets, a spokesperson for ICE confirmed the new policy and said that "the recent guidance closes a loophole to our nation's security based on an inaccurate interpretation of the statute."
"It is aligned with the nation's long-standing immigration law," the spokesperson said. "All aliens seeking to enter our country in an unlawful manner or for illicit purposes shall be treated equally under the law, while still receiving due process."
The move comes as President Donald Trump and leaders in his administration, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, attempt to deliver on his promised mass deportations—with federal agents targeting peaceful student activists, spraying children with tear gas, and detaining immigrants in inhumane conditions at the so-called "Alligator Alcatraz."
In a statement about the ICE memo, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that "President Trump and Secretary Noem are now enforcing this law as it was actually written to keep Americans safe."
"Politicians and activists can cry wolf all they want, but it won't deter this administration from keeping these criminals and lawbreakers off American streets—and now, thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill, we will have plenty of bed space to do so," she added, referring to $45 billion for ICE detention in Republicans' recently signed package.
According to the Post:
Since the memos were issued last week, the American Immigration Lawyers Association said members had reported that immigrants were being denied bond hearings in more than a dozen immigration courts across the United States, including in New York, Virginia, Oregon, North Carolina, Ohio, and Georgia. The Department of Justice oversees the immigration courts.
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Rebekah Wolf of the American Immigration Council told NBC News that her group has also received reports of some immigration judges "accepting the argument" from ICE, "and because the memo isn't public, we don't even know what law the government is relying on to make the claim that everyone who has ever entered without inspection is subject to mandatory detention."
The Post reported that "the provision is based on a section of immigration law that says unauthorized immigrants 'shall be detained' after their arrest, but that has historically applied to those who recently crossed the border and not longtime residents."
The newspaper also noted that Lyons wrote the new guidance is expected to face legal challenges. Trump's anti-immigrant agenda—like various other policies—has been forcefully challenged in court, and there has been an exodus from the Justice Department unit responsible for defending presidential actions.
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Rep. Ro Khanna said the vote was about: "Are you on the side of America's children? Or are you on the side of the rich and powerful who have had their thumb on the scales and shafted Americans for decades?"
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Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously voted against forcing the Department of Justice to release its full files on deceased financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, just hours after the GOP-led Rules Committee rejected the measure.
The vote was 211-210 along party lines. While nine Republicans—and two Democrats—did not participate, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) voted with his party, after joining Democrats for the Monday night panel vote on Rep. Ro Khanna's (D-Calif.) amendment, which would require the DOJ to release the records within 30 days while protecting abuse survivors' identities.
"Wow. Republicans in the U.S. House just voted UNANIMOUSLY to not release the Epstein files. Every. Single. One. Genuinely surprised it was unanimous," said Nina Turner, who previously ran for Congress as a progressive Democrat in Ohio.
Speaking ahead of the full chamber's vote, Khanna called out the Rules Committee's other Republicans, saying that "they voted to protect rich and powerful men who were abusing, assaulting, and abandoning young women. That's what this vote is about. A nation that chooses impunity for the rich and the powerful at the expense of our children is a nation that has lost its moral purpose."
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"And this is a question of, Whose side are you on?" he argued. "Are you on the side of the people? Are you on the side of America's children? Or are you on the side of the rich and powerful who have had their thumb on the scales and shafted Americans for decades?" he asked. Khanna also praised Republicans, including Norman, who have previously supported releasing the files.
Khanna—who has been laying the groundwork for a 2028 presidential run—emphasized that "it's not a question just of Epstein, it's a question of trust in our democracy. It's a question of restoring a government of the people, by the people, and for the people."
A nation that chooses to protect rich and powerful men who abandon, abuse, and assault young girls is a nation that has lost its moral purpose.
We get a vote this afternoon.
I will continue to fight for the release of the Epstein files. pic.twitter.com/kKf8YLH7It
— Rep. Ro Khanna (@RepRoKhanna) July 15, 2025
Khanna pledged Tuesday he "will continue to fight for the release of the Epstein files," a vow echoed by other congressional Democrats. House Rules Committee Ranking Member Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) told Axios, "That was probably not the last time that you're going to see us deal with this issue."
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) led a Tuesday letter from panel's Democrats urging Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to investigate how President Donald Trump's administration has handled the Epstein files. The letter requests that the committee invite—and, if necessary, subpoena—Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel, and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino to testify publicly.
"Mr. Epstein reportedly took his own life to escape justice, robbing his victims and the public of an opportunity to hold him accountable for his shocking crimes," the Democrats wrote. The New York City medical examiner ruled his 2019 death at the Metropolitan Correctional Center a suicide by hanging, but that determination has been met with widespread skepticism.
"In the absence of facts and evidence related to Mr. Epstein's sex trafficking enterprise and the 'vast network' of underage victims he created, the public will turn to conspiracy theories to fill the void of credible information," the Democrats warned. "Alas, President Trump and his team, acting out of personal and political self-interest or some other more inscrutable motive, have suppressed the release of information in their possession and, in so doing, fed yet more conspiracy theories and advanced conjecture to explain this about-face."
After tech billionaire Elon Musk left the Trump administration, he claimed in early June that the president "is in the Epstein files" and "that is the real reason they have not been made public." The DOJ then released a two-page memo about Epstein and some video footage from the jail where he was found dead. Trump—who palled around with Epstein in the 1980s and '90s until a reported falling out in 2004—has since encouraged the media and public to stop paying attention to the dead sex offender.
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