April 12 , 2005

Contact:
Melanie Hall
Finance and Administration Manager
UNITY
(703) 854-3585
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Increasing Newsroom Diversity: It's Time to Make It Personal

ARLINGTON, VA. – UNITY: Journalists of Color is challenging each of the 743 members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) - some 265 of who will be gathered this week for ASNE’s annual conference - to take bold action in diversifying their newsrooms.

In its annual newspaper newsroom survey, ASNE announced today that there are 7,267 journalists of color in 2005, compared to 7,016 in 2004. Journalists of color represent only 13.42 percentage of the newsroom workforce in 2005, up slightly from the 12.95 percent the year before. Similarly, the percentage of journalists of color in supervisory positions in newspaper newsrooms continues to hover around 10 percent.

The numbers show that some of the gain in the percentage of journalists of color is due to the downsizing of the industry, a sign that retention of journalists must be a higher priority for all newspapers. Retention is of particular concern when it comes to black journalists, who over the past five years have only increased their presence in newsrooms by 34.

Taken all together, these dismal numbers show that aggressive steps must be taken if the industry ever hopes to have its newsroom workforce mirror the general U.S. population to ensure that all communities across the country are covered and that they are covered fairly and accurately. According to the 2000 census, 32.8 percent of the U.S. population is made up of communities of color.

“It is clear that ASNE will not reach its goal of achieving parity in the newsroom by 2025 as long as this remains an institutional goal and not a personal one for its hundreds of members,” said Mae Cheng, UNITY president.

“ For this reason, UNITY is asking each ASNE member to personally accept the challenge of improving diversity in his or her newsroom,” Cheng continued. “Editors need to make this a priority, perhaps even taking the dramatic step of making a majority of their hires over the next year qualified people of color to begin to finally move that needle.”

In its five-year strategic plan unveiled in January, UNITY is determined to work with the industry to ensure that at the end of 2008, journalists of color will represent at least 20 percent of the newsroom population across the country. It further will work to ensure that journalists of color represent at least 15 percent of the supervisors in newsrooms. To that end, UNITY and its member organizations stand ready to help any news organization that wants to train, recruit, retain and promote journalists of color.

UNITY hopes to highlight some of the individual editor and newspaper success stories at the next ASNE convention. Already one success story is that of E.W. Scripps, which has partnered with NAHJ on the organization’s parity project. Scripps, NAHJ’s first parity project partner, has nearly doubled the number of Latinos in its participating newsrooms from 54 to 94 over the past two years.

COMMENT FROM THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITY ORGANIZATIONS

“Native journalists make up just over half of one percent of all journalists in the United States,” said Dan Lewerenz (Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska), president of the Native American Journalists Association. “This despite increased interest in NAJA’s student programs, in cooperating programs to introduce Native students to journalism careers, such as the Crazy Horse Newspaper Careers Conference, and to train Native students for
careers in journalism, such as the American Indian Journalism Institute.”

“M any of our students don’t attend the big journalism schools and don’t enter the traditional internship programs,” Lewerenz said. “They’re no less talented, and they’re no less dedicated – they’re simply harder to find. That means editors need to be willing to look beyond the comfort of the familiar J-schools and internship programs if they're going to recruit talented young Native journalists.”

“Increasing diversity in U.S. newspaper newsrooms has been primary ASNE mission since 1978,” said Esther Wu, president of the Asian American Journalists Association. “Yet today, 27 years later, we are still seeing a dismal disproportionate number of people of color in the newsrooms. It is painfully clear that there is still much work to be done if we hope to see our nation’s newsrooms reflect the growing diverse community it hopes to serve.”

“Until there is parity in the newsrooms -- both in the workforce and in the decision-makers -- we risk missing stories and missing readers. Having a diverse staff means bringing in different voices, creating a deeper understanding and connection into communities that are all too often overlooked.”

“NABJ members are tired of the excuses and want to see more positive results when it comes to hiring and promoting more black journalists,” said Herbert Lowe, president of the National Association of Black Journalists. “When UNITY says ‘bold’ leadership, that can be an innovation no one’s thought of yet -- or it can just mean calling a meeting of the entire staff and declaring that one out of every three new hires will be a journalist of color. As with so much else in newsrooms, it all starts at the top and we need every editor to meet this crucial challenge head on.”

“NAHJ remains disappointed and frustrated by the failure of the industry to keep pace with its own goal of reaching Parity by 2025,” said National Association of Hispanic Journalists president Veronica Villafañe. “ASNE will clearly fall short of its goal at the current rate. We believe, however, it is possible to reach parity.”

“We call on the industry to work closer with each UNITY organization.” Villafañe said. “This is why NAHJ created the Parity Project two years ago and is proud of its success. We believe by creating true partnerships with media outlets, we can help the industry achieve the rapid results needed to reach parity by 2025.”

To view the ASNE Annual Newsroom Survey please visit http://www.asne.org/index.cfm?ID=5648
To view the NAHJ Parity Project please visit http://nahj.org/parityproject/parityproject.shtml

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About UNITY: Journalists of Color
UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc. is a strategic alliance advocating news coverage about people of color, and aggressively challenging its organizations at all levels to reflect the nation’s diversity. UNITY, representing more than 10,000 journalists of color, is comprised of four national associations: Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and the Native American Journalists Association.

In addition to planning the largest regular gathering of journalists in the nation, UNITY develops programs and institutional relationships that promote its mission. For more information on UNITY, visit www.unityjournalists.org, email info@unityjournalists.org or call (703) 854-3585.