WASHINGTON — Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition has resigned — essentially in protest — as a member of the advisory board of the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC).
"After recent events, I cannot condone the direction of MMTC and can no longer, in good conscience, be associated with the organization," he said in a statement late Tuesday (May 19).
In a May 5 Huffington Post blog, Nogales had criticized MMTC for posting on its "Broadband and Social Justice" blog an article challenging Nogales’s advocacy for network neutrality rules — MMTC opposed the Federal Communications Commission's move — and saying the iconic Latino activist Cesar Chavez would not have supported that stand.
There has not been unanimity among diversity groups over network neutrality rules, with the MMTC arguing that its position was being marginalized by others.
Nogales said the MMTC subsequently removed the article, apologized, and told him it had been posted and emailed in error. Though he appreciated those steps, Nogales said he could not accept that it had been posted by mistake.
"After all, it requires much more than an errant mouse click and a misunderstanding to dig up a month-old article and post it to two distribution platforms," he said in the blog post.
"Alex Nogales's resignation from MMTC's 30-member advisory board resulted from his disagreement with an article by an external author posted on our blog," said MMTC in a statement. "Upon notification, we immediately removed it because we did not want to inadvertently offend our stakeholders or distract from our mission to advocate for net equality for all people. Although we have reached out to Mr. Nogales to resolve this matter amicably, he chose not to engage in any dialogue. We respect his decision to part ways. The heart of our work remains to be closing the divide for all Americans. We wish him well."
