Sexual Orientation Joins J-Schools’ Diversity Criteria
Teaching journalism students about sexual orientation issues has been added to race and gender as part of the diversity standard that journalism schools should meet in order to qualify for accreditation.
The curriculum should foster “understanding of issues and perspectives that are inclusive in terms of gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation,” reads a portion of the revised diversity standard adopted last week by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.
The Sept. 5 vote by the council in essence ratified a compromise between the impassioned positions of those who wanted to limit diversity issues to the historic focus on race, ethnicity and gender, and those who wanted to include not only sexual orientation, but religion, age and political views, said Trevor Brown, dean of the journalism school at Indiana University, who headed the committee revising the standards.
“The constituency for race and gender felt that we should not as an organization give up on the historic standard,” Brown told Journal-isms. At one point, a petition signed by perhaps 150 people was presented by advocates for the inclusion of sexual orientation who feared that that issue would be cut from the final definition, Brown said.
But the committee never planned to cut out sexual orientation because it felt that “as a society we had matured in [recognizing] the way this particular community had suffered some of the same ways that we had associated with women and people of color,” Brown said.
The addition of sexual orientation applies only to the curriculum, not to representation among faculty and students.
And in a nod to those who thought the guidelines should include religion and political views, the language for satisfying curriculum requirements was broadened to say that it should “demonstrate an understanding of the diversity of groups in a global society in relationship to communications.”
Another change says that the school should have “a climate that is free of harassment and discrimination, accommodates the needs of those with disabilities, and values the contributions of all forms of diversity.”
The new Standard 3 of the accrediting guidelines, formerly known as Standard 12, is the least-complied-with accreditation standard, and not meeting it is not by itself a barrier toward accreditation.
From 1997 to May 2002, in 85 visits to journalism programs seeking accreditation, 25 programs were out of compliance with Standard 12. No more than 10 schools were out of compliance with any other standard.
Schools that were out of compliance from 1995 to 2002 were listed in the Journal-isms column of Nov. 4, 2002.
Since then, according to the council’s executive director, Charles Higginson, these schools flunked Standard 12: Baylor and Winthrop universities; and the universities of Southern Indiana, Connecticut and Alabama.
Under the revised standards, Brown said, students can be expected “to understand the history of gays’ and lesbians’ experiences in society, when did their movement for civil rights begin, how have the media reported on this” movement.
Leroy Aarons, a Maynard board member who heads the Program for the Study of Sexual Orientation Issues in News at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, said he was “extremely pleased by the way it turned out.” The next step is providing the educators with the appropriate material, he told Journal-isms.
Of his own role in lobbying for the change, he said, “you work the corridors, you build the momentum so it reaches a critical mass, and then you pray.”
The revised standards (PDF)
Gay Journalists in Hollywood for 10th Anniversary
More than 600 journalists and other news professionals are in Hollywood for annual convention of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, according to the student convention newspaper, as the 1,100-member organization celebrates its 10th anniversary.
One plenary, ?Sense and Sensibility: Reporting on Gays in Ethnic Markets,? will pose the question of whether gay and lesbian issues are covered differently when the target audience is a minority community, a news release says.
“Leading the discussion will be NLGJA?s Marcus Mabry, chief of correspondents for Newsweek, joined by panelists including [broadcaster Cristina] Saralegui, host of ?The Cristina Show? on the Univision Network, and [Will] Wright, [formerly] of BET.” Wright was “BET Nightly News” executive producer until he left the network in July.
“Among the newsroom and entertainment movers and shakers scheduled to appear Sept. 11-14 at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel are: playwright Tony Kushner, CNN anchor and senior correspondent Judy Woodruff, award-winning journalist Linda Ellerbee, Los Angeles Times publisher John Puerner and Emmy Award-winning broadcaster Cristina Saralegui,” a news release says.
Student convention newspaper coverage (Friday)
Student convention newspaper coverage (Saturday)
Journalists of Color Bailed from Station Axing News
Four years after a major remake, the ABC affiliate in Burlington, Vt., is pulling the plug on local news coverage, the Burlington Free Press reports. But the two journalists of color who worked at the station this year both found other jobs before the announcement was made.
Reporter Ron Mott, who is African African, returned to his native Kansas City in April to report for NBC affiliate KSHB; and Lara Yamada, weekend anchor and reporter who is Asian American, had just been hired by the Fox-UPN duopoly in Minneapolis before the announcement was made.
“Sometimes you get lucky,” Yamada told Journal-isms. She is to be weekend anchor for WFTC-TV, the UPN station in Minneapolis, and reporter for both WFTC and KMSP-TV, the Fox station.
“The ABC affiliate struggled to win a slice of the local news market and never managed to wrestle more than a single-digit share of the market from local stations WPTZ-Channel 5 in Plattsburgh, N.Y., and WCAX-Channel 3 in South Burlington,” the Free Press wrote.
“The South Burlington based station’s 25 reporters, anchors and producers were told Tuesday that their last newscast would be Friday evening at 11, said Erik Storck, general manager.”
Senate Vote on FCC Rules Expected Next Week
The Senate is expected to vote on a resolution to veto new Federal Communications Commission rules Monday or Tuesday, and a close outcome is expected, Edward Epstein reports in the San Francisco Chronicle. President Bush, who supports the FCC’s decision, has threatened a veto.
“A bipartisan group of senators is trying to invoke the rarely used vehicle of a legislative veto to order the FCC to reconsider its 3-2 June vote to allow companies to own more TV and radio stations and to end its 28-year-old cross-ownership ban on companies owning a newspaper and TV station in the same market.
“‘Never have I seen a federal regulatory agency cave in so completely and quickly to the industry it is supposed to be regulating,’ said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who, with Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., is co-sponsoring the unusual resolution,” the story continued.
“It’s a battle between the public interest and the special interests,” added Dorgan in the piece.
“Latino” vs. “Hispanic” Issue Not Going Away Soon
“We are back to one of those completely esoteric debates that, despite its benign appearance, carries an enormous emotional charge,” writes Guillermo I. Martínez, a Cuban-American columnist at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “How should we identify the largest minority now living in the United States? Should we call them Hispanics, as the U.S. Census does? Or should we insist on the word Latino, as many activists now demand?
“This is not a new argument. It was a hot item for discussion during meetings of the organizing committee as it drafted bylaws to create the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. We spent hours, if not days, arguing ‘Latino’ or ‘Hispanic.’ The problem is that 20 years later I do not recall why the word Hispanic won the day, or even how I voted.
“The principles of the organization have never wavered — nor would they have if we had chosen ‘Latino’ over ‘Hispanic.’
“I revel in the opportunity to live in a community where people from all over our hemisphere, of all races and ethnic origins, live together. What they call me is not that important.
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ “Latinos in the United States: A Resource Guide for Journalists,” for sale on the NAHJ Web site, also addresses the issue.
An introductory piece, “Hispanic, Latino or Chicano? A Historical Review” by Frank Del Olmo of the Los Angeles Times, argues that “the news media should get used to using all three terms — Hispanic, Latino, Chicano — and probably a few others that may come into wider use, as Nuyorican has recently. Not interchangeably, but certainly with care and accuracy.”
Pensacola Takes Stock of Anchor/”Social Worker”
This year is Sue Straughn’s 30-year anniversary at ABC affiliate WEAR-TV in Pensacola, Fla., notes the Pensacola News-Journal.
“That’s a big milestone for someone who never wanted to be a TV anchor. Station bosses kept asking, saying focus groups liked what they saw when she was on camera.
“Hired as a clerk/typist in 1973, she watched the newscasters. They put on airs. That wasn’t her.
“She wanted to be a social worker.
“A dentist friend finally convinced her that if she wanted to spotlight big hearts, little miracles, struggling causes and surprising outcomes, what better way to do it than on TV?
“And she has become a social worker of sorts, whether with TV segments she created that spotlight the have-nots or by filling her off-camera hours with her volunteer efforts,” the story said.
Rigo Chacon Leaving San Jose Station after 29 Years
“After 29 years as its South Bay bureau chief, newsman Rigo Chacon is quitting KGO Channel 7,” in San Jose, Calif., the San Jose Mercury News reports.
“He has spent so much of his time on community events, particularly his fundraiser, Abrazos & Books, which gave scholarships to poor students, that his bosses sometimes grumbled he wasn’t on the air enough.
“Yet he is a pioneer, the first Hispanic newscaster in the South Bay, a reporter who forced other San Francisco stations to pay more attention to San Jose. He has no match when it came to knowing people — and getting sometimes-recalcitrant sources to talk.”
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