EEOuch!: Stations want stay
New rules an undue burden, say broadcasters; hardly, counter advocacy groups and FCC
By Bill McConnell -- Broadcasting & Cable, 4/23/2000 8:00:00 PM
Gary Smithwick, a Washington attorney for several station owners, decided to bone up on new recruiting requirements while attending the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas two weeks ago.
Sitting in on a seminar on the new rules, he grew disturbed as panelists warned of burdensome paperwork, government sanctions for the slightest oversights, and a potential boost in license renewal challenges-all taking effect April 17.
"I became so unnerved that I went back to my room and wrote an alert to my clients," he said. "There are many, many traps that broadcasters can fall into if they don't do this right from the beginning."
Smithwick is among a legion of broadcast attorneys who say the FCC's recruiting rules will bury their clients under a mountain of paperwork. The rules are so murky, they add, that stations will never be sure if their efforts are sufficient to meet a government mandate to actively solicit minorities and women for jobs.
The State Broadcasters Association has filed suit in federal appeals court in Washington to overturn the rules, asking the court to stay the rules pending a decision. The FCC has already turned down a request for a stay.
Civil rights groups say industry protests are an attempt to escape recruiting mandates. In fact, the Georgetown University Law Center-representing the United Church of Christ, the National Organization for Women and others-has asked the federal court in New York to throw out the rules because they don't go far enough.
"The broadcasters' complaints are offensive, frankly," said civil rights attorney David Honig, who lobbied for the FCC's new framework. "This system is considerably less intense than the old one, and compliance will average 42 hours a year. A few minutes a week is not too much when the only thing you need to do to get a license renewed is to make sure you don't discriminate."
The revised rules, issued in January, replace requirements thrown out by a federal court in 1998. Judges said the previous rules were unconstitutional because they imposed de facto racial and gender hiring quotas on stations. (If a licensee's personnel makeup were out of line with the local demographics, civil rights groups and others could challenge a station's right to keep its license.)
In revising the requirements, the FCC attempted to get around the legal dilemma by requiring only that stations actively recruit across the broad cross-section of their communities but imposing no specific hiring mandates. Stations can choose one of two options, but both options require stations to keep detailed records of their outreach efforts, identify the media outlets and organizations with which they post job openings, and explain how the efforts satisfy the government requirements.
The new reporting mandates, which include two annual filings and five others that must be completed during a license term or at the time of an ownership transfer, can't be justified, industry trade groups say, because broadcasters have not shown discriminatory hiring practices. What's more, they maintain, the rules still unlawfully impose de facto hiring quotas because license challengers can second-guess whether stations are doing enough to reach minorities and women.
"Under the old rules, there was a bright-line test: looking at the local community," Smithwick says. "But now it's very difficult to defend yourself. How do you know when you've done enough? You don't know."
Nonsense, counters Georgetown Law Center attorney Jeneba Jalloh Ghatt, who said the FCC should have gone much further. "The court said broad outreach requirements are allowed and broadcasters could be required to target minority and women's organizations to make sure they know about job vacancies."
FCC officials scoff at the industry's complaints, saying the new reporting requirements are simple one-page filings and will take no more than six hours out of a two-year period to complete. The entire outreach effort should take up no more than 52 hours annually.
Furthermore, although stations will be required to keep records on the ethnic and gender makeup of their employee ranks, the data will be used for monitoring industry trends and will not be considered during license renewal reviews. "There is simply no aspect of the inclusive outreach requirements that will pressure stations to make race- or gender-based hiring decisions," the FCC said.
But the NAB argues the FCC predictions are wildly optimistic. "With this sword of Damocles hanging over each station, the level of care given to broadcasters' EEO task will be far more significant than the FCC's meager estimates suggest," the group told Office of Management and Budget officials.
The new policy also applies to cable systems, but the National Cable Television Association says it has no beef with the rules.
Minority recruitment reports / Timetable for filing biennial EEO compliance reports from stations
| Due date | States |
|---|---|
|
June 1, 2001 |
D.C., Md., Va., W.Va. |
|
Aug. 1 |
N.C., S.C. |
|
Oct. 1 |
Fla., Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands |
|
Dec. 1 |
Ala., Ga. |
|
Feb. 1, 2002 |
Ark., La., Miss. |
|
April 1 |
Tenn., Ky., Ind. |
|
June 1 |
Ohio, Mich. |
|
Oct. 1 |
Iowa, Mo. |
|
Dec. 1 |
Minn., N.D., S.D., Mont., Colo. |
|
Feb. 1, 2003 |
Kan., Okla., Neb. |
|
April 1 |
Texas |
|
Oct. 1 |
Alaska, Ore., Hawaii,Wash., Am. Samoa, Guam, Mariana Islands |
|
Dec. 1 |
Conn., Mass., N.H., R.I., Vt. |
|
Feb. 1, 2004 |
N.J., N.Y. |
|
April 1 |
Del., Pa. |
|
Note: Radio stations same day, one year later |
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