Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
By Winter Casey, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, November 18, 2009 - The opening speaker of a summit focused on improving broadband penetration to minority and low-income areas of the country, and criticized advocates of Net neutrality for being out of touch with the needs of minorities as he attempted to enlist the mantle civil rights leader Martin Luther King into his cause.
“[L]et us remember the worlds of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face-to-face with another problem,’” said Julius Hollis, the founder of the Alliance for Digital Equality, in prepared remarks.
“If we fail to find common-ground on the issues before the U.S. Federal Communications Commission relative to the rulemaking governing broadband adoption, the financing of broadband infrastructure and the over-arching issue of net neutrality, the long-term socio-economic chaos that will be inflicted upon our society would be far too devastating to comprehend,” warned Hollis.
Hollis delivered his remarks Wednesday during his group’s 2009 Minority Broadband Summit, which was held at the Newseum with roses on the table and a view of the Washington skyline.
Hollis dove into the issue of Net neutrality or whether the FCC should step in and regulate internet access...
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Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
News
By William G. Korver, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, June 17 – Black and Hispanic Americans need to be more prominent and “in positions of authority” within the media in order to appeal to a growing multicultural society, a former Clinton administration telecommunications official said Tuesday.
Addressing the Center for Social Media's conference here at American University titled “Beyond Broadcast,” Larry Irving, former chief of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said that blacks and Hispanics consume more media than do white Americans.
The media needed to embrace the opportunity to reach out to all racial and ethnic groups and to become “more of a brotherhood,” said Irving, currently president of Irving Information Group.
He said conference participants should engage in helping to set a well-articulated political agenda readily understandable to non-techies like their parents and grandparents. Only with a well-informed society, Irving argued, can a transformation be wrought in America's businesses, culture, and media.
Irving also said that the president elected in November must find ways to ensure that new technology benefited all Americans , regardless of race, sex and class.
Besides Irving, afternoon sessions speakers included Ernest Wilson, dean of the University of Southern California's communications school; Henry Jenkins, director of the comparative media studies...
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