Last Updated: April 06, 2000
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Diversity
In search of ... minority copy editors
Newspaper groups have started programs to increase
the ranks of minorities on their copy desks
By Jim Gold
When Ron Smith challenges stories crossing the Los Angeles Times’ national
desk, he draws on reader advocacy skills learned in a Times Mirror program
that encourages diversity among copy editors.
The 1995 METPRO/Editing graduate said the program taught him to raise
questions readers would ask, spot inconsistencies and go beyond spell check
to look at story context and content.
“Most important, we learned to be diplomatic and professional and to
raise questions without offending the fragile egos of reporters and editors,”
Smith said.
The 10-year-old METPRO/Editing program is just one example of newspapers
trying to recruit and retain copy editors of color. The New York Times
Regional Newspaper Group recently launched a joint copy editor training
program. Hearst Newspapers has a 1-year-old program that includes a copy
editor as well as two reporters and a photographer.
“The industry needs to diversify its copy editing ranks,” Smith said,
echoing the ASNE goal that newsrooms reflect the general population they
serve by 2025 or earlier.
More diverse copy desks help increase the overall accuracy of the newspaper.
ASNE’s 1999 newsroom survey showed only 11.55 percent of all journalists
are minorities, who make up 28.4 percent of the total population. Among
copy editors, only 10.63 percent are minority, meaning white copy editors
outnumber minority copy editors by nearly 9 to 1.
Walter Middlebrook, associate editor for recruitment at Newsday, Melville,
N.Y., is in charge of METPRO/Editing for Times Mirror, which also operates
a METPRO/Reporting program.
Each copy editing class of eight students spends its first program year
at Newsday. After a two-week orientation, trainees spend three weeks reporting
on Long Island and in Queens. Then it’s eight to 10 weeks of classroom
training led by Newsday staff.
“We teach them everything a copy editor needs to know to work on that
desk — word editing, heads, captions, layout and design,” Middlebrook said,
noting they’re paid the whole time. “Then we do actual work on the desk.”
Half at a time will work on the day desk; the other half, night desk.
They’ll tackle features, advance work, daily news, business and news features.
The second year, the copy editors are assigned to Times Mirror papers.
“Generally, if the trainee has done a very good job at those papers,
(he or she) is hired by that paper,” Middlebrook said. Participating papers
are The Advocate and Greenwich Time, Stamford, Conn.; The Sun in Baltimore;
the Hartford (Conn.) Courant; the Los Angeles Times, The Morning Call in
Allentown, Pa., and Newsday.
The program’s success rate: With the 1998-’99 class, 76 copy editors
have participated in the program and 90 percent are still in media, with
more than 60 percent still in Times Mirror.
Middlebrook said a successful program requires a lot of commitment,
incorporation of the total desk in the training program, buy-in from assignment
editors as well, and making the trainees spend some time reporting.
New York Times
The fledgling New York Times program doesn’t guarantee employment at
the Times at the end of its two-year program but expects it will have opportunities
for graduates in the New York Times Regional Newspapers, said John M. Lee,
the group’s director of editorial development. The Times and the regional
group share program expenses, he said.
“We’re starting modestly and we’ll see what develops,” Lee said.
One copy editor already is training at The Ledger in Lakeland, Fla.,
and a second participant soon will be picked to train at the Sarasota (Fla.)
Herald-Tribune.
The program includes orientation at and exposure to the Times, he said.
“Training that goes on and work these people in the program do is valuable
in and of itself, value for the person being trained and for the papers
where they are working,” Lee said.
The New York Times’ efforts grew out of copy editing workshops the New
York Times offers at minority journalists conventions and at schools near
its group papers that are known to attract minority journalism students.
Schools include Florida A&M University, the University of Alabama
and Temple University.
“We wanted to do a better job of mirroring our communities,” Lee said.
“We seemed to have more difficulty hiring for the copy desk than we did
for reporting slots. We deliberately set out to ID talented people, try
to interest them in copy editing, and train them for work within the regional
papers or elsewhere in the company or professional journalism.”
The Times developed an applicant pool from workshop attendees and responses
to a mass mailing sent to schools. The New York Times’ prestige also aids
in recruitment, Lee acknowledged.
Hearst
Hearst Newspapers’ Ann Turnbach, vice president of human resources at
the Houston Chronicle, said it’s too soon to judge the success of the year-old
Hearst Journalism Fellowships program, but she’s pleased so far.
“Our newspapers are challenged with diversifying within their markets,”
Turnbach said. “We have something unique to offer, diversity in size and
location of the papers.”
The Hearst program includes two reporters, a copy editor and a photographer.
Each of the four fellows does four job rotations over two years, spending
six months at each of two small-to-medium papers and two six-month stints
at two larger-market papers.
The program gives the Hearst group a chance for outside hiring and to
do its own staff development, she said.
Dow Jones Newspaper Fund and other programs
About 80 newspapers contract with the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund for minority
copy editing interns each year. Each paper pays an $1,800 training fee,
which covers a two-week pre-internship training program at a college campus
and other expenses. The training program covers libel law, ethics, page
layout, headline writing, copy editing, grammar, punctuation, style and
newsroom protocol.
Other programs, like one at Gannett, offer corporate-sponsored copy
editing internships.
Company training programs such as Times Mirror’s program is good, said
Smith, the Los Angeles Times national desk editor. He was a reporter before
joining the copy editing program. He recalled his experience.
“I was excited from the time I stepped off the airplane,” Smith said,
noting the interviewing panel as well as the applicant pool was diverse.
“There was someone who looked like me,” said the African-American Chicago
native who worked on Southern California papers before joining the program.
Classroom lessons sometimes involved editing stories the trainees didn’t
realize had already run.
“We’d have questions,” Smith said, adding that teachers encouraged prospective
copy editors to ask more, speak up and be counted in the newsroom.
“The emphasis was on good writing,” he said.
Smith recalled the excitement of working on big stories such as the
TWA crash, the competitiveness of going up against the New York Times,
the chance to work with good journalists and newsroom turmoil when New
York Newsday closed.
Smith stayed on at Newsday for nearly three years after graduating.
He worked the rim and unofficially was assistant editor for Newsday’s Sunday
bulldog editions for Queens and Long Island.
But with a national desk opening and the anticipation of the 2000 presidential
elections, the LA Times lured Smith back to California in 1998.
Smith urged newspaper editors to cast a wider net when recruiting and
to help obliterate biased attitudes in newsrooms.
He’s heard too many derogatory comments about reporters or copy editors
branded as unqualified.
With Harvard, Yale, working class and upper-middle class recruits, perhaps
newsrooms are not representative, he cautioned.
“It would be OK to hire a Cal State grad, too,” he said. “I’m tired
of hearing editors say ‘I can’t find anyone.’ ”
Gold is editor-in-chief of The Record in Stockton, Calif.
