Last Updated: June 29, 1999
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Diversity
Even if all of the minority print journalism graduates
in America applying to newspapers were hired, the newsroom figures wouldn’t
budge
Trends in newsroom employment and journalism school enrollments show
just how challenging it will be for newspapers to achieve the mission established
by the ASNE directors last fall when the board reaffirmed its commitment
to newsrooms that reflect the racial and ethnic profile of America:
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Journalism/mass communications schools are producing about 750 minority
print journalism graduates a year.
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Yet newspapers must make about 1,300 new minority hires a year to increase
the overall newsroom minority employment by one percentage point.
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Compared to non-minorities, minority graduates seeking jobs at daily newspapers
are generally not as well prepared for newsroom careers.
ASNE’s most recent newsroom employment survey shows that about 19 percent
of the hires taking their first full-time newspaper job were minorities,
as were a third of the interns. (The U.S. population currently is 26 percent
minority.)
Despite these somewhat encouraging percentages, the mix of whites and
minorities in the newsroom work force hardly changes from year to year
— it increased only one-tenth of a percentage point last year, to 11.55
percent. And the net gain in the number of minority employees each year
is microscopic. Since ASNE began the annual employment surveys in 1978,
the net gain in minorities in the newsroom work force has averaged 220
people per year. It has never exceeded 400, and there was no gain at all
in 1997. In the latest survey, the net gain in minority employees was 100.
What’s going on?
Before newsrooms could make any net gains in newsroom diversity, editors
had to hire about 750 minority workers to replace for those who left the
business. The current annual turnover rate is 12 percent. Thus newspapers
hired 850 minority journalists last year in order to get that 100-person
gain.
Newspapers naturally look to the crop of journalism school graduates
to fill entry-level positions. Those schools graduated about 5,200 print
journalism majors in 1997. Of these, 750 (14 percent) were minorities.
For each minority print journalism graduate, schools of journalism produced
about three minority broadcast graduatess — 2,200 aspiring broadcasters
in 1997. (The print grads were better students than their broadcast peers,
though.)
Perhaps after the broadcast graduates find that jobs in their field
are scarce — there are two professional journalists’ jobs in a daily newspapers
for each one at broadcast stations — many apply for newspaper jobs. This
may explain why some of the minorities who apply for newspaper jobs are
not as well prepared as their white competitors for newspaper newsroom
work:
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Only a third (35 percent) of the minority newspaper applicants had taken
an internship, compared to almost half (47 percent) of the non-minorities.
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Less than half of the minorities (44 percent) had worked for a college
paper, compared to more than two-thirds (67 percent) of the non-minorities.
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Less than a third (28 percent) of the minorities were print journalism
majors, compared to nearly half of the non-minorities (49 percent).
Similar proportions of white and minority print journalism majors (59 and
54 percent respectively) sought jobs with daily newspapers. Daily newspapers,
however, offered jobs to 44 percent of the minority applicants and 44 percent
of the whites.
Newsroom salaries are often cited as an impediment to hiring. The 1997
survey of graduates indicates that the median starting salary for all journalism
school graduates was about $20,000. The median starting salary in daily
newspapers was about 12 percent higher than those in television news, but
only about 7 percent higher than starting salaries at weekly newspapers.
Graduates starting out at newspapers get less pay than those in public
relations and substantially less than graduates who go to work in the Web
environment.
The job market has grown tighter for all media employers: 78 percent
of the ’97 graduates had at least one job offer upon graduation, compared
to 56 percent in 1988.
It’s a little tighter a few months down the road, too. Among 1997 graduates,
82 percent had a job six to eight months after graduation, compared to
76 percent of their predecessors in 1991.
Stinnett is the retiring executive director of ASNE..
