4500Kerner25

There's a quiet revolution going on in America The nature of this revolution is profound since it will dramatically affect the way organizations responsible for the transmittal and dissemination of news conduct business. This revolution has been called by some the "colorization" of America. lt. is a movement that is driven by the sheer number of people in the United States who originate from families that in earlier times would have been lumped into the single category of "nonwhite." No area of the country is immune from this revolution as people of varied racial and ethnic backgrounds make their homes in the smallest towns of the South and Midwest to the megacities of the North and West.

People involved in the business of spreading the news about what is going on in these communities, the country and the world are facing somestark realities. America is no longer a country where the only racial issue is black and white. We mark the twenty-fifth anniversary ofthe Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission Report after its chair Otto Kerner, former governor of Illinois, with this CALL F0R ACTION from journalists who are part of this new America. As journalists of color, we have seen a twenty-five-year flashback as riot scenes from the sixties became the actuality of the nineties. The words of the Kerner Report ring in our ears as we see how little has changed and how far away we are from fulfilling the recommendations of a commission that went out of business a quarter of a century ago.

The nation's news industry has failed to acknowledge and rectify the practices that led to the conclusions of the Kerner Report. Some of their recommendations are spelled out quite plainly:

Expand coverage of the Negro community and of race problems through permanent assignment of reporters familiar with urban and racial affairs, and through establishment] of more and better links with the Negro community

Integrate Negroes and Negro activities into all aspects of coverage and content, including newspaper articles and television programming The news media must publish newspapers and produce programs that recognize the existence and activities of Negroes as a group within the

community and as part of the larger community.

Recruit more Negroes into journalism and broadcasting and promote those who are qualified to positions of significant responsibility. Recruitment should begin in high schools and continue through college; where necessary, aid for training should be provided.

Accelerate efforts to ensure accurate and responsible reporting of riot and racial news, through adoption by all news gathering organizations of stringent internal staff guidelines.

The terminology is archaic, but if you substitute the words "people of color" for the word "Negro" or "Negroes," what results is a blueprint for what should have been done before the 1992 urban disturbances, but what the nation's news organizations have yet to achieve. For 25 years, the news media has worded with these issues by creating hundreds of diversity committees and task forces, year 2000 goals, tons of paperwork and reports. These efforts, though, have yielded only a little progress and a lot of frustration.

To break this gridlock, journalists of color from all over the country have come together under what is known as Unity '94. We have grown weary of the diversity agenda being set by the very organizations that have no vested interest in or willingness to change from conducting business as usual. We contend that these organizations can no longer afford to rest on their miniscule efforts. The economic survival of news organizations depends on embracing a new social paradigm It is also our responsibility as professional journalists to adhere to the true principles of our profession and to tell the whole story.

The contributors to this report have looked at eight basic areas that encompass the entire process of serving and covering the communities that include people of color: Preparing youths, recruitment, newsroom and corporate environments, promotion and management, retention, editorial content, bottom line and ethnic media We have looked at what has been done in these individual areas, the challenges that people of color have faced and what steps need to be taken to deal with this new America.

Our conclusions and recommendations are specific and provide a blueprint for news organizations that want to prosper and meet the dynamic challenges that lie ahead. We are not so naive to believe that these changes will come without some sacrifice and discomfort. As we head into the new millennium, we must learn from our mistakes of the past and proceed boldly.

By Sidmel Estes-Sumpter

Sidmel Estes-Sumpter is planning manager at WAGA-TV, the CBS affiliate in Atlanta and was elected president of the National Association of Black Journalists in 1991. An honors graduate from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, where she received her bachelor's and master's degree, Estes-Sumpter has been a professional journalist for 18 years. She has won several awards for television producing and her work as a trailblazing black journalist and serves as the 1992 president of Unity '94

Preparing Our Youths

The Search for Potential: Minority Journalists

Whenever I'm invited to speak to high school or college students about journalism, I always ask the youngsters the same question: How many of you have a relative or even an acquaintance who is a journalist?

Usually, at least one of the white students will raise his or her hand. In the dozen years that I've been asking that question, however, only one minority student has said she knew a journalist.

'Well if you didn't know a journalist before, you do now," I tell them, and then I hand out my business card.

Experience tell us that too many young Latino, black, Asian and Native American students know very little about journalists or journalism and that they do not get the opportunity to learn about us, during those crucial years when they are, determining what .to do with the rest of their lives.

Indeed, an editor's search for a reporter from a minority community really should start at least eight years sooner than it usually does. The editor and news organization should take steps early on to ensure that Latinos, black, Asians and Native Americans at the high school and college level are welcome to work on their school newspapers; that the high school or college does, in fact, have a newspaper or broadcast program; and that colleges, high schools and elementary school are teaching minority students the basic skills reading, writing and arithmetic - that all young people need to go into journalism or any other profession.

Offering hands-on journalism experience as early as possible is key to engaging a youngster in the news business for life. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Many programs already provide fine models that others can build on and expand. What is desperately needed is more of everything - more high school and college newspapers, writing contests, journalism days and workshops, internships, scholarships, mentor programs, job fairs and a better way of tracking talented young people so we do not lose them as they make their way through high school, college and that all-important first job.

There are many things the news industry can do to fire up young people of color about journalism. The industry can start by urging local news operations to adopt a school or school district and help produce a newspaper or broadcast there. With budget cutbacks, too many high schools, particularly in neighborhoods with high concentrationsof minority students, are losing their journalism programs.

The industry must also provide intensive training workshops that produce a newspaper or broadcast, such as the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund's High School Journalism Workshops for Minorities, where students spend two weeks learning what journalism is, interacting with professional journalists and, most importantly, producing a newspaper. Yet often these workshops, intended to be paid for only partly by the Newspaper Fund, struggle to find additionalfunding from other news organizations and participation from professional journalists.

At the college level, minority journalism organizations and other industry associations have followed the lead of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which in 1988 began producing The Latino Reporter, a daily convention newspaper produced by minority college students during the association's four-day annual conference. With support from industry funders, several groups, including the Hispanic and Asian American journalism associations, also have produced student-run television or radio broadcasts. These exposures to the news business also can be replicated and used elsewhere to draw in our youths.

In a business where experience and clips or a tape are essential, the news industry must make a commitment to providing internships in greater numbers Instead, in some areas, internships are being cut back The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund recently discontinued its Minority Reporting Intern Scholarship Competition for college sophomores because it was unable to get enough newspapers to agree to take interns.

In addition, the industry must make sure that existing internship programs include minority students in significant numbers If the internship program is done in partnership with a college or university or other entity we should stress to that partner that diversity is a necessity. The news industry would be better served by becoming more involved with the colleges and universities whose responsibility it is to prepare our youths for the working world. The industry should press colleges and universities, especially those with prestigious programs, to comply with the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication's Standard 12, which says: "Organized efforts must be made to recruit, advise and retain minority students and minority female faculty members and to include in the curriculum information for all students about contributions to journalism and mass communication made by minority and female practitioners."

At present the standard is largely ignored, and among the country's 92 accredited journalism schools and departments, 98 percent of the faculty holding association or full professor rank are white. The few minority journalism professors around note that few minority students come through their classes or departments. The industry must insist that journalism colleges and departments recruit minority students and minority faculty members who are more likely to serve as role models and mentors for those students.

At the same time, the industry cannot limit the search for talented youngsters to four-year journalism schools but must also seek out future journalists at community colleges and other learning institutions where so many minority students go because of economics and steering by teachers and counselors.

Practically speaking, the industry must provide scholarship money to minority youngsters, many of whom come from families who cannot afford to pay for a college education without some form of financial aid

The industry must provide its own news professionals to go into high schools and colleges and talk about diversity in the newsroom and in the news. If young people see that diversity is valued in the professional workplace, the are more likely to start practicing it while still in school. Visiting professionals can emphasize the advantage of including minorities on the staff of high school and college newspapers and broadcast Helping to make sure that faculty members steer students of all ethnic backgounds to these student productions would benefit the industry's recruiting efforts.

The industry must commit itself to holding job fairs. Although they continue to be an important tool in bringing together job candidates and potential employees, the number of job fairs hosted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors is down to eight this year from a high of 16 in the mid-1980s, mostly because newspapers are declining to host them.

Our attention to our youths also must continue beyond the moment when students walk across the stage at their college or university, nervously reminding themselves "Shake with the right hand, diploma with the left" The industry needs to remain vigilant as that Latino, black Asian or Native American walks into a newsroom as a professional for the first time. Formally or informally, newsroom managers should match young journalists with mentors who can help newcomers navigate these baffling, exhilarating first years as a professional journalist.

Evelyn Hemanez is an assistant metro editor at New York Newsday whose responsibilities include Bronx coverage. She joined New York Newsday in 1987 and her assignments have included three years as a City Hall reporter. She was a reporter at the FortWorth (Texas) Star-Telegram from 1980 to 1983 and at The Miami Herald from 1983 to 1987. Hermandex was president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists from 1988-1990 and served on the board of directors for five years. She is a founder of the Network of Hispanic Communicators in Dallas-Fort Worth and a founder and past-president of the Florida Association of Hispanic Journalists in Miami. Hernandez graduated from Boston University in 1980 with a bachelors degree in broadcast journalism.

Recruitment

Minority Recruitment:

What Works, What Doesn't

We live in a country where 25 percent of the people are from minority backgrounds. Yet, the number of minority journalists in our nation's newsrooms do not reflect the communities in which they serve. According to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, among the newspaper journalists in American, only 9.3 percent are of minority backgrounds. In the broadcasting industry, the Radio and Television News Directors Association reports that there are 18 percent minorities in television and 11 percent in radio. These broadcast figures, however, are misleading because, unlike the newspaper statistics, they do not differentiate between professional journalists and non-professionals such as clerks and secretaries. Clearly there is a long way to go to bring more diversity into the newsrooms.

But before even getting to the topic of how to attract more minorities into newsrooms, employers must ask themselves if they help to create a culture where minorities feel welcome, wanted and valued. That means, is coverage of minorities and minority issues fair? Are there key decision makers in newsrooms who come from minority backgrounds? Do newsroom managers and employees respect the opinion of fellow journalists who may have divergent viewpoints?

It's not enough to recruit and hire minorities solely to win a "numbers game." No matter how well-intentioned recruiting efforts may be, no one wants to enter a newsroom feeling as if he or she is a token or has been hired solely because of skin color. The reason to hire minorities is because diversity will benefit the news industry and will add value to news age. And employers must learn to truly believe that.

That said, I want to focus on minority recruiting: what doesn't work, what does, and what newsrooms across the country can do to encourage it.

Current recruiting efforts include attending job fairs. posting jobs with the four national minority journalist organizations, awarding high school and college-level journalism scholarships, employing student interns, hiring minorities from other organizations, tracking and networking. Some of these tactics are more effective than others.

Paying only lip service to minority recruiting efforts doesn't work. It is imperative that the goal to hire minorities be part of the corporate mission and fully understood, endorsed and implemented from the top down. That means chief executive officers, presidents, publishers, editors, general managers and department heads must all know what the goal is and work to achieve it. It is not merely enough to state we want to hire more minorities." It is important that each organization set a tangible, numerical goal, such as, "25 percent of our staff must be of minority descent" or "we want to hire 10 people of minority backgrounds this year." Meeting those hiring goals should be part of a performance evaluation, much like meeting a budget line has become a part of the performance review and incentive compensation in corporate America today.

Attending minority job fairs works, although an interviewer may not see immediate results. There are times when an interviewer won't find a candidate for a specific, current job opening. But what a smart interviewer knows is that these job fairs serve to provide a pool of names and resumesupon which to draw either right away or later when a job opens up. The best long-term use of job fairs is to track the talented, bright candidates.

One recruiter has a computer database of people he has interviewed over the years, containing vital statistics, experience and personal observations. He also has stayed in contact with many of those people throughout the years, noting their job changes and career progress Whenever he has a job to fill, he has a ready pool of candidates from which to choose Many of the candidates are minorities; most of them are people with whom he is very familiar.

Although sending human resources persons to a job fair is preferable to sending no one at all. it is not effective unless they have in-the-trenches experience or have the confidence of their editors, directors and producers Recruiters ought to have an intimate understanding of the job and of skills needed to do it well.

Networking has also been proven to work. One method has been networking within the industry. Within both the print and broadcasting media are managers who sincerely believe in the cause of minority recruitment. These folks are a source of qualified names and resumes when a job becomes available and are happy to share information. Another kind of networking is within the company, especially when entry-level jobs open up. Ask leaders in the minority community for names of bright, talented people to contact about applying for these jobs.

"Grow your own" is a strategy that many experts advocate. That means reaching out to nearby colleges, and even high schools, to encourage minority students to enter the field of journalism. Many news managers have good relationships with nearby college professors who advise them of "star" pupils who can fill positions with former students. Along those lines, visionary news organizations have started offering scholarships to college and high school students interested in pursuing journalism. This can be an especially good way to attract minority students who may face more financial difficulty in paying education costs than their white counterparts.

In conjunction with scholarships, some employers offer internships to give students a realistic sense of newsroom demands and to establish a pool of future job candidates. Every organization that uses interns has hired many of the best and the brightest on a permanent basis. "Growing your own" is preferable to "stealing someone else's." Although raiding another newspaper or magazine company or television or radio station can be effective, this tactic does not increase the total pool of minority journalists in the country.

Use the help available from the various minority journalism organizations. The Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists and Native American Journalists Association all have job referral services, such as job lines and newsletters, to let their members know of available jobs They also have dozens of resumes of qualified candidates and can personally help managers by providing a list of minority candidates.

In addition to the four national associations, there are other organizations that can help identify minority job candidates. provide detailed help on how to find minority journalists and inform managers about upcoming job fairs. Some of these other groups include the American Society of Newspaper Editors, (703) 648-1146; California Chicano News Media Association, (213) 743-7158; Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism, (415) 338-2603; Institute for Journalism Education, (510) 891-9202; Native American Communication and Career Development, (602) 483~212; Newspaper Association of America, Minority Affairs Director, (703) 648-1253.

By Dianne Fukami

Dianne Fukami is the former assistant news director at KPIX-TV in San Francisco. During her 15-year career at the station, she was actively involved in recruiting efforts on behalf of both KPIX and its parent company, Group W Broadcasting. At one time, she was the highest ranking Asian television news manager in the country. Fukami has served on the board of directors of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association. She formed her own production company in 1991 and produces television programs and corporate videos. She continues to be active in encouraging minorities to enter journalism.

Retention

To Retain Minorities, Increase Advancement Opportunities

Faced with career dead ends, up to half of minority journalists are considering leaving the industry, according to various studies.

Journalists of color too often are wooed, hired and then forgotten. They are sent to one training program after another, but are seldom promoted to positions of power. Discouraged, they "job hop" for better opportunities--or get out of the business all together. Top reasons for their discontent: lack of advancement, limited pay, stress and disappointment with the profession. Their unhappiness with their jobs threatens hard-earned gains in the hiring of minorities and diversifying of the news media industry.

In newspapers, 22.7 percent of those hired for their first full-time newsroom jobs in 1992 were minorities, up from 18.3 percent in 1988, says the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE). In television, 22 percent of new hires in 1991 were minorities, up from 19 percent in 1988. In radio, 12 percent of new hires were minorities in both years, said Vernon Stone, journalism professor emeritus at the University of Missouri.

These new-hire figures, however, belie the more dismal picture of the total number of journalists of color in this country's newsrooms. Minorities made up only 9.4 percent of newspaper editorial employees last year, up from 7 percent in 1988; 19 percent of television newsrooms, up from 16 percent; and 13 percent of radio newsrooms, up from 8 percent.

"We're losing them faster than we can bring them in," says Don Flores. chair of the Newspaper Association of America's subcommittee on retention and promotion

In 1989, people of color made up 10 percent of newspaper newsrooms but 14 percent of those who left the business, said a survey of employee departure patterns conducted for the Task Force on Minorities in the Newspaper Business.

For every three minorities hired in 1985, one quit, reported the Institute for Journalism Education (JtJE) As far back as 1986 the institute said, ''It is on the battleground of retention that the struggle for full parity in the industry will be won or lost."

Papers spend so much energy hiring . they don't think about development and retention until it's too late," says Al Fitzpatrick, assistant vice president of minority affairs for Knight-Ridder. "In order to resolve the retention problem, you have to make individuals feel they are a part of something. You have to follow that up with action"

At the top levels, white males still tend to promote other white males. Minorities made up just 9 percent of newspaper executives and managers in 1992, and 9 percent of television and radio news directors in 1991.

Despite the surge in the overall minority population and the economic incentives for the media to better reflect the community, little has changed.

Of minority broadcast and print journalists, 28.8 percent of Native Americans, 25.7 percent of African Americans, 19.2 percent of Latinos and 10.9 percent of Asian Americans said they would like to be working outside the media in five years, according to a 1992 study of 1,410 journalists by David H. Weaver and G. Cleveland Without of Indiana University. In fact, one in five in the total sample planned to leave the field in five years--double the number in 1982-83 That shift is linked to a significant decline in job satisfaction, with blacks most unhappy, followed closely by Hispanics and Native Americans.

"The best people get frustrated," says Lee Becker, journalism professor at Ohio State University. "But it's particularly acute for minorities, who often feel alienated."

Below are some additional troublesome observations:

Data gathered by Stone in 1992 from more than 1,700 television journalists and 400 radio journalists showed that 41 percent of minorities in television and 52 percent of those in radio are seriously considering quitting journalism because of the lack of advancement compared to 3~ percent of whites in television and 39 percent in radio Pay was cited by all as another key factor in the decision to leave

In a 1992 survey by fellows of the Management Training Center at Northwestern University, 93 percent of 32 newspapers with circulations of .50,000 or less said they could not hold onto minorities because of better opportunities elsewhere and low wages.

"The Newspaper Barometer Project" of 1,300 journalists in 1990, by Ted Pease and J. Frazier Smith at Ohio State University, found that one of five women of color and one of four minorities at newspapers with 50,000 to 100,000 circulation were unlikely to be at those newspapers in five years. More than 65 percent of minorities believed they would have to change newspapers to get the positions they wanted. "Minority journalists find themselves excluded and overlooked . . . second-class citizens in an institution that has historically been as exclusive as any in American society," the authors wrote.

Surveys in 1990 by the Asian American Journalists Association and the California Chicano News Media Association showed similar trends: One of three Asian Americans said they likely would quit the business in five years; and one of five Latinos planned to leave within 10 years. The main reasons cited were the need for other challenges, lack of advancement opportunities and stress

In a 1989 ASNE study, 47 percent of minorities said they did not plan on a career in journalism, compared to 33 percent of whites. And only 15 percent of minorities planned a career at their present newspaper, half that of white peers.

A 1985 I JE poll of 200 minority journalists found that 13 percent already had left the industry and 40 percent planned to leave. While about 50 percent of blacks and Latinos aspired to be managers, compared to 28 percent of whites, 45 percent more whites than people of color had been promoted to supervisory positions.

The Barometer report found four factors that led to departures: (1) frustration with the basic conditions of a newsroom, (2) lack of opportunities to aid career development, (3) roadblocks arising from race inequalities, and (4) mismanagement. Almost two-thirds of minorities say they lack equal opportunities in the newsroom, the Barometer report found, and 72 percent think their managers have doubts about minorities' ability to perform.

In general, people of color who were likely to leave the industry felt their ethnicity or race hurt them. The single biggest obstacle to advancement was their minority status, 36 percent told ASNE in 1989.

What is being done? According to the Newspaper Association of America s 1992 report, 71 percent of newspapers held orientations; 58 percent had training development programs; 32 percent had programs to establish career and promotional opportunities; 20 percent each had mentoring and buddy systems with peers, and 18 percent had training seminars at the newspaper. Almost all were rated by the papers as very or somewhat effective.

For Knight-Ridder, where minorities make up 24 percent of the total workforce, retention is "one of our top priorities," says Fitzpatrick. "Many of our companies have informal or formal programs where key minorities are being groomed for management positions." Written guidelines urge managers to "show some imagination about [minorities future potential...Don't wait to act on career development until your talented people have ob offers."

"Most of the people who have the power to effect change do not understand what diversity is and what it means," Fitzpatrick says. They don't know how to deal with someone who happens to be different...What we say is that differences should be a positive, not a negative."

"To many decision-makers are not gambling with minorities and women the way they gamble with a white male," says Flores, publisher of the Iowa City Press-Citizen. " They're afraid we will fail-dammit, we should be in a position to fail, "just as white males have through the ages.

By Mei-Mei Chan

Mei-Mei Chan is an assistant managing editor at the (Chicago Sun- Times, on extended assignment as deputy features editor. She was the founding president of the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association and served as national vice president-print 1985-1991. Chan is a 1992 fellow of the Management Training Center at Northwestern University, run by the Institute for Journalism Education.

Promotion/Management

Managing Diversity Requires Diverse Managers

A year after the Kerner Commission issued its monumental report on March 1, 1968, the Associated Press Managing Editors group asked editors of Negro-owned weekly newspapers what daily newspapers could do to recruit and hire Negroreporters.

As then-editor of the Pittsburgh Courier, I responded succinctly, "Hire Negro editors." At that time, there were no Negro editors at any mainstream newspapers.

If I were asked today how dailies can manage diversity, I would echo my rejoinder of 25 years ago, "Hire minority editors."

On the eve of the silver anniversary of Kerner, there are only 15 editors or executive editors of color at the approximately 1,600 U.S. dailies. That is less than one percent.

Television managers of color suffer the same fate. There are about 18 news and assistant news directors of color at the approximately 265 commercial stations in the top 100 markets.

Ten years after Kerner, the media industry, particularly newspapers, launched costly campaigns to recruit and hire minorities primarily for entry-level reporting positions. And with some success. People of color in newspaper newsrooms, for example, have more than doubled since 1978. In 1991, they represented 9.39 percent of the total professional work force at newspapers.

That is still far short of the self-imposed Year 2000 goal set by the industry--parity in the newsroom equal to the percentage of minorities in the population, which is expected to be close to 30 percent in seven years.

Newspapers and newspaper foundations have spent millions of dollars in the past 15 years conducting summer programs for high school students interested in journalism, granting them scholarships, holding job fairs, hiring summer interns, and recruiting and hiring people of color for entry level newsroom jobs

In sharp contract to the relatively generous largesse dedicated to attract minorities to first-time jobs. the media and media foundations are parsimonious in money and effort expended on leadership development for journalists of color who want to advance to management levels. Of the estimated 5,100 people of color in professional newspaper newsroom positions in 1991, only 97, or 1.9 percent were in senior ranks. Below is the current count of top newspaper managers of color, according to continuing studies conducted by the National Association of Minority Media Executives: 32 assistant managing editors, 12 publishers, 12 managing editors, 10 editorial page editors, 8 executive editors, 7 editors, 5 deputy managing editors, 4 senior editors, 4 associate editors, 2 associate managing editors and 1 senior managing editor.

Journalists have more contact with the city or metro editor than any other supervisory position in the newsroom. NAAME shows there are but 33 people of color in those positions--just one-half of one percent of the 5,100 journalists of color.

Since deregulation, the broadcast industry has relegated its diversity efforts in employment and coverage to a lower priority. Television is not as cooperative as newspapers are in divulging figures or participating in job survey. Through its own tracking program, however, NAAME has determined there are 74 senior television managers of color: 18 vice presidents, 12 executive producers, 10 news directors, 9 managing editors, 8 assistant news directors, 7 presidents or CEOs, 5 news operation managers or directors, 1 chief editor, 1 senior editor, 1 senior producer, 1 news planning editor and 1 news planning manager.

The majority of minority journalists work for dailies of more than 100,000 circulation, but several of the managers are located in smaller communities For example, only one of the 12 publishers of color heads a daily with a circulation of more than 100,000. The others run papers with circulations of 8,000 to 79 000 Four; of the seven editors are at dailies with circulations over 100,000, but none of the eight executive editors are. Only 12 of the 33 city or metro editors are at newspapers with circulations over 100,000.

In television, however, the pattern is the opposite. Sixty-one of the 74 identifiable managers of color; or 82 4 percent. w work in major markets

Studies by minorities journalism associations and others show that people of color continue to leave the news media industry at astounding rates, partly because they perceive there is little or no opportunity for advancement. The low number of media managers of color confirms those findings.

Despite the dismal accounting of minority media managers, the industry does not have any programs designed to train people of color for leadership positions. Instead, the industry seems more preoccupied with "managing diversity" than with advancing people of color to "power" positions which will bring about immediate diversity.

The late 1960s and early 1970s saw media editors agonize over what they perceived was a lack of qualified minorities to hire. Today, just as there is no lack of talented minorities to hire, there is also no dearth of managerial talent in minority ranks.

Terri Dickerson-Jones, associate director for the American Press Institute, first raised the issue of leadership training for people of color in October 1992. In a Presstime article entitled, "Mis-Education of the Black Manager," she advocated for exclusive training for people of color.

"The industry provides countless avenues to help white and non-white employees to be more culturally aware, but none that bring minority managers together to address serious and unique authority issues that affect them," wrote Dickerson-Jones. "As our industry looks for recommendations on diversity priorities and activities, I'd like to propose one: A leadership development program for non-white managers that would offer usable, concrete strategies for using power, having influence and fostering change "

The National Association of Minority Media Executives, a multiracial organization of senior-level administrators, is planning to establish a leadership development institute and will launch this year, ''Manager Survival Training" sessions, which are day-long programs for newly-promoted managers The training will include some issues not generally covered by traditional programs but which are critical to a new minority manager's success: corporate politics, developing net works, understanding corporate culture, coalition building and negotiating conflict Sessions will be held in regions where e there are at least ten newly-named manages or journalists aspiring to become managers.

In an effort to encourage more people of color to pursue supervisory careers, NAMME is also undertaking a program to identify media professionals who have managerial potential.

The news media industry has been working for years on recruiting minorities for internships and entry-level jobs. Now, it must prepare itself for the next step: advancing people of color into leadership positions.

The newspaper industry is "in a fight for its future,'' concluded Dickerson-Jones in her Presstime article. "It would be a shame to lose ground in the fight because we failed to tap all the talent available to us."

Amen.

By Carl Morris

Carl Morris is founder and executive director of the National Association of Minority Media Executives, which is based in Reston, Virginia, and began in 1990. From 1987 to 1990, he served as executive director of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Newsroom/Corporate Environment

Diversity Must be Integral

Part of Corporate Environment

Corporate nurturing of minority journalists can evoke images of touchy-feely management and fragile handling. The best way to groom any reporter, however, is not by pampering but by balancing sternness with compassion and encouragement. Some reporters need a kick in the pants. Some need to be drilled on basic mechanics and assignments. Others need to slow down to blossom. Some of these people happen to be minority journalists.

Bad extremes range from promoting unprepared minority journalists above their heads for the sake of overnight diversity to trapping minorities in jobs that seldom serve as catalysts for coveted jobs or management. It's safe to lock journalists of color into a comfortable position. It also feeds dissension, turnover and the disproportionate number of journalists of color who abandon the industry. Inaction toward problems that minority journalists face is tacit corporate policy. A media outlet must actively encourage forums in which minority journalists and key decision-makers exchange views. Merely saying the office door is open fails to compel some minority journalists, especially younger ones, to challenge newsroom policies and coverage. Waiting for them to approach can backfire or be too late.

Minority journalists often perceive themselves as outsiders with limited power to influence change. Because so few minorities are key decision-makers, managers must reach well into the ranks to seek minority perspectives and suggestions Closeted-decision-making can fuel feelings of isolation and disenfranchisement, even if the intentions are otherwise Take a look around the room to see who considers page-one or top-of-the-newscast story play, annual budgeting, hiring and promoting Inclusiveness must permeate all corporate levels.

Diversity inherently breeds differing opinions and conflict Injecting new perspectives into any workplace will inspire passionate debate and verbal fireworks Managers and primary workers should not shrink from that inevitability. It is healthy and enlightening It can also be loud, nerve wracking and discomfiting Corporate culture must reward openness, regardless of any short-term pain and tension. The rank and file takes its cue from the top regarding conflicts involving minority, women's and gay lesbian issues.

Inclusiveness requires that ideas percolate from the bottom because many minority journalists are non-managers. They should be included when devising special projects and setting newsroom coverage priorities. Invite minority journalists to participate in key newsroom decisions even if they lack a high ranking title. It provides more diverse coverage and helps to engender a partnership rather than to accentuate any gulf between workers and management. It is distressing when a gaggle of top editors, mostly white men, emerge to assign stories to reporters whose insights were never consulted, especially when the stories involve issues pertinent to minorities.

Other strategies include the following

Encourage self-reliance. A young reporter who prefers only to deal with top editors breeds resentment. Even many older newsroom employees lack such regular direct access. Young employees who run to top managers to solve routine problems cannot learn about the corporate environment and can create peer backlash. Even well-intended editors and directors can retard young reporters from gaining independence and advocating for themselves.

Allow for mistakes. Give minority journalists a chance to spread their wings, but supply a safety net if one is needed. One cannot develop muscles that have never been exercised Trapping minority journalists in an assignment due to the fear of future failure is insidious paternalism. Just as newsrooms abound with mediocre white managers and staffers, minority journalists can be productive employees even if they are not potential superstars.

Plan for success Don't hope to be surprised that someone turns out better than expected Expecting success places the onus on good hiring and steers hiring away from bringing on people solely because they conveniently fit a desired r racial or gender mold Minority journalists should express their long-range plans at the outset and begin to progress step by step Advising patience and waiting without some gradual movement toward a minority journalist's goal can open a fissure

Praise or scold Just talk on a regular basis to all staffers, especially young minority staffers. Some line editors and reporters, especially those of color who are uncertain of how passionate discourse might affect their status, are reluctant to express their feelings to top management or ranking middle managers. If editors, directors and producers talk regularly with minority staffers in both casual and stressful situations, then frankness is more likely. If managers have heartfelt talks only during crises, they unconsciously stifle debate and idea sharing

Support mentoring. Mentoring has existed in the workplace for hundreds of years. But with few minorities in management, more experienced minority non-managers (as well as white managers) should be encouraged to support and guide careers of other employees. In some situations, minority employees are more open with each other because they stand to lose nothing. In other cases, journalists of color can be harsher than managers because they hate to see their minority peers making ill-advised moves or shortchanging themselves. The best mentors are not tools of management but honest counselors of their peers.

Support minority journalism associations. News media corporations should support minority journalism groups, financially and otherwise, because these groups provide opportunities to groom new leaders and develop talent pools by attracting new people into the industry Also, communication networks within the various associations are excellent recruiting tools. Corporations should recognize that minority journalists' professional commitments outside the newsroom are significant to any media outlet and to the whole industry.

Don't exploit journalists of color Sometimes managers turn to journalists of color only when the move serves the media outlet. Minority journalists bred in the main office seldom get a chance to use their linguistic skills and broader contacts although they often speak a second language better or can access some stories more easily A grave insult occurs when bilingual reporters are sent to do a non-English interview, only to have their efforts subordinated to another reporter's byline The insult also occurs when minority journalists are asked to provide resources and contacts without recognition Bilingual and minority staffers should be interviewed and used as equal partners, not just as translators and resources for others.

Include minority journalists in outside activities. Extracurricular activity can change the tenor of a minority journalist's tenure. Many are the first minority employee to reach a certain position, and others may be among the few journalists of color in smaller markets. Most newsrooms have cliques, which can exclude newcomers. Managers should work to ensure that new minority journalists are a part of lunch gatherings and that they accompany those who go to sporting events and other social occasions. This helps to diminish isolation and alienation, especially for young journalists who are far from home and who long for racially diverse surroundings.

Make diversity a company-wide policy. Newsrooms typically are the cornerstones of a print or broadcast company's diversity efforts. Many media companies have few minorities on the business side of the operation, an often neglected aspect of true corporate diversity. Company-wide diversity is a symbolic as well as a strategic gesture to show that a company believes in overall inclusiveness.

Walk the talk. Orally embracing diversity and delegating all responsibility for its achievement to subordinates is a doomed policy. Top managers and middle-managers must get their hands "dirty." Too many rely on a few journalists to serve as the conscience for the entire newsroom. One cannot, however, delegate sensitivity and personal awareness. Managers who attend minority job fairs and the national minority journalists' conventions and who mix regularly in minority communities work with first-hand knowledge. It also demonstrates to minority staffers that they are serious, that they "walk their talk."

By Gilbert Bailon

Gilbert Bailon is an assistant managing editor at The Dallas Morning News. He is a board member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and a past president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Network of Hispanic Communicators. He received a master's degree in history from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1992. Bailon is a member of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize nominating juries.

Editorial Content

Editorial Content: Is It Fair? Is It Accurate?

In the past few years, media companies have begun to pay more attention to the tough, crucial and long-neglected issue of news content and coverage of people of color.

Los Angeles Times' media critic David Shaw wrote about the overpoweringly negative portrayal of minorities in newspapers in 1990. A few months ago, Gregory E. Favre, executive editor at The Sacrarnento Bee and project leader of the Newspaper Association of America's Content-Diversity Audits subcommittee, expressed the shock he experienced when he did a content analysis of his own newspaper and found offensive language and photographs. He urged other papers to do similar voluntary audits.

However well-meaning, there have been problems in the past with this sporadic, voluntary approach to this incendiary issue. The new efforts by NAA and the American Society of Newspaper Editors are encouraging but that alone isn't enough. The news industry is continuing to give to most Americans a negative, distorted concept of people of color and -by extension - racial and ethnic diversity. The need for media to more accurately portray people of color is urgent because the country is becoming increasingly more racially and culturally diverse. Part of what is needed is authentic minority voices, different voices

New York Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., rightly linking diversity to economic success in the marketplace, has put it bluntly to his fellow-publishers: "Diversity or die." Sulzberger's remarks can cut another way as well: Only by infusing the ranks of media industries with diversity from top to bottom can the content of news be changed. An important by-product of authentic minority voices and balanced, fair and accurate coverage may be a crucial shift in the national consciousness to a new paradigm of diversity -as an asset, not a liability - to American progress and competitiveness

While there has been progress in accurately covering and reflecting people of color in the 25 years since Kernel, it has been glacial.

"If all one knew about real-life blacks and Latinos in particular was what one read in the newspaper or saw on television news, one would scarcely be aware that there is a large and growing middle class in both cultures going to work, getting married, having children, paying taxes, going on vacation and buying books and VCRs and microwave ovens," wrote Shaw.

"Only 15 percent of the poor people in the United States are black," said Shaw, "but one would not know that from most press coverage. Nor would one know that most violent criminals, drug users, prostitutes, drunks, illiterates, high school dropouts, juvenile delinquents, jobless and poor people in this country are neither black nor Latino but white. Or that the vast majority of blacks and Latinos are none of the above."

News events continue to prompt journalists of color to question media performance in covering multicultural communities. In the report "The LA. Unrest and Beyond," African American journalists said bias crept into the coverage of the explosion in the wake of the Simi Valley verdict in part because there are too few black editors and managers at newspapers across the country. Newspapers exaggerated the conflict between blacks and Korean Americans and downplayed the involvement of Latinos and whites, they said. By oversimplifying the conflict and the issues involved, the newspaper report exacerbate confusion & distortion rather than understanding.

Minorities continually complain of stereotypes, ethnic slurs and derogatory language, and insensitive use of satire or humor. In "Project Zinger," a critical look at news media coverage of Asian Pacific Americans, Asian American journalists charged that "Japan-bashing reached new heights in 1991, inflamed by hard economic times..." and that "anti-Asian hate crimes and antagonism escalated, demonstrating once again how Americans of Asian ancestry suffer when relations between the United States and Japan sour"

Research studies conform the medias failure to portray people of color in the routine context of everyday life. as are white Americans Ema R. Smilh. journalism professor at San Francisco State University. did an ethnic content analysis of Bay .Area news media and found media representation at graphic odds with the region's demographic profile. People of color comprised 19 percent of the news sources on television, and 20 percent in newspapers. However, they account for 40 percent of the population in the nine-county Bay Area, and the majority of the population in San Francisco and Oakland . . Whites were sources of all types of stories, but this was not true of people of color. For example, on television, no Asian/Pacific Islanders appeared in business stories, and noLatinos were featured in lifestyle stories either on television or in the newspapers. No people of color were the subject of obituaries."

There is little wonder then that the content of news is helping to give racial and ethnic diversity a bad name in the minds of many white Americans who rely on media for their information on minorities.

As to people of color, some charge that the negative depiction not only affects the way society treats minorities, but even makes minorities limit their horizons to fit the ceilings that media has erected "To what extent do biased journalistic practices contribute to police practice inthe war on drugs or crime," asks Marilyn Gist, a professorat the University of Washington, in a study reported in The Newspaper Journal. But another more immediate impact is the law enforcement and justice system practice resulting from such patterns of coverage. :To what extent are the higher rates of incarceration among African-Americans a function of subtle racism among judges and juries--racism perpetuated by media bias?"

Too many editors refuse to accept this heavy burden of responsibility for their coverage. But the premise that portrayal directly affects treatment by institutions is widely accepted Betty Friedan's Men, Women and Media Project makes the connection between the depiction of women and the way they are treated in the society Certainly the link between portrayal and treatment by institutions and individuals is no less valid in the case of minorities.

Against this backdrop of continuing difficulty in covering multicultural communities by staffs in print and broadcast newsrooms there is an understandable distrust of this coverage by the public The following caustic references are by Toni Morrison in a book of essays entitled, Raceing Justice, En-Gendelillg Power. "Everyone interested in the outcome of this (Clarence Thomas) nomination. regardless of race. class. gender religion, or profession, turns to as many forms of media as are available. They read the Washington Post for verification of their dread or their hope, read the New York Times as though it were Pravda, searching between the lines of the official story for one that most nearly approximates what might really be happening."

A quarter-century after the Kerner Commission alerted the nation to the dangers of racial segregation in American news media, we are still measuring progress toward integration of the print and broadcast industry's work force by fractions of percentage points, and airways and newspaper and magazine pages remain distorted in their portrayal of diversity.

A 1992 research project conducted by the Institute for Journalism Education (IJE) confirmed that newsrooms continue to have difficulties covering changes, multicultural companies with predominantly white news staff. Media company executives interviewed by IJE emphasized the need for more racial diversity in management and editing ranks but also acknowledged increasing antidiversity backlash.

As a result, IJE is launching a series of "Total Community Coverage" initiatives in 1993 in addition to continuing its management and editing training programs.

"Racial and ethnic integration of the newspaper work force is as important as it ever was, maybe more so," said IJE President Steve Montiel, "but it will take more than work force diversity to bring about the changes necessary for newspapers to reflect the total community.

'What matters the most is what appears in the newspaper," Montiel said. "Misportrayal and nonportrayal of people of color in daily newspapers are the products of both individual and institutional practices. Changing those practices will have to be recognized as a priority by white as well as nonwhite journalists. For that to happen, newspapers are going to need to make it possible for white journalists to learn how to cover the total community side by side with journalists of color, who, after all, are the most experienced in dealing with cultures other than their own."

Time is running out for media industries and for America. The cataclysmic changes in the world have made the United States the democratic model for a world in which large regions are threatened by ethnic conflict and nationalistic aspirations. To fill its leadership role, the United States has to establish a new social paradigm that recognizes diversity as a cultural and political asset, rather than a problem.

To fulfill its mission, print and broadcast media must pursue diversity and inclusiveness with the same intensity they have invested in technological change. Only then will we provide comprehensive coverage that fairly and fully reflects America's increasingly multicllltural society.

By Dorothy Gilliam

Dorothy Gilliam, a twenty-year veteran of The Washington Post, is a columnist for that newspaper. She was a 1991 fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center in New York. She is vice president-print for the National Association of Black Journalists and also chairs the board of the Institute for Journalism Education, based in Oakland, Calif.

The Business Issues

The Bottom Line: The Economic Case for Diversity

O f all the arguments supporting diversity in the media, perhaps the most compelling is that a well-managed diversified workforce is essential to hold a competitive business edge in a rapidly changing global economy.

Recent census figures alone should be enough to sound alarm bells among the nation's publishers and media company chief executive officers. The numbers of readers and viewers who look and act like June and Ward Cleaver are dwindling dramatically. The media's consumer base of women and young people is diminishing as well, and something has got to be done to stem the defections from traditional media.

As any marketing expert or manage-by-the-guts CEO will admit, the key to the solution is to understand who your customers are and to find ways to meet their needs.

Unfortunately, the media industry has been slow to understand how our readers and viewers have changed and where the potential for growth is, despite the wealth of information that is available. It stands to reason that if our customers have become more diversified in racial, ethnic and cultural ways, the products we offer them have to reflect their different needs.

Companies like Avon, Xerox, Corning Glass and Merck among many others, have found increasingly that the best way to sell to this diverse group of domestic and intentional consumers is to have at every level, talented people of many different ethnic and racial backgrounds who bring an additional perspective essential to creative marketing.

These companies have taken advantage of academic research on organizational behavior and innovative management practices by a growing number of management scholars and behavioral psychologists. including Taylor Cox Jr. at the University of Michigan, Roosevelt Thomas, president of the American Institute for Managing Diversity and Susan Jackson of New York University. While current research about the impact of diversity does not focus specifically on the media, credible inferences can be made. Just as a diversified workforce makes certain companies more competitive, the same can be true for our industry. It's a seller's market for skills.

But having a diversified workforce is not enough. Managers must learn how to manage diversity to garner the best in work performance and professional growth opportunities for everyone, including white males. A failure to re-think management personnel policies to ensure opportunities for everyone will breed resentment, frustration and a revolving door where minorities leave to seek better promotional opportunities. Corning Incorporated learned the cost of mismanaging diversity while examining quality control cost issues. In a report to its managers several years ago, Corning found that between 1980 and 1987, an average of 15.3 percent of their professional black employees and 13.1 percent of the professional women-left the company compared to 7.8 percent of Corning's white male employees. Company officials estimated the turnover costs for women and minorities at nearly $3.5 million a year.

According to the Academy of Management's publication, Executive, in many large U.S. corporations, racial and ethnic minorities now make up 20 percent or more of the total workforce. These companies didn't hire minorities because of any moral imperative, but because they needed skilled workers and specific talent. Examples include General Motors, Chrysler, Stroh Brewery, Philip Morris and Coca-Cola.

While the percentage of minorities in management in these companies is nothing to celebrate, less than 12 percent in most cases, it is still significantly higher than for the newspaper and broadcast industries.

Looking at newsrooms alone. the American Society of Newspaper Editors found in its 1992 survey that minorities comprise only 9.4 percent of America's newsrooms and about 6 percent of those in management. Roughly 51 percent of the newspapers in the U.S. hire no minorities at all. The percentages are not much better for the broadcast industries.

What these hiring and promotion figures tell us is that the media collectively is stubbornly resistant to diversity. and the resulting damage in lost readers, viewers and product development opportunities is self-inflicted.

Executives at the Avon Corporation, for example, say they promoted diversity as a way to turn around low profitability, especially in inner-city markets. Avon made personnel changes to give black and Hispanic managers substantial authority over these markets, making them among the most profitable sectors in the company's U.S. division.

Avon's written policy on diversity includes this statement: "The immediate and urgent motivation today is based on business issues relating to changes in the global economy, the marketplace and the workforce. This requires greater management focus and involvement in systemic and culture change at Avon."

In a report published by the Academy of Management and written by Taylor Cox, Cox identifies areas where "sound management" can create a competitive advantage.

He raises the following arguments supporting diversity that also appear in various ways in other academic studies.

The Cost Argument. Failure to manage women and racial and ethnic minorities as successfully as white males translates into unnecessary costs. Since 85 percent of new additions to the workforce during the 1990s will be women and minorities, he says, these costs will escalate in coming years. Absenteeism, turnover and retraining costs will continue to drain company coffers. Lost productivity from these factors can cost as much as $20,000 per employee, some studies show.

Resource Acquisition Argument. Companies develop reputations as good places for women and minorities to work. Those companies with the best reputation for managing diversity will win the competition for the best personnel. As the labor pool shrinks and changes in composition, this edge will become increasingly important. And, just as minorities may prefer to work for companies that support and value diversity, they may also prefer to buy from such organizations, Cox says.

Marketing Argument. For multi-national corporations, the insight and cultural sensitivity that members with roots in other countries or cultures bring to the marketing effort should improve these efforts in important ways. The same rationale applies to marketing to subpopulations within domestic operations.

Creative Argument. Diversity of perspectives and less emphasis on conformity to the norms of the past should improve the level of creativity.

Problem-Solving Argument. Heterogeneity in decision making and problem solving groups potentially produces better decisions through a wider range of perspectives and more thorough critical analysis of issues. News organizations that continue to rely on the old chestnut that they can't find talented minorities to work for them need to engage in some honest soul-searching to find the reasons why. The truth is, the best talent is going to those news organizations or industries that reward and promote them. As management consultant Roosevelt Thomas notes, minorities no longer need a boarding pass. "What they need is an upgrade," Thomas says, "The problem is not getting them in at the entry level; the problem is making better use of their potential at every level, especially in middle-management and leadership positions. This is no longer a simple question of common decency, it is a question of business survival."

By Thomas Morgan 111

Thomas Morgan lll is a confidential staff assistant at The New York Times, working in publishing and business operations. Previously, he had served as a reporter on the Times' metropolitan desk and as assistant metropolitan editor, beginning in 1983. Before joining the Times, Morgan worked six years at The 'Washington Post as city editor, editor of a special section called The District Weekly and general assignment reporter. A 1990 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, he served as president of the National Association of Black Journalists and is a member of the Unity '94 board of directors.

Ethnic Media

Ethnic Media an Important Bridge to Minority Communities

Next year the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Nation al Association of Black Journalists and the Native American Journalists Association will meet in Atlanta, Ga., for the Unity conference.

This conference is especially important to American Indian journalists because we are going home, to the birthplace of our craft. The first tribal newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix, started publishing on Feb. 21, 1828, in New Echota, Ga., which was the capital of the Cherokee Nation. The Phoenix was edited by a mixed-blood named Elias Boudinot. He took the alphabet designed by Sequoyah and published the newspaper in English and Cherokee.

Sharon and James Murphy wrote about the newspaper's birth-in LetMy People Know. The Murphys wrote that The Phoenix - like majority culture newspapers of that era - was published infrequently with a primitive format and minimal staff and resources.

The newspaper's birth came at a difficult time in Cherokee history: The U.S. government had ordered the tribe to leave its ancestral lands for the Oklahoma Territory. The government's order divided the Cherokee people: Boudinot and others favored moving out to the new territory, while the Cherokee chief wanted to stay put. The editor was fired - and later murdered - because of his opposition to the tribal policies. The newspaper died a few months later.

This story reminds me of a couple of themes common to most ethnic newspapersin North America today: We start out poor and cover things that are ignored, missed or unimportant to mainstream newspapers. (There's also a fairly high morality rate for minority newspapers.)

Both themes are true for American Indian newspapers, African American newspapers, Asian American newspapers and the Hispanic press.

Like The Phoenix, most minority newspapers have roots from the last century. The African American press started in 1827 with the Freedom Journal, and the first Asian American newspaper, The Golden Hills' Press, began in 1854 in California. These newspapers, like their majority counterparts, were terribly poor and survival was an issue-to-issue concern.

Most minority newspapers are still poor.

Last year, I spent some time with editors and publishers of minority newspapers. Each manager talked about cheating death- and keeping his or her newspaper alive just one more issue or one more year.

The International Examiner - a Seattle-based Asian American newspaper - set out to do this by publishing as a not-for-profit, after many years of barely breaking even as a private enterprise. The examiner now solicits grant money to publish its twice-monthly tabloid. The Lakota Times, now known as Indian Country Today, sold a block of its stock to the Freedom Forum in Arlington, VA, and The New York Times sothat it could publish nationally.

When I was editor and publisher of The Nauajo Times Today - the first daily newspaper published by and for American Indians - our entire budget was less than $500,000 per year. Yet we distributed 12,000 copies over a three-state area (by aircraft, no less) known as the Navajo Nation.

But because was had no money, we learned how to stretch our resources again and again.

There is a purpose in this poverty. Most minority editors are inspired and creative enough to work without resources - and often a paycheck - because we believe in a higher calling - informing a community that has not been well-served by the majority press.

About the same time the minority press was getting started, the majority press wrote about American Indians - and other people of color as if we were not human beings.

An 1867 editorial in the Idaho (Boise) Statesman, now a Gannett newspaper, called for a grand treaty council of all Idaho Indians followed by a feast. "Then just before the big feast, put strychnine in their meat and poison to the death the last mother 's son of them."

This may be ancient history to some - but to me, it's part of a continuing fabric of history that has not yet found the right pattern. The majority press still writes about American Indians with this misplaced passion - now it's found on the sports pages.

There are similar stories from other cultures. Frank del Olmo described, in Quill magazine a few years ago, the mission of La Raza. "The purpose of La Raza is not to just report all the news that is fit. We participate in what we print, we cannot separate ourselves from the community. If we did, we would be committing the same sins the established media does. We would become non-involved and irrelevant."

Non-involved and irrelevant are the very words used by some of the smartest majority publishers around these days.

One of the success stories from the minority media is La Opinionin Los Angeles. La Opinion is the second-largest daily newspaper in the city. The Spanish-language publication works because it is in touch with its readers. Now Times Mirror, a major media company, is an investor in the newspaper.

The Salt Lake Tribune, where I work, is buying advertisements in LaAntorcha. The advertisements are inexpensive, and the exchange helps the newspaper reach people who probably do not read our newspaper often enough. We are repeating this process in other communities and community newspapers. (This is a "win-win" proposition when you consider how the advertising income can help balance the poverty of most community newspapers.) Newspapers can make these ties stronger by working out agreements with minority community newspapers to buy stories, columns or ideas.

The Los Angeles and Salt Lake City models could work elsewhere. Nearly every newspaper in this country has one or more minority newspapers within its circulation area. This 25th anniversary of the Kerner Commission report is an excellent opportunity to make some sort of connection.

(Editor's Note: Most ethnic media takes the form of news paper. Among the most well-known broadcast exceptions are Spanish language television networks such as Univision or black-owned Black Entertainment Television. The African American community also has some major magazines, including Essence and Jet.)

By Mark Trahant

Mark N. Trahant, executive news editor of The Salt-Lake City Tribune, supervises news desks and reporters, and coordinates wire stories, photographs and graphics. Before joining the Tribune, Trahant was publisher and owner of a small weekly newspaper, The Navajo Nation Today. While working as the national-desk reporter for The Arizona Republic, where his beat was to cover the American West, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for an investigative look at federal-Indian policy. A member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe in Idaho, he is past president of the Native American Journalists Association and serves on the board of the Unity '94.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Diversity Action Plan

By Unity '94 Presenters

This report looks at nine problem areas in the news media industry. Yet, each article also points out that these problems can be turned into sources of growth for the industry - if we are willing to put in time, energy, money and creativity, and if we learn to embrace rather than fear diversity.

The contributors to this Unity '94 diversity report represent over 4,000 journalists of color, minority journalism students and other supporters. The viewpoints expressed in the various article do reflect what we believe is the current state of journalism in this country and what we hope the news industry can accomplish.

Therefore, we present the following conclusions and recommendations. If the news industry acts in a prompt manner on these recommendations, we will see a much-needed fundamental, positive and profitable change in one of the most vital institutions of American society.

The news industry must make a fundamental change in the newsroom environment. The change must be mandated from the top down to make diversity a company-wide policy. There must be a policy of inclusion in which people of color are valued, important and welcomed in the news organization.

News media organizations must look at the bigger picture of America and recognize that this country includes people of many varied backgrounds - African American, Asian American, Latino and Native American - and must learn to understand the dynamics of these various groups in order to serve their different needs.

News organization should evaluate individuals who hold management positions to make sure that they have a firm grasp on the meaning of managing people with a wide variety of back grounds. They should also assess their present management structure to ensure that it encourages and takes advantage of diversity.

News managers should be evaluated on the basis of whether they are able to inspire the best work performance and provide opportunities for professional growth for everyone. News organizations must realize that the best talent is going to those news organizations that reward and promote them.

News media organizations must establish tangible and measurable minority hiring goals and tie these goals to compensation and performance evaluations. This action differs from previous affirmative action or quota-driven initiatives because minority employees can be viewed as potential "goal mines" for attracting new audiences from which media organizations can reap profits.

The news industry must make public the results of its diversity efforts. The broadcast industry, in particular, must begin to conduct its own annual surveys. The results of each individual broadcast or cable outlet must be made public, just as information on individual newspapers is made public toady. The magazine industry, which has long been invisible when it comes to dealing with diversity issues, should also conduct regular surveys and make the results public.

News organizations must deal with issues concerning people of color on every level of their organizational structure. People of color must be represented on all levels to add valuable and different perspectives in coverage, marketing, hiring, promotion and retention.

News media managers must seek input for diversity on a regular basis - not just during times of crisis - from the bottom up, especially since so many minorities are non-managers. This includes discussions of special projects and coverage priorities.

News media organizations must recognize that direct link between the portrayal of minorities in the media to society's attitudes about, and actions related to, minorities. News organizations will bear the consequences if there is a failure to understand this profound relationship.

News media managers must conduct regular and ongoing content audits of their publications and broadcasts to ensure that coverage is diverse and does not contain material that is racist, sexist or homophobic.

News media organizations must support training programs that reflect and respond to multicultural communities. This includes financial support, as well as participation, in these programs.

Smaller newspapers and other news media outlets should adopt new approaches to attract minority candidates. One method follows a "grow your own" philosophy that begins at the high school level and eventually ends up with trained professionals joining the ranges of their hometown news outlets. This involves working with minority communities to identify and nurture students and other entry-level applicants with potential for success in the news media industry. This would also prevent the frustration that results from trying to compete with larger news outlets for a small pool of highly trained talent.

News media managers must establish a database of minorities interviewed and track those with high potential. This would ensure a continuous pool of qualified applicants for job openings as they occur. News organizations would then be able to share information about potential employees who may not be what one news organization seeks at the moment but who may be highly suitable to another.

The news industry must build on and expand those programs that prepare minority high school and college youths to be journalists: high school and college newspapers, writing contest, journalism days and workshops, internships, scholarships, mentor programs and job fairs. Further, the industry should make it clear to colleges and high school that these programs must include significant numbers of people of color.

The news industry must urge compliance with Standard 12 of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, which calls for organized efforts to recruit and retain minority college students and faculty.

As part of the basic culture change, news media organizations must establish closer ties with ethnic media, including the sue of such methods as "adopting" a newspaper, increasing cross-communications between editors and managers, advertising in ethnic media and looking to ethnic media for op-ed or free-lance pieces.

News media organizations must support the minority journalism associations, which can serve as resources for referrals and information. These associations can also recruit. train and develop more members for entry into the new s media industry.

The strategies delineated in this report are but starting points in the effort finally to diversify the news media industry and its coverage of this multicultural, multiethnic multiracial society. This work began 25 years ago. We must all participate with a renewed sense of urgency, energy and an even greater commitment if we are to realize the ultimate reward of making diversity in newspapers, magazines, television, radio and cable a reality.

Introduction of Unity '94

Unity '94: The Organization and Its Activities

Unity '94 History

Unity '94 is a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation that comprises the four national minority journalism groups--the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) and Native American Journalists Association (NAJA). Beginning in 1988, through Unity '94, they joined forces and resources to encourage and advance racial and ethnic diversity in the news media industry.

Though each group has a different membership, which has its own particular problems and issues, all of the groups recognized that there are basic objectives shared by all Representatives from NABJ and NAHJ who worked at the same newspaper began to meet informally. AAJA soon asked to participate in the meetings and NAJA was brought on shortly thereafter. As a result of those initial meetings and increasing interest, the first joint board meeting was held in Baltimore, in October 1988.

Each board member and association officer-more than 50 all together --walked into the meeting and took a seat around a large hollow-square table. During the session, which the four association presidents co-chaired, each association brought up issues, fears and hopes about working together. At times, the interaction was hesitant, but for the most part, it was surprisingly open. By the end of the session, the four groups had agreed in concept to form Unity '94 and to hold a convention. We had successfully negotiated the first steps of overcoming our own stereotypes of each other and identifying common issues.

While each individual association had formed to address needs and concerns of its respective constituency, the groups also have interests in common. including (1) increasing the numbers of minority journalists hired and promoted in newsrooms, and expanding minority employment in other departments of the industry; (2) providing support for minorities already in the field; (3) assisting minority students pursuing journalism careers; and (4) ensuring accurate and fair coverage of minority communities.

Unity 94 plans to hold a convention in July 1994, in Atlanta. This convention will bring together about 5,000 journalists of color, minority journalism students and other key news media representatives. Activities tentatively include three morning plenary sessions, a job fair, skills workshops, three luncheon programs, a cultural reception and social event, a student newspaper and a student broadcast project. Though a large project to plan and implement, the excitement generated by the prospect of sharing resources, information and energy keeps the four groups moving forward.

Because the member groups of Unity '94 often have been kept on the outside, Unity is sensitive to being inclusive, to seeking input from many other news media industry groups--mainstream, women's, gays and lesbians and other minority-based groups. To help identify speakers and panelists, topics and other resources, Unity has asked several groups to serve as members of the Convention Advisory Committee. Some of the groups which have already agreed to serve on this committee include the Multicultural Management Program at the University of Missouri, Women in Communications, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism, National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, Newspaper Association of America, Poynter Institute, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Institute for Journalism Education and Women Symposium, and Society of Professional Journalists.

Working together requires high level coordination among the leadership of the four groups and necessitates a long-term commitment from all the groups involved. To facilitate the process of working together, Unity '94 has already undertaken some interim activities. For example, town hall meetings have brought together news media representatives and community leaders; media are being analyzed for their coverage of minority communities, treatment of journalists in the newsroom and diversity in hiring, and publications have been produced.

Diversity Report

This diversity report, Kerner Plus 25: A Call for Action, represents another project for Unity '94. The contributors include print and broadcast journalists; men and women; African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos and Native Americans; gays and striates. They live and work on the East and West Coasts and in the South, Southwest and Midwest. Though all work in mainstream news media companies, many of them have extensive experience working in ethnic media and a few are independents.

The diversity represented by the contributors to this report, by the officers and board members and program committee members is the very diversity which makes Unity '94 strong and dynamic and toward which we hope the news media industry will quickly move.

Unity '94 faces a major challenge. Its work will not be easy to achieve. However, this is an endeavor to which each group-Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists and Native American Journalists Association--is deeply committed and in which group strongly believes.

By: Diane Yen EMI Wong

Diane Yen-Mei Wong is staff consultant for Unity '94. National executive director for the Asian American Journalists Association from 1987 to 1992, Wong is a free-lance writer and editor in Oakland,-Calif. She writes extensively about Asian American women and Asian Americans in the media and currently contributes a monthly column for Hawaii Herald. A former attorney from Washington state, she edited East/Nest, a San Francisco-based newspaper covering the Asian American community, for three years and, through Asian Women United of California, edited the anthology Making Waves: Writings by and about Asian American Women.

Acknowledgments

Produced by Unity '94

Supported by the: Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Native American Journalists Association.

Editor. Diane Yen-Mei Wong

Manager. Sidmel Estes-Sumpter

Designer. Allen G. Blount

Unity '94 Officers:

President - Sidmel Estes-Sumpter, NABJ, WAGA-TV (Atlanta)

Vice President - Paul DeMain, NAJA, News from Indian Country (Hayward, Wisc.) Secretary - Diane Alverio, NAHJ, WFSB-TV (Hartford, Conn.)

Treasurer- Evelyn Hsu, AAJA, The Washington Post

Other Unity '94 Board Members:

Don Flores, NAHJ lowa City Press-Citizen

Lloyd LaCuesta, AAJA, KTVU-TV (San Jose, Calif.)

Thomas Morgan, NABJ, The New York Times

MarkTrahant, NAJA, The Salt Lake City Tribune

Ex Officio Board Members:

Valerie Chow Bush, AAJA Executive Director (San Rranasco

Jose Murray, NAHJ Executive Director (Washington, D.C.)

Gordon Regguinti, NAJA Executive Director (Minneapolis)

Walterene Swanston, NABJ Executive Director (Reston, VA)

Program Committee Members:

Chair - Joe Rodriguez, NAHJ, San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News

Nancy Butteffield, NAJA, Puyallup (Tacorna, Wash.) Tribal News

Catalina Camia, AAJA, Dallas Moming News

Nancy Chinn, AAJA, Long Beach Press-Telegram

Ruth Dermy, NAJA, The (Minneapolis) Circle

Evelyn Hemandez, NAHJ, New York Newsday

Ann Kimbrough, NABJ, Atlanta Business Chronicle

Thomas Morgan, NABJ, The New York Times

To contact Unity '94:

Unity '94 c/o Diane Yen-Mei Wong

820 Blair Avenue

Oakland, CA 46ll

(5lO) 547-1365 (Phone or FAX)

Asian American Journalists Association

1765 Sutter St.

Rm. 1000

San Francisco, CA 94115

415/346-2051

National Association of Black Journalists

11600 Sunrise Valley Dr.

Reston,VA 22091

703/648-1270

National Association of Hispanic Journalists

National Press Bldg.

Suite #1193

Washington, D.C. 20045

202/662-7147

Native American Journalist Association

Muse 10

230 Tenth Ave. S #301

Minneapolis, MN 55415

612/376-8724

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