BY JEANNINE AVERSA
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Broadcasters and cable companies would be required to recruit minorities and women to fill vacancies but wouldn't be forced to hire them under a plan offered by federal regulators Thursday.
The Federal Communications Commission, without dissent, proposed rules designed to ensure that TV, radio and cable systems cast a wide net when filling vacancies. The action responds to an April court decision that overturned the agency's 30-year-old equal employment opportunity rules for TV and radio stations, saying those rules had the effect of establishing hiring quotas.
To satisfy the court's ruling, stations and local cable systems no longer would review whether their work forces reflect the racial composition of the markets they serve. The FCC wouldn't either.
The commission could adopt new equal employment opportunity rules sometime next year, after hearing public and industry comments.
"This is about outreach," said FCC Chairman Bill Kennard, the commission's first black chief. "It's not about quotas, it's not about set-asides. It's about opportunity."
The rules wiped out by the court didn't apply to cable TV companies, which are covered by a similar set of equal employment opportunity requirements, including recruitment.
But by proposing to extend Thursday's recruitment proposal to cable systems, the FCC hopes to pre-empt a legal challenge to cable equal employment opportunity rules by making them consistent with the court's ruling.
The FCC is considering letting stations and cable systems design their own outreach programs.
"They've walked the tightrope and done a good job," said Andy Schwartzman, president of the public interest law firm Media Access Project.
Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth, while supporting the recruitment proposal, questioned whether it would further the FCC's goal of boosting editorial diversity as supporters say it would.
The FCC would examine recruitment efforts for compliance. Violations could result in fines.
"The notion that a medium that is so important in our country, in our society, and so influential should not have the fullest participation by all segments in our society is unacceptable," Mr. Kennard said. "We just cannot have it."
The National Association of Broadcasters hasn't formed a position on the latest proposal.
The National Cable Television Association supports the new proposal, said Decker Anstrom, the group's president.
Supporters of the old rules credited them with boosting minority employment in broadcasting. The FCC said 20.2 percent of all full-time employees in TV and radio in 1997 were members of minority groups, up from 9.1 percent in 1971.
Members of minority groups, however, own only 2.9 percent of the nation's TV and radio stations.
