JULY 16, 2001

Who's Missing? What's Lost?

By Lillian Dunlap
Poynter Leadership Faculty

I once asked a news director from a large Midwestern television station how many people of color were in his newsroom. He counted and told me. Then I asked how many were in decision-making positions. He thought and appeared a little surprised to notice that the number was zero.

In a city with a population well over 50% people of color, all of the producers and executive producers at this station were white. And the news director and assistant news director were both white and male.

The newsroom composition had not been a deliberate plan by the news director and this is not an uncommon story.

Editors and news directors sometimes fail to notice the absence of people of color at the management level. After all they hadn't been there before, so how could they be "missing." When the lack of diversity is brought to their attention, some managers respond by hiring a person of color for the next job opening only to lose that person because she "didn't fit in."

The result is deprived newsrooms and diminished journalism.

The American Society of Newspaper Editors has made the connection between the composition of the workforce and excellent journalism. ASNE says.

"We want to accurately reflect life in our communities. If our newspapers are to present a fundamentally accurate report, they must regularly portray the diversity of our communities. Failure to do so undermines our journalistic credibility."

The members are concerned that minority journalists make up slightly less than 12% of daily newspaper staffs and account for only 9% of supervisors. ASNE's goal is to raise those numbers, not because every journalist of color brings the same perspective to the table, but because the more diverse the perspectives the better the decision-making about coverage.

The RTNDA/Ball State University 2001 Survey shows that minorities are 24.6% of the television workforce (including Spanish-language television) That's up from 21.8% last year. But the numbers for minority television news directors ( African-, Asian-, Hispanic-, and Native-American) collectively fell from a reported high of 14% in 2000 to perhaps as low as 8% for 2001.

The challenge for our industry is clear. We need to attract, promote, and retain minority hires.

Charlotte Hall, managing editor at Newsday and outgoing chair of the ASNE Diversity Committee sums it up: "Now we must direct our energies to making newsrooms places where journalists of color can flourish, where they feel welcome, where they can build rewarding careers."

Here are some ideas to help us meet this challenge:

1. Make a long-range plan with your staff. Decide how you want the newsroom to look next year, in three years, in five years. Then, target and track talented people.

2. Examine your mental models. You may have to alter your vision of what a "manager" is to take advantage of the new qualities that people will bring. You may need to start seeing people differently.

3. Share the responsibility of developing your staff. Finding new associates need not be just the managers' job. Invite others to help you look in familiar and unfamiliar places for conventional and unconventional candidates.

Here are some ideas to help you retain people:

1. Coach and mentor each person individually. Help people develop better skills. Help them reach their goals and yours.

2. Create a learning environment that promotes growth and honors risk-taking. Make it safe for people to question newsroom routines and systems.

3. Share power. Trust people to participate in decision making.

4. Provide experiences so that you as a manager can identify the leadership in the room. Assign people to work on committees or ask them to take charge of increasingly important projects. Simply put, help them to develop a path that leads to management with a future-the industry's.

Recommended reading:

Thomas, David. "The Truth About Mentoring Minorities: Race Matters," Harvard Business Review, April 2001: 99-107.

Thomas, David and Robin Ely, "Making Differences Matter: A New Paradigm for Managing Diversity," Harvard Business Review, September-October, 1996: 79-90

What do you think?

Coming Thursday: Tips for Success on the Front Lines from Pam Johnson