MMTC, Others Urge FCC To OK 'Katrina Petition'

Many cities with large populations of Latino, Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese speakers have few broadcasters transmitting in those languages, said Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, NAACP and 23 other groups in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler posted Thursday in docket 06-119. Saturday marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which took New Orleans’ only Spanish-language station off air for eight days, the groups said. “During those eight days, over 100,000 Latinos had no landline service, no cellular telephony, no television, no radio, and no print media in their language,” the groups said. Civil rights organizations in 2005 proposed the “Katrina Petition,” under which stations in localities would be designated to broadcast emergency alert system (EAS) warnings in multiple languages, but the FCC hasn’t acted on it, the groups said. The FCC should require stations to certify they will help other stations transmit life-saving information in emergencies as a condition of license renewal, they said. “Stations that declare that they ‘will not transmit, or even help other stations transmit, life-saving information in an emergency’ should have their fitness to hold an FCC license formally reviewed,” the letter said. “State EAS plans can easily be amended to incorporate reasonable methods of ensuring that lifesaving information finds its way to the public in an emergency.”