Karen Lincoln Michel
UNITY: Journalists of Color congratulates past UNITY president Karen Lincoln Michel on being named executive editor of the Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, La. She will also oversee news operations at the Opelousas (La.) Daily World. Both are owned by Gannett.
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Sheila Solomon
UNITY: Journalists of Color is disappointed to learn the Chicago Tribune has laid-off Sheila Solomon, a passionate and tireless advocate of diversity in her newsroom.
Among her numerous responsibilities while at the Tribune, Solomon had managed her paper’s year-round internships and the Minority Editorial Training Program (Metpro), which focused on bringing diverse journalists into the Tribune.
We echo another newsroom diversity champion, Joe Grimm, who wrote that Solomon’s departure “means that we have lost a diversity soldier who devoted thousands of hours to helping journalists advance their careers.”
We urge the Tribune stay true to the mission of diversifying the newsroom and to keep diversity in the forefront when letting go of journalists to ensure the newsroom reflects the diverse communities they serve.
And, as always, UNITY stands ready to assist the Tribune and any news organization in that mission.
Aug. 26, 2011 — UNITY: Journalists of Color urges MediaNews to keep diversity a top priority as the company downsizes from 11 newspapers to two in California.
We understand that news organizations must make changes to survive as businesses. We also believe that retaining and growing diversity in news coverage and newsrooms is imperative to business sustainability and future success.
These newspapers serve some of the most diverse communities in the country. Any loss of local, in-depth coverage would be a loss to the public.
From our conversations with the company, up to 40 jobs may be lost in MediaNews’ newsrooms. We have urged MediaNews to retain as many journalists of color as possible in the remaining newsrooms because we can only serve our readers and advertisers when we reflect their diverse needs.
The alliance partners at UNITY – the Asian American Journalists Association, Native American Journalists Association and National Association of Hispanic Journalists — stand ready to help journalists of color who are losing their jobs.
AAJA has compiled job listings and we encourage affected journalists of color to reach out to us at info@unityjournalists.org. We encourage other members of alliance groups to send us journalism job openings.
In this difficult economic time for our industry, we all have to help each other.
Joanna Hernandez, UNITY President
From the President of UNITY:
I am humbled and honored to have been elected president of UNITY: Journalists of Color, representing the joint mission of the Native American Journalists Association, the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
As everyone has reasons for doing things, I want to share what motivated me to run for president of UNITY.
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