Executive Summary

Survey Results
The Premise
Audits
Selecting Sources
Best Practices: Coverage (Ideas at a glance)
Best Practices: Internal
Changing Coverage
Changing Newsrooms
Pursuing Diversity and Accuracy
Voices in the Newsroom
Appendix A: A Letter to Editors
Time-Out 2000

About this report

Voices in the Newsroom

Enthusiasm, healthy skepticism, concern about the future. Reporters, editors, artists and photographers expressed their thoughts throughout the week, and the conversations continue today.

The greatest benefit from this conversation is that it's going to break us out of our own molds.

I think the premise pushes too far in saying the report is fundamentally inaccurate.

I'm afraid we'll put so much effort into this that we'll end up with MORE stories about minorities than is warranted.

These figures (census data) look low to me. I bet they'll be higher in the next census.

We can't diversify coverage just on the surface. It has to be woven deeply into our coverage in a meaningful way.

I think this is bunk, we already do a good job accurately covering the community.

We need to shake up our beat structure to better reflect the community.

We have a good understanding of diversity, but we need to make sure it's reflective of our readership.

Reporters do routine stories that cover a wide diversity of our population, but editors focus so much attention on Page 1 that these other stories get lost (sometimes literally) in the shuffle.

We have no mechanism for discovering the big story out in the neighborhoods (other than luck).

The vast majority of our staff lives in the same general neighborhood.

We let a reader diversity panel lapse at a time when a young staff has great need of community knowledge.

Enterprise and features may offer more fault-lines opportunities than the run of routine government-laden news.

If we implement processes that require us to go out of our way to seek specific sources, isn't that inaccurate?

What's wrong with keeping a file of experts on topics -- whether it be business, health, government, society or anything else -- who happen to be minorities? Referring to such a list from time to time can help subtly reinforce the wide range of roles that various individuals serve within a community.

We've all got a little bit of racial/cultural/economic bias. Acknowledging our personal biases is a big step toward making our journalism more accurate.

We all need to challenge ourselves to do a better job at approaching sources and potential recruits who don't necessarily share the same views and backgrounds as us.

By paying attention to the entire community, we'll be opening the doors to a treasure trove of story ideas, trends, etc., that we would have somehow missed. In other words, we'll become a better paper.

People acknowledged that a lot of staffers viewed this stuff as a p.c.-oriented exercise, so we've got some more talking to do to explain to them why we're doing it -- and why it will result in a better newspaper.

How come the Trenchcoat Mafia wasn't described as a gang in the media? If the two kids who killed their fellow students at Columbine High School had been black or Hispanic, some speculated that they would have been described as gang members.

One editor expressed concern during a critique session that overemphasis on the many small groups that compose our community will give them 'equal weight at the table' and asserted that, 'We need to aim our stories for the most number of readers we can.' That generated a good discussion, in which another editor noted our mainly white readership area and state population and countered, 'If we did that, we wouldn't reflect minorities at all.' "

The presence of immigrants in our community is most often written about from a negative perspective. The ethnic groups said we needed to write about the great 'human capital' they represent.

Reporters and editors can benefit from being a closer part of the communities they cover (by doing volunteer work, joining groups, meeting new people) to get story ideas and sources.

Look at us. We need more people of color on the (sports copy) desk, wouldn't that help?"

We need to remember that diversity includes a wide range of people: old and young, renters and homeowners, people with disabilities, gays and lesbians, and that people within each group are diverse.

Across the board, reporters and editors recognized the need to get out of the office and back into the neighborhoods. That requires reporters to do less 'telephone-assisted journalism' and editors to free them up to get out and dig. That also leads to a broader array of sources and less reliance on pegging a handful of sources as spokesmen for different communities.

It starts with recruiting. If you don't have minority voices in your newsroom, you aren't going to pursue issues of diversity in an accurate and aggressive manner.

Who would want to pick up a newspaper if they're not in it? Who would want to work for a business that's not interested in them? What kind of business would ignore the largest-growing group of potential customers?

An employee who grew up and still lives in the same neighborhood said she considers herself an expert on the area, but no one reporting on the neighborhood has ever tapped her for names or background.

Our weather icons are men. The chubby snowman, the clouds, even the sun and the moon are guys. When our diversity content audit group realized this, we laughed. Then, we came across a drawing of Jesus. Is Jesus a person of color? The conversation grew more serious. Finally, we decided yes, he is.

My (minority) parents didn't feel like it was their community, let alone their paper.

We have to do this to grow readership.

We must not treat minorities in our community as special projects, but must reflect their interests in daily coverage.

Are we trying to be all things to all people?"

Talented journalists with diverse backgrounds and interests are pitching story ideas that are ignored or dismissed.

Isn't my job to cover what's most riveting at an event, regardless of who is involved?

We're not going to be able to effectively represent more diverse cultures and points of view until we get more diversity in our newsroom.