NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
August 8, 2003

Contacts:
Ernest R. Sotomayor, President, UNITY Board of Directors
Long Island Editor, Newsday.com
631-843-3664

Anna M. Lopez, Executive Director, UNITY
(703) 854-3585

RTNDA, UNITY To Hold Diversity Summit

WASHINGTON — The Radio-Television News Directors Association and UNITY: Journalists of Color will hold a Diversity Summit to discuss ways to increase diversity among network and local radio and television news staffs
and management.

The organizations decided to hold the summit after the latest RTNDA/Ball State University Annual Survey showed minority staffing in local television newsrooms dropping from 20.6 percent to 18.1 percent. In local radio, minority journalists hold 6.5 percent of the jobs, down from 9.2 percent.

"We are very concerned that the percentage of minority journalists has decreased for the second year in a row at local television and radio stations," said Barbara Cochran, RTNDA president. "We agree with UNITY and
the partner organizations that the time has come to focus on this issue and to look for solutions that we can pursue together."

Ernest Sotomayor, UNITY president, said, "The backslide in diversity in broadcasting is a critical problem that needs far greater attention and it won't improve until we recognize that it is a crisis and treat it as such.
This will take the full, unequivocal support of the entire industry -- radio and television alike -- and the push to find new and more effective solutions cannot wait. In working with RTNDA, UNITY and its alliance partners stand willing to do even more and we now call the industry to the table to begin that task."

The date of the summit has not yet been determined.

The Radio-Television News Directors Association is the world's largest professional organization devoted exclusively to electronic journalism, and represents local and network news executives in broadcasting, cable and
other electronic media in more than 30 countries. Along with the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation, RTNDA sponsors scholarships, fellowships, training seminars, mentoring programs and more as part of its
diversity efforts.

UNITY: Journalists of Color is the consortium of organizations dedicated to diversity in the nation's newspaper and broadcast newsrooms. Its alliance partners are Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of
Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists and Native American Journalists Association.

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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.