Radio Free Open Phones Friday (3/23)

Dominique DiPrima, David Honig, and Jasmyne Cannick

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David Honig

David Honig co-founded the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC) in 1986. MMTC has represented over 70 minority, civil rights and religious national organizations in selected proceedings before the FCC, and it operates the nation’s only full service, minority owned media and telecom brokerage. Mr. Honig is MMTC’s President and Executive Director.
Since 1983, Mr. Honig has also been engaged in the private practice of communications and civil rights law, representing national organizations, broadcasters and broadcast applicants.

Mr. Honig is a member of the bars of the D.C. Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the D.C. Circuit and Second Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He has litigated twenty federal appeals in four courts, and participated in over 90 FCC rulemaking proceedings and hundreds of adjudicatory cases.
From 1975 to 1985, Mr. Honig taught communications policy, research and law at the School of Communications, Howard University. Mr. Honig served as an adjunct lecturer at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law in 1988, teaching the advanced seminar in International Regulation of Communications. He taught Civil Rights Litigation at the University of Miami School of Law in 1996. Mr. Honig has published numerous journal articles, monographs and empirical research studies on international and domestic communications issues. He is the author of law review articles on group defamation, minority broadcast station ownership, and municipal services discrimination.

Mr. Honig served as a U.S. Delegate to the 1979 World Administrative Radio Conference in Geneva, where he helped write the ITU’s rules governing AM radio. He has chaired working groups of the FCC’s Advisory Committee on Radio Broadcasting and Advisory Committee on Broadcast Satellite Service Planning. In 2003, he was named by (then) FCC Chairman Michael Powell to serve on the FCC Advisory Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age, on which he serves as Chair of the Constitutional Issues Subcommittee.

Mr. Honig’s current professional and public service work includes service as Special Counsel for Civil Rights for the Florida State Conference of Branches of the NAACP, and as founding General Counsel of the Broadband Opportunity Coalition, an association of the nation’s leading civil rights organizations that promotes universal broadband adoption, literacy and minority business participation.

The National Law Journal has named Mr. Honig one of the thirty most influential communications lawyers. He has received the National Bar Association’s Presidential Award, the National Association of Minorities in Communications’ Mickey Leland Humanitarian Achievement Award, the International Black Broadcasters Association’s Visionary Award, and the National Association of Minority Media Executives’ Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mr. Honig received a B.A. degree in mathematics from Oberlin College in 1971 and an M.S. Degree in Systems Analysis from the University of Rochester in 1974. He earned his J.D. cum laude in 1983 from Georgetown University Law Center. His hobby is restoring Checker autos (best known as New York cabs.) He has a 20 year-old daughter, Josephine.

Web: http://mmtconline.org/
Web: http://www.flanaacp.org/

Kevin Ross

Kevin A. Ross (born 1963) is an American host of the syndicated television program America’s Court with Judge Ross, a producer, communications strategist, and former California Superior Court judge.

A Los Angeles native, Ross attended Gardena High School, where he was student body president and president of the District-Wide Association of Student Councils for the Los Angeles Unified School District. He went on to graduate from Morehouse College with a degree in Political Science, and received his juris doctorate from Southwestern Law School.

An internship working for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic convinced Ross that victims and those living in underserved communities needed advocates to represent their interests. He decided to become a deputy district attorney, and later worked as a hardcore gang prosecutor responsible for implementing controversial civil gang nuisance injunctions.

Ross entered politics in 1995, running for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council. Finishing third, his presence forced former LA mayoral candidates Stan Sanders and incumbent Nate Holden into a run-off. Although both courted Ross for his endorsement, he gave his support to Holden, who won the election.

Committed to continuing his civic involvement, Ross became a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, was appointed to the LA County Parks and Recreation Commission, and co-founded The New Leaders, an organization created to train and prepare the next generation of African American leaders locally and abroad.

It was also during this period when Ross began contributing op-ed pieces for publications including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Sentinel and Los Angeles Daily News. He was named co-host of “The People’s Connection” on 103.9 KACE, before being given his own show on Disney’s KTZN 710 The Zone. The first talk radio station in the nation to focus exclusively on women, The Zone was unable to find a receptive audience. Eventually it became 710 Radio Disney before its current incarnation of ESPN AM sports station KSPN (AM). While several on-air personalities lost their jobs, Ross was brought over to do his weekend program on Talkradio 790 KABC. There, he hosted and produced Keeping It Real with Kevin Ross until he retired from the airwaves to begin his judicial career.

While attending law school, Ross clerked for David W. Williams, the first African-American federal district court judge appointed west of the Mississippi. A fellow black Republican, Judge Williams would subsequently administer the oath of office to Ross after he successfully challenged a sitting judge on the then Inglewood Municipal Court.  At that time, Ross was the youngest elected judge in the state of California.

Ross was elevated the following year to the Superior Court through a unification ballot measure approved by California voters. During his seven years on the bench, Ross handled over 60,000 cases, ranging from traffic and small claims matters, to sexually violent predators and murderers. After being profiled on KCET’s Life & Times Tonight, Ross began appearing on the PBS program to discuss legal issues from a judge’s perspective. He also frequently spoke about the importance of Blacks becoming police officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges to ensure the judicial system treated minorities fairly.

Reigniting his interest in media, Ross decided to start a communications company, become a blogger, and launch an eponymous Internet show on Blogtalkradio, a large citizen broadcasting network. “The Kevin Ross Show” became a leading current events and conservative political show on Blogtalkradio. It also ranked among the top five most popular shows on the social networking radio site.

In 2008, Fox News Radio and BlogTalkRadio partnered to bring listeners “Election 2008: Battle of the Blog Talkers.” Fans of FOX News Radio’s “FOX Across America” selected their favorite BlogTalkRadio hosts from each side of the political spectrum during a weeklong, one-on-one tournament. Ross was chosen as one of the eight hosts, and ultimately won the contest representing the political right.

At a 2009 business meeting with comedian Byron Allen to discuss an online media venture, Allen was so impressed with Ross that he made him a deal right on the spot to host a court show for Entertainment Studios. The following year, “America’s Court with Judge Ross” was among the 2010-2011 crop of freshman programs in daytime.  The show, also seen on the Verizon FIOS network, has been renewed through the 2012-2013 television season.

Along with serving as one of the producers on America’s Court, Ross is president and CEO of 3BAAS Media Group, a media and marketing firm for clients interested in strategic messaging, branding and content creation. Ross also appears on various cable and radio outlets such as Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, Black Entertainment Television (BET), NPR and KJLH as a legal, political and social commentator.

Kevin Ross is married with two children and resides in the Los Angeles area.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/131628226866811/
Twitter: @Kevin_Ross_