Remarks by 
                        William E. Kennard
                             Chairman
                Federal Communications Commission
                              to the
            National Association of Black Journalists
                          Washington, DC
                          July 30, 1998

       Thank you Roy.  It's wonderful to reconnect with you after all these years.  What that
introduction did not say is that my first work experiences were in broadcast journalism.  Later,
as a lawyer, many of my clients were media companies.  I feel like I've always had a kinship
with your profession.  So it is a special honor for me to be here with you today.

       Today I want to talk with you about the importance of diversity in the media, the steps
we're taking at the FCC to promote equal opportunity in the media, and why the digital
revolution is both a story you should cover and a pathway to new opportunity for African-
American journalists.

       Two weeks ago, I was on a panel talking about broadcast ownership at the NAACP
convention in Atlanta.  Ted Turner was on the panel, too.
       
       At one point, Ted told the audience to think of him as a small businessman, because in
today's economy of global media giants, he thinks of himself as a little guy.
       
       When he said this the audience at the NAACP laughed.
       
       After all, who thinks of Ted Turner as a small businessman?
       
       The answer, apparently, is Ted Turner. 
       
       How we are perceived, and how we perceive ourselves, means everything.  Perceptions
influenced me and my friends, growing up in Los Angeles.  In those days, not too long ago,
blacks and other minorities were rarely seen on television.  I remember very well the
excitement in my family when we saw those first -- and very rare -- images of African-
Americans on the television screen.
       
       Once, the Bank of America used a black actor in a TV commercial.  He was only on
for a fleeting moment but my mother was so pleased that she went right out and changed the
family bank account.

       Years later, we are still asking the same questions.  What does it mean to see African-
Americans portrayed on television?  Or represented in a meeting of TV and radio station
owners?  Or on the masthead of a newspaper?  Is it really important to the kind of society we
strive to create?
       
       I believe it is.
       
       Back in the 1960s, President Johnson appointed the Kerner Commission to examine
race relations in this country.  One of the Commission's findings was that control of the media
affects the way in which blacks and other minorities are portrayed.  
       
       Our country surely has changed a lot since then, much of it for the better, but the
reality is that race and gender -- and the way they are portrayed by our media -- still matter.

       This is something that most Americans know intuitively.  I know this because I have
lived it.  Everyone in this room knows this because you have lived it.  Women know this
because they have lived it.  Members of religious minorities know this because they have lived
it.   

       So why am I talking about this?   

       Because the value of diversity in the media is under legal assault.  Some of you may
have reported on a decision this spring by a federal appeals court which, if not reversed, will
do away with the FCC's rules that require broadcasters to recruit qualified minority and
women job applicants.  

       We're appealing the decision.  But let's understand what's at stake here.  The FCC's
rules say that the public interest requires diversity of voices in the media.  Our rules promote
equal opportunity in employment because the media should reflect the rich racial diversity of
our country.

       The court disagreed.  It said that there is no compelling reason for the government to
promote diversity in the media.      

       But of course there is a compelling interest.  We know this because we live in the real
world.  We know that the background of a journalist reporting a story matters.  Our
experience and identity influence how we view the world.  And how we view the world
inescapably influences how we report and analyze news.  The court's decision ignores the
fundamental truth about the media:  that reporting is done by people. 
       
       This is so obvious, even little kids understand this fundamental truth.
       
       A survey released last spring by Children Now asked the question, "How often do you
see your race on TV?"  Seventy-two percent of white kids said very often.  Only 42 % of
African-American kids said very often.  Far fewer Latino or Asian kids said they see their race
on TV at all.  

       Yet four out of five children of color said they believe it is important to see their race
on television.

       Camille Cosby made this point in a recent essay in USA Today.  She wrote that her
son's killer "did not learn to hate black people in his native country, the Ukraine, where the
black population was near zero.  Nor was he likely to see America's intolerable, stereotypical
movies and television programs about blacks, which were not shown in the Soviet Union
before the killer and his family moved to America in the late 1980s."  Her point -- he learned
his hatred here in America.

       I thought about Camille Cosby's moving essay on her son's murder when recently I
read a very interesting study by Dr. Robert Entman of North Carolina State University.  He
studied the portrayal of African-Americans on TV news programs.  He concluded that "TV
news, especially local news, paints a picture of blacks as violent and threatening towards
whites, self-interested and demanding towards the body politic -- continually causing or being
victimized by problems that seem endless."

       He found, for example, that TV news treats black crime suspects as anonymous,
faceless people, disconnected from community or family, whereas news coverage of white
crime suspects more typically humanize them, by explaining more about their families and
backgrounds.  Here, TV news is conveying a subtle, yet powerful message about race in
America.

       The perceptions and life experiences of the people with the power to convey those
messages matter.
  
       I once read an account of the Montgomery bus boycott back in 1954.  At one point, a
story moved on the AP wire that black leaders called an end to the boycott in return for more
"courtesy" on the buses.

       The reporter who wrote that story thought he had the facts right.

       But another young reporter named Carl Rowan couldn't believe the story was true.  He
called Martin Luther King, Jr. to confirm it.

       Of course, the story wasn't true.  King and the other leaders started frantically digging,
found out it was a hoax engineered by the Montgomery city commissioners -- and alerted
people that the boycott was still on.

       Was it a coincidence that a black reporter had the sensitivity to know that story couldn't
be true?

       Of course not.      

       Reporting is an interplay between objectivity and a reporter's -- or editor's --  sense of 
what stories are important to cover.

       You have to get the facts right when you're covering a story.  But you also have to
know which stories are worth covering.

       As African-Americans you bring a unique perspective that's reflected in the stories you
write, just as I bring a unique perspective to my job as the first African-American Chairman of
the FCC.

       Those perspectives matter because race still matters in America.  Now, some argue that
we live in a color blind society.  

       I like Vice President Gore's response to this argument.  He says that "those who say 
we have a color-blind society . . .  use their color-blind the way duck hunters use a duck
blind.  They hide behind it and hope the ducks won't notice."

       Well, we notice.  That's why I believe that there is a role for government to promote
diversity in the media.  For nearly 30 years, the FCC rules under challenge in the appeals
court have promoted inclusion in broadcast station employment by requiring broadcasters to
cast their recruiting net widely.

       This has led to more minorities and women in front of and behind the television
camera, and inside and outside the radio booth.  In 1971, three years after the FCC's EEO
rules began, women constituted only 23.3% of full-time broadcast employees, and minorities
constituted only 9.1%.

       Last year, women constituted 40.8% of broadcast employees and minorities constituted
19.9%.  We know the rules work.  We know we still need them. 

       How can anyone living in America today believe that race no longer matters in this
society?

       I'm glad that many of our Nation's leading media companies agree with me and the
Vice President.  I'm pleased to announce today that many leading media companies have
assured me that they will abide by EEO principles whether required by law to do so or not.  I
thank these companies:  ABC, CBS, Cablevision, Capstar, Clear Channel, Comcast, Cox,
Fox, Jacor, Media One, NBC, TCI, Time Warner, and Tribune.  These companies know that
reaching out and finding talented men and women of all colors to run their companies is good
business and the right thing to do.  It's right for them.  And it's right for the country.  I urge
others to do the same.

       We are appealing the court's decision because we think it's the right thing for all
companies.  

       Just as companies must take responsibility to ensure diversity in the media, so too must
we.

       As professional journalists, you are judged by the demanding standards of excellence in
your profession.  As African-American professionals, you will also be judged by the work you
do to pave the way for those who will follow in your path.  

       As African-American professionals, we ought to make a difference.  We ought to make
a difference by working to bring other people of color into our professions, and to help them
to succeed.

       I know the value of having someone open the door, because the door was opened for
me.  When I was in college at Stanford University, people of courage and commitment in San
Francisco's African-American community decided that it was unacceptable to have virtually no
minorities working in top positions in Bay Area television stations.  So they organized and
pushed and cajoled, and they made a difference.

       They refused to accept the claim that the stations couldn't find qualified minority
applicants.  So they told them to go out and train people and bring them into the business.  So
one station went out and found three young minorities for a management training program. 
Today, one of them is a television producer.  One of them is a CBS network correspondent. 

       And one of them is the first African-American Chairman of the FCC.

       I suspect that there are a lot of pioneers in this room, today -- the first black reporter at
your paper, the first on the editorial board, the first managing editor.  You all know that while
it's important to be first, it's also important not to be the last.

       You are in positions where you can make a real difference.  You can help create
opportunity for others in the media; you can influence the dialogue, frame the debate -- both
inside and outside your companies.  You will make a difference in the media industry.  And as
you do so, realize that technology is quickly changing what is today, and what will become,
the media industry.
       
       The revolution in telecommunications technology is changing the news business
dramatically.  A recent article in The Economist reported that in the past two years NBC's
output of news has gone from three hours of TV news a day to 27 hours a day, plus a
constantly updated Web site.  News is reported continuously.  And the number of outlets
increases exponentially.

       The Pew Foundation recently reported that in 1995, 4% of Americans used a news web
site.  This year, 20% of Americans do.  

       New technology means new ways to tell your stories.  New ways to reach your readers. 
New opportunities.

       Throughout the history of communications, those who have succeeded have had a
vision of the future and have embraced technological change.

       You must embrace it now.  High-speed Internet access to the home gives you as
journalists new opportunities and new tools.

       The new media is a combination of the media you already work in -- print, audio, and
video.

       Embrace it.  

       And the new media is being built by small, nimble, high-tech companies which require
less capital to succeed than the traditional media companies.

       Smart entrepreneurs will seize these opportunities and develop programming and
content that will be carried by these new media.  

       I am working hard at the FCC to create conditions for deployment of high speed data
networks into America's homes.  These high speed networks will create new and exciting ways
for you to reach your readers.  I want you to be a part of it.

       One hundred and seventy-two years ago a black man named John B. Russwurm
graduated from Bowdoin College -- only the third black college graduate in the United States.

       After college, he and a friend founded Freedom's Journal, the first black newspaper in
the United States.

       In the first issue, the editors wrote, "We wish to plead our own cause.  Too long have
others spoken for us."

       This was the driving impulse for black journalism in the 19th Century -- and much of
the twentieth -- the need to speak for one's self -- to give voice to a then voiceless people. 
Early in this century, W.E.B. Dubois spoke of this need to find our own voice.  He spoke of 
"a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self 
through the eyes of others." 

       The digital revolution will provide a million new ways for African-American journalists
to bring their voices to the American public.

       For so long as I am privileged to hold the Chairmanship of the FCC, I will do
everything I can to make sure that the communications revolution is an inclusive one -- one
that creates opportunity for all Americans.
 
       With your voices, with new tools, and with a renewed commitment to the mission of
the Freedom Journal, you will "plead our cause."  Because "too long, others have spoken for
us."

       Thank you. 

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