In a decision released this week, the FCC fined a station group in Alaska for violations of its EEO Rules. The station group had failed to do any outreach for about a quarter of its job openings. However, what was notable about the decision was that the Commission also faulted the licensee for using only one website for recruiting for another quarter of its job openings. The FCC decision stated that reliance on the Internet as the sole recruitment source for job openings was insufficient to achieve the required wide dissemination of notice of the job opening, as the FCC did not believe that the Internet was sufficiently universal to provide notice of that opening to all groups within a entire community.
While in this day and age, it is certainly questionable as to whether Internet access is less ubiquitous than newspaper readership, this is the Commission’s position at this point. Thus, stations are advised that, to be in compliance with the Commission’s rules, they must rely on sources in addition to the Internet when publicizing job openings.
For more information about achieving compliance with the FCC’s EEO rules, see our advisory outlining the rules and providing model forms necessary to document that compliance.