WMC Press Statement: The Women’s Media Center Fights FCC Plan to Relax Media Ownership Rules

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:: WMC PRESS STATEMENT

:: DAILY NEWS BRIEF

Carol Jenkins knows firsthand the importance and ongoing challenges faced by women in the media. A writer and producer, Jenkins is an Emmy award winning former television anchor and correspondent, well known for her tenure with WNBC-TV in New York. Jenkins now serves as president of the Women’s Media Center, a nonprofit advocacy organizations founded in 2004 to make women visible and powerful in the media.

Jenkins enjoyed a 30 year, award-winning tenure with several New York City news departments, including 23 years at WNBC-TV, where she co-anchored the pivotal 6 p.m. newscast. She was most identified with her reporting of national political stories, including from the floor of Democratic and Republican national conventions that yielded Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. She hosted her own daily talk show, Carol Jenkins Live, on WNYW-TV.

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The Women’s Media Center Fights FCC Plan to Relax Media Ownership Rules

October 31, 2007 – Today, Carol Jenkins, president of the Women’s Media Center, joined leaders of the women’s, progressive, and civil rights movements in Washington, DC to call on the FCC to abandon its plans to remove decades-old media ownership protections. Speaking on the doorstep of the FCC at today’s Rally for Better Media, she said:

“The FCC has been entrusted with ensuring that our public airwaves remain a resource for all Americans – including women and minorities – and not a plaything for big business and big media. We know that media consolidation hurts women and minorities – groups that are already severely underrepresented in the media. When just 3 percent of radio stations and 5 percent of television stations are owned by women, it’s no wonder that mainstream programming fails to fairly or accurately represent them.

“Over the past several months, throughout the country, the FCC has held hearings at which Americans have made clear that they want a media system that truly is for the people. In my comments at the FCC hearing in Tampa, I called on the commissioners to listen especially to the "Invisible Majority" of women.

“We need a new media policy, one that reflects the diverse nation that we are. It’s time that the FCC started helping excluded citizens, instead of enabling the creation of monopolies.

“The Women’s Media Center calls on the FCC to abandon its plans to relax ownership regulations, and instead work with the groups speaking out in DC today to adopt policies that will improve the diversity of our public airwaves.”

The Rally for Better Media was coordinated by the StopBigMedia.com Coalition. Confirmed participants included:

Josh Silver, Executive Director, Free Press
FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps
Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton
Brent Wilkes, National Executive Director, League of United Latin American Citizens
Rev. Jesse Jackson, President, Rainbow PUSH Coalition
Kim Gandy, President, National Organization for Women
Wade Henderson, President, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
George Tedeschi, Vice President, Teamsters Union
E. Faye Williams, President, National Congress of Black Women
Hilary Shelton, Washington Director, NAACP
Reverend James Coleman, President, Missionary Baptist Ministers’ Conference of DC
Congressman Maurice Hinchey
Melanie Campbell, National Coalition for Black Civic Participation
Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Executive Director Hip Hop Caucus
Carol Jenkins, President, Women’s Media Center
Tony Riddle, Alliance for Community Media
Rosa Clemente, REACH Hip-Hop
Hannah Sassaman, Prometheus Radio Project