Aug. 20, 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

Statement by UNITY President Ernest Sotomayor Jr. on FCC localism initiative

Michael Powell's call for a summit comes two weeks after the UNITY alliance challenged the broadcasting industry to hold a high-level National Broadcasting Diversity Summit to find ways to boost diversity in hiring and make broadcasting newsrooms more representative of their communities.

UNITY's call came in response to the latest annual survey by the Radio and Television News Directors Association that showed representation by people of color in local radio and television news outlets had decreased.

UNITY and RTNDA on Aug. 8 jointly announced they would partner to organize the summit on newsroom diversity in broadcasting, likely in December.

While Powell's call this week did not say it was aimed specifically at newsroom diversity, we believe that as you make the newsroom workforces better reflect the communities, you will improve the quality, fairness, accuracy of the news reports, and lead to more local coverage that will be even more relevant to audiences.

So any discussions about localism should go hand-in-hand with a strong push by the FCC to ensure that broadcasters are bringing more peope of color into newsrooms, including the key decision-making positions.

As always, UNITY and its alliance partners reiterate past offers to the FCC to participate in discussions on how this can all be accomplished.

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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.