Last Updated: July 28, 2000
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Diversity in the newsroom
Minorities show small gains in newsrooms
Inching forward again, the percentage of newsroom staffers
who are minorities grew to 11.85 percent as of Jan. 1; women also moved
closer to parity
By LaBarbara Bowman
The number of minority journalists working at daily newspapers grew
in the past year by a third of a percentage point, moving from 11.55 percent
to 11.85 percent, according to ASNE’s 2000 newsroom employment survey.
Meanwhile, the percentage of women in daily newsrooms stands at 37.12
percent, up from 36.88 percent, according to the report. Women represented
34 percent of all newsroom supervisors, the same percentage as last year.
This is the second year that ASNE has counted the number of women working
at the nation’s daily newspapers.
Overall newsroom employment grew by 1,100. It totaled 56,200 in the
2000 survey, compared to 55,100 in the 1999 survey. This is the largest
increase since the 1996 survey.
The number of minorities in the work force increased 300 to 6,700, according
to the ASNE survey.
“We are pleased with the progress newspaper newsrooms are making, but
far from satisfied. While these are the best gains in some time, they are
far from where we must be,” said 1999-2000 ASNE President N. Christian
Anderson III, publisher of The Orange County Register, Santa Ana, Calif.
ASNE has tracked the growth of minorities in daily newsrooms since 1978
when minority journalists comprised 4 percent of the total newsroom workforce
(1,700 out of 43,000). The survey is a tool ASNE uses to measure the success
of its goal of having the percentage of minorities working in newsrooms
nationwide equal to the percentage of minorities in the nation’s population
by 2025.
Currently, minorities make up 28.4 percent of the U.S. population and
will grow to an estimated 38.2 percent by 2025, according to the U.S. Census
Bureau.
Detailed findings
Racial/ethnic groups: This is a breakdown of staffs by minority
group:
Asian Black
Hispanic Native
Am.
Am.
2000 2.35%
5.31% 3.68% 0.52%
1999 2.29%
5.36% 3.46% 0.44%
Internships and first-time hires: The percentage and number of
minority interns rose slightly while the percentage and number of first-time
minority hires fell. Of nearly 2,800 interns reported hired in the 2000
survey, 880 (31.42 percent) were minorities. In the 1999 ASNE report, there
were 855 or 31.13 percent. First-time minority hires declined nearly a
full percentage point, going from 18.72 percent (586 people) in 1999 to
17.74 (561) in this year’s report. The percentage of new minority hires
has generally declined since 1994.
Supervisors: Nine percent of all supervisors were minorities,
while 19 percent of all minorities were supervisors, about the same percentages
as last year. That means nearly 91 percent of all supervisors are white,
while 25 percent of whites are supervisors.
Newspapers with no minorities: This number continues to slowly
improve. Of the newspapers participating in the survey, 368 papers — 39
percent — had no minority staffers compared to 40 percent last year and
42 percent the preceding year.
Where do minorities work: Nearly two-thirds of all minority journalists
work at papers with circulations exceeding 100,000.
“We intend to keep the issue center-stage and to keep reminding ourselves
that diverse newsrooms are essential to serving diverse communities,” said
Charlotte Hall, chair of the Diversity Committee. “The committee looks
forward to helping guide major new initiatives to increase the pipeline
of journalists of color. At the same time, we are very concerned about
retention and need to attack that problem vigorously.” Hall is managing
editor of Newsday, Melville, N.Y.
Women and newsrooms
How many women are there:
-
Women on daily newspaper staffs total 20,876, up more than 500 from the
previous year. Of those, 3,095 or 14.8 percent, are minorities.
-
Only 1 percent of surveyed newspapers have no women, down from 2.3 percent
last year.
Where do women work: Women continue to make up nearly 40 percent
of the staffers at both large and small newspapers. Women are more often
found in papers with less than 10,000 circulation. Here women make up nearly
44 percent of the staffs.
Benchmarks
Next year, ASNE will start measuring the industry’s progress in minority
hiring and promotion against every three-year benchmarks adopted by the
ASNE board in September. These will alert the industry to whether it’s
on target to meet the 2025 goals of newsrooms that reflect the U.S. population.
The 2001 benchmarks:
Overall minority
employment...................13.5
percent
Interns...............................32.6
percent
Supervisors........................11 percent
Number of papers with
no minorities...................350
Number of newspapers
that have achieved parity
with their community.......58
Increasing diversity in U.S. newspaper newsrooms has been a primary
ASNE mission since 1978. The Society has been an industry leader in helping
newspapers better reflect their communities. It serves as an information
clearinghouse and provides career information to journalists just starting
out. The Society sponsors a variety of initiatives and projects, including
job fairs which are directed at young journalists of color, and an online
Talent Bank, where editors can find candidates for internships and entry-level
positions.
Census procedures
For this year’s census, 953 of 1,451 daily newspapers responded to the
survey, representing 65.7 percent of all U.S. dailies. The census is based
on Dec. 31, 1999, employment data.
The survey information is projected to reflect all daily newspapers
in the country. Editors participating in the survey agree to publish the
percentage of newsroom employees who are minorities.
The data from newspapers that returned the survey are used to project
the numbers for non-responding newspapers in the same circulation range.
Because survey procedures remain constant each year, the ASNE census provides
highly reliable year-to-year comparisons. v
Bowman is diversity director of ASNE.
