Diversity at Work

A newspaper displays in two ways its commitment to diversity -- which is to say, its commitment to covering its community.

All of its community.
The two are linked, the latter enabling the former.

Which is why anyone who values diversity should fear the latest downsizing mania seizing our newsrooms — beyond just what it means to the friends and colleagues directly affected.

Earlier this year, the American Society of Newspaper Editors reported a slight decline in the percentage of minority journalists working in the nation’s daily newsrooms (a percentage, by the way, that already lagged the percentage of minorities in the U.S. population generally.) We should fear what next year’s ASNE census reveals.

This space is generally reserved for tips on how to better practice our craft, hence the title, "Journalism with a Difference." My fear is that downsizing will so set back diversity in our nation’s newspaper newsrooms that the journalism we practice will regress to recognizing and welcoming no differences — in our communities and in our newsrooms.

I fear also that a "bad economy" will supplant the old tried-and-true excuse for lack of diversity: We can’t find enough "qualified" minorities.

These are, indeed, tough times. Newsrooms throughout the country are trying to adapt, without forsaking what makes a newspaper the glue that binds a community and the shield that protects it by having its journalists poke their noses into businesses our institutions would prefer to remain unpoked-into.

So, publishers and editors everywhere are figuring out how their newsrooms can be immediate and not give up depth; how they can provide it 'round the clock in an era of diminishing resources; and how they can give readers both what they want and what they need, watchdog journalism and thoroughness key among these.

They properly recognize that by giving up these things, we will also have given up our true franchise, becoming just another shout potentially drowned out in the cacophony of yelling matches that has become the popular media landscape.

Let me suggest that diversity and diversity coverage should be just as valued, just as protected in an era of resource retrenchment.

Let me suggest that it will avail us not enough if we preserve that watchdog or online slot and lose the eyes and ears to parts of our communities that are growing faster than all others.

These growing communities can be our future or just more former or never-have-been readers. The key will be in whether they view what we do as relevant. And it’s hard to imagine being relevant without covering what they’re interested in, in a fashion that shows we know what we’re writing about.

I’d submit that knowing this will be exceedingly difficult with a staff that doesn’t look like the many communities within our newspaper designated markets. Minorities are roughly one in three of all U.S. residents. Latinos accounted for nearly half of the nation’s population growth between July 2005 and July 2006, according to the U.S. Census. The Latino population is also younger than the rest of the population, a trend in median age that also characterizes the black and Asian-American populations.
Future readers?

Meanwhile, non-Latino whites accounted for less than 18 percent of the population growth in that period and was also older than the rest of the population.

This is a trend that should force editors and publishers to think through the immediate and expedient fix of downsizing to salvage this quarter’s, this year’s or next year’s bottom line. Of course, less revenue will require adjustments in expenditures. In this era of publicly traded media companies, it’s simply a fact of life.

But I'm asking that editors, publishers and Wall Street analysts think about the effects today's decision to shrink will have on tomorrow's ability to grow. Making diversity an afterthought in today's downsizing decisions will affect newspapers' ability to grow.