Last Updated: May 20, 1999
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Diversity
The mission: Reflect America
By Gilbert Bailon
Twenty years ago, the ASNE board created an industry-wide benchmark
to achieve parity between the U.S. minority population and the percentage
of the minority work force at daily newspapers. It was a bold move that
helped increase the minority work force from 3 percent to 11.46 percent.
Progress has been very tangible, yet the U.S. minority population has risen
beyond 26 percent this year, making parity an elusive dream. § Now,
ASNE has embarked on a second venture...
What should the minority hiring goal be beyond 2000 and what efforts
are needed to make it a reality as the minority population rises steadily?
The ASNE Diversity Committee sought public comments from many organizations
and journalism circles before making recommendations to the board in October.
Among the many comments, some questioned the commitment of the editors
group after it missed its goal of achieving parity 2000. In setting that
goal in 1978, when the only national minority journalists group was the
National Association of Black Journalists, the editors didn’t anticipate
a minority populace approaching 30 percent at the turn of the century.
Misunderstandings about ASNE’s draft proposal, which called for newsroom
parity with a benchmark of 20 percent minority representation by 2010,
caused a lot of consternation and ill-informed statements following its
release in April. Minority journalists associations inaccurately assumed
that ASNE was backsliding on the Year 2000 goal. Actually, ASNE’s leadership
was attempting to establish interim goals and tracking systems to achieve
full parity.
Despite efforts to correct the misperceptions about the draft, the sentiment
among many minority journalists was that diversity was no longer a priority
in newsrooms and that commitment had publicly waned.
“The fact is that ASNE and the ‘newspaper industry’ are the same; that
is, the top editors who make up ASNE are the same ones making the critical
decisions on hiring and promotion that result in the unsatisfactory diversity
figures,” noted Joe Boyce, senior editor with The Wall Street Journal.
“What is involved here is a matter of will, not know-how.”
Sharon Rosenhause, managing editor of the San Francisco Examiner and
a diversity committee member, wrote that ASNE should “define diversity
more broadly or inclusively than race or ethnicity although the emphasis
should continue to be on race and ethnicity. But to ignore gender and sexual
orientation is shortsighted and ignores the reality of most of our newsrooms.”
Editors cite realities
Conversely, editors struggled with some grim realities. From where would
so many new minority journalists come if the current employment would need
to more than triple to about 38 percent in 2020? Currently, journalism
school graduates barely fill the slots lost through attrition each year.
Why set an unreachable goal that would create unachievable expectations?
Let’s be realistic, they said, without minimizing the dedication behind
diversifying newsrooms. Let’s not set up the organization for future failure,
some editors advised.
“Minorities who have long believed that the goal would be met simply
because it had been established have had their hopes crushed somewhat cruelly
it seems. ... What we may be setting them up for an additional sobering
situation...” wrote Stan Tiner, editor of the Mobile (Ala.) Register.
A handful objected to the premise.
“To advocate diversity as a journalistic ‘core value’ implies that journalism’s
mission should be social change as opposed to disinterested news coverage,”
commented retired member Claude Sitton of Oxford, Ga. “Social change certainly
is a legitimate goal for editorial pages but the board would be wrong to
urge social change as a goal of reporting, although that may be the result.
After all, diversity has several definitions. Which flavor would a diverse
board urge reporters to produce?”
Others, including a number of ASNE Diversity Committee members, believed
parity was non-negotiable and must be tied to regular benchmarks to prevent
a generation of deferment. The new mission statement adopted by the board
includes both elements: a goal of parity by 2025 or sooner with three-year
benchmarks to measure incremental progress.
Expectedly, some have criticized the adopted goal as too distant and
something that editors can set aside.
Others like Charles Overby of The Freedom Forum worked the numbers —
which are daunting. To achieve parity in 2025, newspapers must hire a 1
percent increase annually and cumulative gain of 14,850 minority journalists
over the years to reach parity in 2025.
The work to get here
The personal investment in the goal setting was extensive. ASNE president
Edward Seaton and other board members traveled to minority journalists
conventions to hear the passion for parity firsthand. Former Diversity
Committee chair Rick Rodriguez was the brunt of criticism at an ASNE Diversity
Dialogue in San Francisco.
Loren Ghiglione of Emory University in Atlanta composed an impressive
report that framed the issue of racial equality within the industry and
headed the bench marking subcommittee. Larry O’Donnell, Narda Zacchino
and Morris Thompson were passionate voices of a subcommittee that prepared
a revised draft, which included an annual count of women journalists to
complement one for minority journalists.
Veronica Jennings, ASNE’s Diversity Director, traveled to many a meeting
and fielded many a call from concerned ASNE members and others. There were
no lukewarm responses.
The reaction
The news media wrote articles about ASNE rolling back on its commitment
to diversity. Many reporters failed to convey that the Apr il announcement
was but a draft seeking public comment. Critics lined up, and we had to
work diligently to explain the full process.
The work was wrenching and viselike for me as well. I sought to represent
fairly the intent of the ASNE board while serving on the board of Unity:
Journalists of Color, a consortium of the four minority journalists associations
whose leaders objected to the initial proposal and expressed some concern
about the final draft.
I’ve spent many years working for minority journalist causes. The chasm
between current employment numbers and where they need to be for truly
diverse coverage remains stark. Hearing comments that these “white editors”
were turning their backs on the movement was unsettling.
Midstream, I feared that goal setting would drive a wedge between ASNE
and the Unity groups, which have agreements to work with ASNE, the Newspaper
Association of America and the Radio Television News Directors Association.
Was it possible to keep a flame lit for diversity without burning the
parties involved? Though the final goal doesn’t please everyone, I believe
it is a workable framework. The three-year benchmark will keep diversity
before the editors much more often than the original 1978 goal.
Looking ahead
Though the goal setting was arduous, the task pales in comparison to
what ASNE and its allies must bring to bear to get anywhere close to parity
in 2025. Thus, the Diversity Committee conducted three diversity roundtables
to seek ideas broadly and then to formulate collaborative plans to make
significant inroads toward parity. The three roundtables were held in November
and December (please see box).
Bigger hurdles await editors and other journalists, who can no longer
do business as usual if parity has any hope. The leap in numbers must be
dramatic. Satisfaction with attending a few job fairs and recruiting people
from other papers will barely create a ripple.
This year’s debate also drove home how the issue of diversity has changed
over the last two decades. The Minorities Committee had become the Diversity
Committee. The new statement acknowledged the breadth of diversity while
recommitting ASNE’s programs to focus on race and ethnicity.
Meetings had representatives from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists
Association, several women journalists organizations and long-standing
non-profit diversity organizations such as the Maynard Institute for Journalism
Education. The breadth of debate and the firepower within the meetings
was inspiring.
Hearing from a number of top-ranking minority editors like Bob McGruder,
Don Flores, Wanda Lloyd and Frank Del Olmo illustrated that progress has
been attained since 1978.
At the same time, as I move amongst the minority journalists conventions,
the sense of angst and impatience is foreboding. Is diversity just a polite
concept that crosses the lips but evades the heart?
Those conflicting signposts are not incompatible. But the beyond 2000
diversity goal process showed truth lies within both arenas. One can hope
now that all can temper their criticism in the spirit of compromise — for
the sake of working toward true parity long before the bell tolls in 2025.
Bailon, executive editor of The Dallas Morning News, is 1998-99 Diversity
Committee chair.
