The lone male Democrat on the FCC wants the Commission to reinstate its efforts related to broadcast workforce data reporting, making the comments earlier this week.
“Collecting this data — which we are statutorily required to do — will help the agency and Congress better understand the landscape of the media workforce,” Geoffrey Starks said.
Opening his comments by noting that “diversity matters,” Starks said he raised the “urgent need” to restart the collection of this EEO data back four years ago, along with
Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). But, Starks added, “to fully understand the scope of the issue here, we have to go back much further.”
He points to 1970, when the FCC, under its public interest authority, began requiring broadcasters to submit annual employment reports listing the composition of their workforce in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender.
Starks then points to 1992, when Congress, after seeing the FCC collect this data for 22 years, amended the Communications Act to affirm the Commission’s authority to do so. Specifically, Congress enacted a new section 334 of the Act, requiring the Commission to
maintain its existing EEO regulations, including its collection of this workforce diversity data on Form 395-B.
In Starks’ view, “We have fallen down on that statutory duty for far too long.”
It was two years ago when the FCC resurrected the docket on workforce diversity data collection, “beginning the long-overdue work of assessing and addressing comments regarding our statutory duty to collect workforce diversity data.”
Even with Anna Gómez giving Democrats a 3-2 majority on the Commission, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel hasn’t moved forward on the docket — at least to bring it to an Open Meeting agenda for a vote.
“The comments are in,” Starks said. “The record is complete. It has been more than 20 years since the Commission paused its collection of this data, but it is time, in fact past time, for us to resume our responsibility.”
