Executive Director
Minority Media and Telecommunications Council
2003 Distinguished Diversity Award for Lifetime Achievement
In 1971, David Honig was the research director for an anti-poverty program in Rochester, NY, his hometown, when he learned something surprising. When low-income people in Rochester were asked to rate public services, they responded that they felt the worst served by radio and television. It was a revelation that would have a profound influence on his professional life in the years to come.
For 32 years, Honig has devoted his life to advocating for greater diversity and minority participation in media and telecommunications, both heavily regulated industries. As Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and even the courts have shaped policies with far-reaching consequences, Honig has steadfastly monitored communications issues and marshaled testimony and written countless briefs. His impact is unquestionable, even though the political climate has swung back and forth on such issues as affirmative action. Everyone who cares about minority representation in broadcasting knows that what progress has been made would be even less if not for Honig’s efforts.
Today, Honig is the executive director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, which he co-founded in 1986 along with Henry Rivera, a former FCC commissioner. The organization has become a leading advocate for minority participation in the broadcasting, cable, telephone and wireless industries, seeking to preserve and expand minority ownership and equal employment opportunity, prevent discrimination and ensure universal telephone and Internet service.
MMTC represents 51 organizations before the Federal Communications Commission, including the American Hispanic Owned Radio Association, the NAACP, the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, the National Council of La Raza and the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press. The organization also advises aspiring broadcast owners.
While still in Rochester, Honig began examining and challenging broadcast licenses as part of an organization that eventually became the National Black Media Coalition. In 1974, he moved to Washington, DC, to teach at Howard University’s School of Communications.
After earning a law degree from Georgetown University, he began a small private law practice while also volunteering as the general counsel for the Maryland state conference of branches of the NAACP. Later, he became general counsel of the Miami-Dade NAACP, and commuted between Washington and Miami for more than 10 years.
But Honig never lost sight of the importance of the media, believing that more minority broadcast ownership and employment could eventually lead to a media more representative of diverse groups and points of view.
During the 1980s, he was part of an informal group of communications lawyers who met regularly to strategize. After FCC commissioners quietly and unexpectedly repealed two policies on minority broadcast ownership in 1986, MMTC was formed. Honig explains that the group realized that hard-fought gains could evaporate overnight without constant vigilance and advocacy. Honig became MMTC’s fulltime executive director in 1998.
Erwin Krasnow, a former general counsel of the National Association of Broadcasters and founding director of MMTC, says: “Honig saw the need for more aggressive minority representation before the FCC. He also saw great need for an umbrella organization to promote equal opportunity and civil rights in the mass media and telecommunications industries.”
Nicolaine Lazarre, who met Honig when MMTC sought help from the Institute for Public Representation, where she was working at the time, in devising a strategy to address the repeal of the FCC’s EEO rule, says: “Communications is the most powerful medium with the ability to influence policies and laws” on such issues as housing and employment discrimination. “David’s push for the advancement of minorities in ownership and management is the best possible way to better shape the tenor and content of these important debates.”
Restoring policies to encourage minority broadcast ownership and a diverse workforce remains at the top of MMTC’s agenda. Recently, Senator John McCain of Arizona introduced a bill that could have the effect of increasing minority broadcast ownership, and the FCC itself has proposed a new EEO policy. (The former one was suspended in 1998 after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled it was unconstitutional.)
The digital divide—making sure that low-income people have the same access to the Internet and broadband service as others—also is something that MMTC is watching. And, looking ahead, Honig worries about the estimated 15 percent of the U.S. population, many of them poor people, that will lose reception on their analog television sets when the industry begins using digital signals exclusively.
While Honig’s workload is punishing—he estimates that he routinely works between 80 and 90 hours a week—he isn’t complaining. “You never have to wash your hands,” he says. “You can always go to sleep content.”
Krasnow adds. “My joke is that David is a successful half-time worker—he works 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.”