Reclaim the Media and National Hispanic Media Coalition urges official review of media hate speech

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This week, the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) filed comments (pdf) in the FCC's proceeding on the Future of Media and Information Needs of Communities in the Digital Age. Joined by 32 national and regional organizations from throughout the country, the comments ask the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to examine hate speech in media.

The Future of Media proceeding was designed to assess whether all Americans have access to vibrant, diverse sources of news and information that will enable them to enrich their lives, their communities and our democracy.

In its comments, NHMC reinforces the need for the FCC to act on NHMC's petition for inquiry on hate speech in media filed in January of 2009, also with the support of Reclaim the Media. An inquiry allows people across the country to voice their concerns on an issue in a public docket.

NHMC's petition for inquiry urges the Commission to examine the extent and effects of hate speech in media, including the likely link between hate speech and hate crimes, and to explore non-regulatory ways in which to counteract its negative impacts. For over a year now, the FCC has failed to address NHMC's concerns on this very serious and important issue.

In the meantime, countless people have suffered violent, and sometimes deadly, hate crimes. Hate, extremism and misinformation have been on the rise, and even more so in the past week as some around the nation have spread hate through media in response to Arizona's passage of one of the harshest pieces of anti-Latino legislation in this country's history, SB 1070. Indeed, hate crimes against the Latino community have risen over 40% in just the past few years. And we know that hate speech also has a profound effect on the psychological well-being of our children.

Read more: http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/deepmedia/rtm_joins_hispanic_media_coali0818

Read the comments file - it is really eye-opening to the extreme influence of the anti-immigrant crowd that sinks to a level lower than the very immigrants whom they attack all the time.

[Gates9]

1. Heard Glenn beck Talking About It This Morning

Spun it like a push for censorship. I really hope this age of McCarthyist xenophobia comes to an end soon. We don't wear it well.