Survey Compares Staffs With Communities
Here are the least-white communities with all-white newsrooms:
- The Independent, Gallup, N. M., circulation area is 93 percent nonwhite.
- The Daily [Sun] News, Sunnyside Wash., owned by Eagle Newspapers, 75 percent nonwhite circulation area.
- The Greenwood (Miss.) Commonwealth, owned by Emmerich Newspapers, 66 percent nonwhite circulation area.
- The Selma (Ala.) Times-Journal, owned by Boone Newspapers, 65 percent nonwhite circulation area.
- The Daily World, Helena, Ark., owned by Liberty Group Publishing, 61 percent nonwhite circulation area.
The figures are contained in “Does Your Newspaper’s Staff Reflect the Racial Diversity of the Community it Serves?” a survey released today by Bill Dedman and Stephen K. Doig for the Knight Foundation, covering 1,413 American newspapers and their circulation areas.
The study also reports that:
- “Only 13 percent of newspapers responding to the survey have reached parity between the newsroom and community minority, up slightly from last year’s 11 percent.
- “Only 34 percent of newspapers are even halfway to the goal, up from 32 percent last year.
- “Papers in the top 25 that reached their peak employment of non-whites this year are The Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Detroit Free Press, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Oregonian, and The St. Petersburg Times.
- “The nation’s four largest newspapers have fallen from their peak: USA Today peaked in the 1994 report (employment at year-end 1993), The Wall Street Journal in the 2000 report, The New York Times last year, and The Los Angeles Times in 2000.
- “More than half of the largest newspapers employed a higher percentage of non-white journalists than a year earlier.
- Out of the top 100 newspapers: 27 employ a larger share of minorities than ever; 62 had a greater minority employment in some earlier year; 11 didn’t fill out the survey this year.
For every newspaper, the online report has a Web page giving details on the population of the circulation area, and the paper’s year-by-year responses to the ASNE survey. In addition, for the 857 papers that file audited sales reports by ZIP Code, the report shows the racial and ethnic breakdown in each ZIP Code, the household income, and sales per household. Online maps for these papers allow a reader to view the newspaper’s circulation area.
Darrel Beehner, managing editor of the Gallup Independent, did not return a telephone call seeking comment. Publisher Bob Zollinger told Journal-isms that the survey doesn’t look at the whole newspaper, only the newsroom, “a narrow slice of the operation.” He said the paper’s employees reflect the one-third Hispanic, one-third Native American, one-third white composition of his area. He added that “every time we have a minority come through here, we’re raided” and said he does not believe in “quotas.”
[Added May 13:
Beehner said Thursday that “not having Spanish-speaking or Navajo-speaking people is really hurting us. We’re missing a lot of stories out there, simply for lack of communication.” But, he said he placed an ad on the Journalism Jobs Web site citing those qualities but withdrew it because he feared he would be accused of discrimination. He said the $24,000-$25,000 annual starting wage for reporters at The Independent is lower than that paid by the weekly Navajo Times because that paper is subsidized by the Navajo Nation while it awaits independence.
“I look around our plant, and I see no fewer than 10 people who have 20-plus years with The Independent. Every one of them is either Hispanic or Navajo. How many other newspapers our size can say the same? Fully two-thirds of the employees at The Independent are of minority descent. This paper has employed more minority people and embraced more minority causes than any of the half dozen I have worked for,” Beehner said. Those interested may contact him at (505) 863-6811 ext. 211.]
In the January issue of Editor & Publisher, Navajo Times Publisher Tom Arviso, Jr., said he would like some day to return the 22,500-circulation weekly to daily publication, to compete with the Independent.
“They do a good job of making money off of Navajo misery,” Arviso said in the piece. “That’s an issue throughout Indian Country. . . . In the border towns around reservations, there’s a lot of sensationalism in the coverage of the local community papers.”
“That’s not how editors and staff at the 16,616-circulation Independent see their news coverage,” Mark Fitzgerald’s piece continued. “‘It’s just not true,’ says Jim Maniaci, one of three reporters assigned full time to the Navajo reservation. Navajo reader reaction to the paper’s coverage, he says, follows a pattern familiar to any daily: ‘When you report some nice feature, they’re happy, and when you expose some shenanigans, they’re not happy.'”
Maynard, Johnson, Stone in NABJ Hall of Fame
“John H. Johnson, Robert Maynard, Chuck Stone and 10 other legendary journalists dating back to the birth of the Black Press will be inducted into the NABJ Hall of Fame,” NABJ President Herbert Lowe announced this week.
“The NABJ Board of Directors voted to induct Johnson, publisher and chairman of Johnson Publishing Co.; Maynard, former owner and editor of The Oakland Tribune and co-founder of the Maynard Institute for Journalism [Education], and Stone, a retired newspaper editor and columnist and NABJ’s founding president, into the Hall of Fame at the board’s spring meeting, Lowe said.”
The naming of Stone warranted a story in his most recent paper, the Philadelphia Daily News, from which he retired in 1991 to become Walter Spearman professor at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication:
“The founding president of the association, known by its acronym NABJ, is known for his feisty columns in which he advocated for the underdog,” wrote Regina Medina. “In his writing, Stone, who will turn 80 on July 21, formed a deep connection with Daily News readers. So much so that during his 19-year tenure here, 75 murder suspects turned themselves into Stone because it assured their safety once they were turned over to Philadelphia Police.”
NABJ’s board of directors also chose these black journalists for induction: Robert S. Abbott, founder of the Chicago Defender, which promoted the Great Migration; Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm, co-publishers of Freedom’s Journal, the nation’s first black newspaper; Frederick Douglass, a former slave-turned-abolitionist who published the North Star; W.E.B. DuBois, creator and first editor of The Crisis magazine; T. Thomas Fortune, one of the most prominent journalists in the post-Civil War era; Marcus Garvey, journalist for Africa Times and Orient Review, publisher of Negro World; Ethel Payne, “first lady of the black press,” correspondent for Sengstacke Newspapers; John Sengstacke, founder of the Michigan Chronicle, publisher of the Chicago Defender and Pittsburgh Courier; Ida B. Wells-Barnett, newspaper editor who crusaded against segregation and lynching.
“The 13 pioneers and legends will formally be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Thursday, August 5, 2004, during NABJ’s annual convention banquet at the UNITY 2004: Journalists of Color Convention and Career Expo at the Washington Convention Center, Lowe said,” according to the release.
National Association of Hispanic Journalists Hall of Fame
Asian American Journalists Association awards
Hampton U. Starts J-Institute for High Schoolers
The American Society of Newspaper Editors pulled its program training high-school journalism instructors from Hampton University this year to protest the provost’s seizure of the school newspaper, but the university’s Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications is planning its own week-long program training high school students in journalism.
“Through a week-long program, 18 high school students will be provided with the basic skills they need to become professional newspaper and broadcast journalists.” says a news release. The institute takes place June 20-26.
“This is the first high school program we have offered specifically for high school students,” Dr. Jennifer Wood, assistant professor at the school, told Journal-isms. “It is not meant to replace the ASNE high school journalism institute for newspaper advisers. We see this institute as a great way to recruit future students for the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications.
“My hope is that the ASNE grant would be reinstated,” she added. “ASNE has stated that they would reassess their decision in the fall to determine if they would bring their program to Hampton University in the summer of 2005. The university and the student newspaper have made great strides this year. The university has abided by the series of recommendations by the task force regarding the roles of the school, the staff and faculty advisers in the operation of the student newspaper.
“The Scripps Howard High School Journalism Institute and the ASNE program for newspaper advisers would greatly complement each other. As the director for both programs I’ve been able to see the excitement the participants have for these types of programs, and the advisers have said how helpful this training has been for them. It is important for journalism schools to offer both types of scholastic journalism programs to ensure the best and the brightest choose journalism as a career. We were honored to host the ASNE program in 2003 and are ready to do it again in 2005.”
Janet Langhart Cohen Has Book for Barnicle to Read
Janet Langhart Cohen, the black former Boston television journalist who is married to Clinton administration defense secretary William S. Cohen, who is white, remembers well the comments of Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle in March, for which Barnicle later apologized.
Barnicle recalled for the Boston Globe at the time that “someone in the studio asked casually during the broadcast if the pair were married. ‘I said, “Yeah. I know them both. Bill Cohen. Janet Langhart. Kind of like “Mandingo,” ‘ Barnicle said.”
Today, Carol Beggy and Mark Shanahan report in the Globe that, “The former Channel 5 news personality was back in Boston to celebrate the release of her memoir, ‘From Rage to Reason: My Life in Two Americas,’ tracing the author’s long journey from a housing project in Indianapolis to her role as the first lady of the Pentagon.”
Inevitably, Langhart Cohen was asked about Barnicle’s comment, they continue.
“Langhart Cohen said she was hurt by the remark and suggested Barnicle read Noel Ignatiev’s book ‘How the Irish Became White‘ to understand the historical conflict between Irish-Americans and African-Americans. ‘Any friend of mine would know better than to insult any ethnic group,’ she said. ‘We’re trying to move away from that dark time.’ (She has more to say on the subject in her interview, airing Sunday, with Channel 5’s Karen Holmes.) Contacted yesterday, Barnicle said he would read the book. ‘I would take any recommendation from Janet Langhart because she’s a terrific person,’ he said.”
Of Ignatiev’s 1995 work, Library Journal said, “In a book he admits raises more questions than it answers, Ignatiev, a radical activist and editor of the journal Race Traitor, asserts that the Irish were initially discriminated against in the United States and “became white” by embracing racism, a concept Ignatiev (citing Daniel O’Connell) says they learned in the United States. Ignatiev targets the Irish because they were the largest immigrant group to compete with blacks for manual labor jobs.
Robert Garcia Lands Job With Ex-Clinton Aide
Robert Garcia, the former chairman of the Radio-Television News Directors Association who in February left his Atlanta job as vice president and general manager at CNN Radio, “returns to Washington, DC in the newly created position of Managing Director for the PR and consulting firm headed by former Clinton administration Director/Radio Richard Strauss,” reports Radio and Records.
“Strauss Radio Strategies provides radio services to political campaigns, public relations firms, nonprofit groups, corporations, government agencies and other organizations across the country.”
College Paper’s Adviser, Protested by Blacks, Fired
“Collegian news adviser Ron Johnson was fired Monday,” reports the Kansas State Collegian at Kansas State University.
“Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, told the Associated Press that the dismissal could warrant a student lawsuit.
“‘The question here is motivation,’ he said. ‘If the content of the publication was the motivation, their actions are unconstitutional and the university deserves to be sued for what it’s done.’
“Johnson was fired in February 1998 for refusing to exert control over the Collegian’s content prior to publication. After an outpouring of alumni and student support, he was reinstated 10 days later.
“Earlier in this semester, members of the Black Student Union called for Johnson’s resignation as a permanent solution to what they said was a lack of diversity coverage.”
Mixed News for Spanish-Language Newspapers
“For Spanish-language newspapers, the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations FAS-FAX report raises the question of whether ‘el vaso’ is half-full or half-empty,” writes Mark Fitzgerald in Editor & Publisher.
“On the one hand, in a reporting period when overall daily circulation was down 0.1%, according to an analysis of the FAS-FAX by the Newspaper Association of America, the results of the few paid Spanish-language dailies old enough to qualify for an ABC audit looked great by comparison.
“But on the other hand, compared to their past performances, Spanish-language papers did rather poorly this time around.”
2 Suttons Approved of Changing WLIB Format
In a story on the reduction in Caribbean content on New York’s WLIB, which now leases most of its time to Air America, the new liberal network, The New York Times’ Nancy Ramsey writes:
“Pierre Sutton, chairman of Inner City Broadcasting, which owns WLIB, made the decision to sell program time to Air America. Mr. Sutton’s father, Percy Sutton, the former Manhattan borough president who oversees Inner City Broadcasting, said he approved his son’s decision. ‘For 30 years LIB has been geared to the black community, and not one year have we been able to make it break even,” the elder Mr. Sutton said. ‘It’s been subsidized by WBLS, its sister station.’
“He added: ‘Philosophically I’m for the liberal station. I’m a veteran of the civil rights movement. It might have been a different thing had we been asked by Fox network.'”
Meanwhile, Radio and Records reports that:
“Progress Media’s recently launched liberal talk radio network has seen a stream of executives head for the exits over the past 10 days, including CEO Mark Walsh, co-founder and Chairman Evan Cohen, Vice Chairman and investor Rex Sorensen, National Sales chief Jacqui Rossinsky and EVP/Programming Dave Logan.
“Meanwhile, following reports by the Chicago Tribune that the network missed its payroll last week, an Air America staffer in Los Angeles told R&R that most employees in that office had still not seen paychecks and that salespeople were officially told yesterday that they were being laid off immediately. While a similar situation was said to exist at Air America’s Chicago and San Francisco offices, R&R was unable to independently confirm those reports.”
Al Roker to Syndicate Radio Weather Service
“Al Roker, the jovial weatherman from the ‘Today’ show, is launching a syndicated radio weather service through United Stations,” reports the New York Daily News’ “Inner Tube” column.
“It’s scheduled to start ‘between July and September,’ says executive vice president Andy Denmark of United, which is talking with potential affiliates.
“While Roker himself obviously couldn’t do constant forecast updates for stations all over the country, Denmark says he could become a personality voice for stations in major markets, perhaps on morning shows.
“His name would then be used as a ‘brand’ on forecasts at other times and in other markets.”
The “Us” in “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now”
There are few songs that become anthemic for a generation. In February, Gannett News Service editor Caesar Andrews recalled at a conference of student editors, for those in his age group (he’s 45), it was McFadden and Whitehead’s “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now.”
Andrews, who told those students from historically black colleges and universities to “build up their armor,” was correct.
The song was in the spirit of its times. In 1979, Bob Maynard was taking over the Oakland Tribune. The National Association of Black Journalists was just four years old. The American Society of Newspaper Editors’ annual newsroom census, a year old. It was projected that newsrooms’ racial composition might match those of their communities by the turn of the century.
That, as we know, didn’t come to pass. And in the age of “gangsta rap” that followed, one survey of young people found that they thought McFadden and Whitehead’s lyrics referred to sex.
Sadly, the shooting death of John Whitehead in Philadelphia last night might be representative of these times — shot dead at age 55 while working on his car, from a bullet that might have been intended for someone else.
Andrews says that contemporary equivalents to “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us” might be “I’m a Survivor” by Destiny’s Child, “Keep Ya Head Up” by Tupac, or several songs by OutKast.
But those songs aren’t quite the same. NABJ is looking forward to its 30th anniversary, it’s since been joined by other partners in a collective called Unity, and ASNE is soldiering on with a new date for parity.
It’s the “us” in “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” that sets it apart.
