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What is expected to be the largest gathering of minority journalists will begin August 4 at the UNITY convention in Washington.

According to an article in Newsday.com:

...the hot topic will be what critics see as the glacially slow growth of minorities in the nation's newsrooms.

Studies have shown that while there have been slight increases in the number of minorities working in the nation's newsrooms over the past decade, the levels don't come close to reflecting the U.S. population, a fact that has frustrated many journalists of color.

It's a major issue for the five-day convention, which has become a touchstone for minority journalists. Every five years, the top minority journalism groups in the country - the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association and the Native American Journalists Association - forgo their respective annual conventions and instead combine them at UNITY.

...

Convention organizers plan to release today details of a study "showing the Washington press corps' dismal record on diversity," according to a news release. Minorities comprise about 13 percent of the newsrooms of U.S. daily papers, according to an April survey by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. The group's goal is to eventually have newsrooms reflect the nonwhite U.S. population, which, according to Census figures, was about 31 percent in 2000.

The convention will also have some special guests, which should make for some interesting soundbytes for the evening news shows:

About 7,000 people are expected to attend the convention, the third such gathering, at which President George W. Bush, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and Secretary of State Colin Powell will speak.

So my question is, why aren't there more minorities in the newsroom? Sure it's easy to say, "they are being discriminated against, the newspapers are part of the good-ole boy network, so that's why they don't get opportunities." Umm, yeah, perhaps that does exist, but in reality how many minorities are actually interested in such careers? Before I start blaming the hiring process, how many of them are going for degrees related to that field, and actually applying for jobs in journalism?

I did some research of my own and found this from the American Society of Newspaper Editors(ASNE), now this is from 1999-200, but you get the idea:

Source:ASNE.org
Author: Lee Stinnett, retiring ASNE executive director

Journalism/mass communications schools are graduating about 750 minority print journalism grads a year. They are producing far more minority broadcast grads, even though there are about twice as many jobs for journalists at daily newspapers than at broadcast stations.

Newspapers must make about 1,300 new minority hires this year to increase newsroom minority employment one percentage point.

Compared to non-minorities, in general minorities seeking jobs at daily newspapers are less likely to have majored in journalism, taken internships or worked on college papers, and their grade point average is lower than whites’ who apply.

Newspapers hire similar proportions of the minority and non-minority print journalism majors, even though a slightly lower proportion of minority print journalism majors apply to newspapers for jobs.

The article has some charts and graphs you can see here: Numbers regarding minorities in journalism

Now here is a report from 2004, sadly even there has been a growth, it's not very much to be proud of.

Source: ASNE.org
Washington

Newsrooms at U.S. daily newspapers collectively improved their diversity by nearly a half of one percentage point in 2003, but the growth to 12.94 percent lagged behind the 31.7 percent minorities in the U.S. population.

All minority groups increased their overall numbers.

The gain in diversity was the third successive increase of nearly a half a percentage point. But the total percentage is still short of the growth rate needed to achieve ASNE’s goal of parity of newsrooms with their communities by 2025.

“The number of minorities in American newspapers continues to grow, which is a good thing,” said ASNE President Peter Bhatia, “But the increase is at a snail’s pace, and the overall total is still woefully low. As the economy improves and hiring increases, it is time for all of us in the industry to step up and move this number more quickly towards parity.”

Diversity Committee chair David Yarnold said, “After all the numbers are digested, the question remains: Are editors encouraging growing numbers of people of color to help change the content of their newspapers to better reflect our changing communities?”

The comments by Bhatia and Yarnold are important to this "minority" hoping to get a job at a newspaper one day.

So what are your opinions? I'd appreciate any comments from those in journalism or those considering going into it.

CJ at 8/04/2004

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