Count the Women's Media Center among those who think FCC chairman
Julius Genachowski's days atop the FCC are numbered.
That came in an
email seeking support for a petition telling the president to nominate a
woman to be the next -- and first -- head of the FCC.
Several news stories have recently cited a male-dominated
Obama Administration and WMC president Julie Burton cites them in calling for
the appointment.
"In its nearly 80-year history, the FCC has never had a
female chair. Appointing a woman is not just a symbolic step. The next FCC chair
should promote diversity and increase competition in telecommunications and in
media."
The center said the president was "about to nominate
the next Chair of the Federal Communications Commission" in the next few
weeks. The chairman has declined comment on his future plans beyond saying as
recently as November he had no "plans" to leave, though Washington
FCC watchers are almost universal in their expectation that he will likely exit
sometime this year.
If so, the FCC has two Democratic female commissioners
already in the conversation for either acting or full-time chair if Genachowski
does leave: Mignon Clyburn, already a trailblazer as the first African-American
woman on the commission, and Jessica Rosenworcel.
The center was founded by Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, and
Gloria Steinem to "make women visible and powerful in the media."
