The Unity Conference among non-White journalists underscores a crisis of color in American ‘mainstream’ media.

FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

CHICAGO — In 2005, St. Petersburg Times editorial writer Eric Deggans, president of the Tampa Bay-area chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, wrote a commentary about “Endangered White Women Syndrome.” His argument: TV networks focused on White women who were missing at the time, such as Laci Peterson, rather than non-White missing persons such as Tamika Huston, a Black South Carolina woman. (Both women were later found dead.)

Deggans believes, as do minority journalists’ advocacy groups, that there would a better diversity of news subjects if more non- Whites defined what exactly “news’ is. Now a media critic for the St. Pete Times, Deggans said diversity in media newsrooms matters “because TV anchors and other journalists are more than the face of any given news division. They directly affect what gets on the air,” he wrote in 2005.

Some two years later, things are getting worse, not better, for non-White journalists in “mainstream” media.

Still a major concern
As 5,000 journalists of color arrived in Chicago this week for a quadrennial convention, the state of newsroom diversity is still at the top of the agenda. This year, however, the urgency is far greater.

The already thin ranks of minority journalists are being culled by layoffs and employee buyouts as news operations around the country shrink to accommodate dropping ad revenue. The fear is minorities will bear a disproportionate share of the ongoing job losses because they are more heavily represented among the recently hired.

That would be a worrisome development to Karen Lincoln Michel, president of Unity, an alliance of professional groups representing Black, Hispanic, Asian and Native American journalists. Already, Lincoln Michel is hearing anecdotal evidence that many veteran journalists of color are being let go or are taking buyouts offered by management.

“That’s really hurtful because it took us many years to make the slight gains we made,” Lincoln Michel said. “To see our very talented journalists leave the business, it’s not good.”

Bad finances
Increasing the presence of minorities in newsroom has proved a challenging goal even in good economic times. For decades, the goal has been “parity,&

#8221; having newsrooms mirror the racial makeup of the communities they serve. But statistics show reality is far from that.

Journalists of color made up 13.52 percent of daily newspaper staffs in 2008, according to an annual survey by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. That’s far less than the 34 percent of the U.S. population that minorities comprise.

The 13.52 percent mark actually represented a slight increase from a year earlier when minorities made up 13.43 percent of newsrooms, but that occurred because staffs were shrinking. In fact, there are 300 fewer journalists of color working in the industry this year than last year, Unity officials said.

Rather than focusing on the elusive goal of overall parity, Unity’s president were to announce Wednesday an initiative to increase the presence of minorities in newsroom management positions. “It’s an acknowledgment that what we have been doing isn’t working so we have to do something drastically different,” Lincoln Michel said. The theme of this year’s convention is, appropriately enough, “A new journalism for a changing world.”

‘Didn’t know the gravity’
Euna Lhee, an Asian-American journalist, can’t escape the industry’s gloom and doom as she headed to the Unity convention Wednesday.

“It’s definitely opened my eyes. I didn’t know the extent of the gravity of the situation,” said Lhee, who is a health care reporting intern at the Baltimore Sun, “As much as I love journalism, it is a little discouraging to come to an internship fresh out of graduate school to witness all these buyouts and layoffs. The jury is out for me.”

Although Lhee doesn’t expect many news organizations to be hiring, she still plans to network and meet as many people as possible during the four-day gathering.

Lloyd LaCuesta, a bureau chief with a Fox TV station and the founding president of Unity, says the group will be addressing the concerns of newcomers as well as discussing how to “make sure the gains journalists of color have made over 20 years don’t erode.”

It won’t be easy, he notes, because at many newspapers, seniority plays a role in deciding who is let go. For those just starting out, LaCuesta suggests they do a serious self-assessment to see if they truly have the passion for the job. If they do, he believes minority journalists will be able to find work.

“The jobs are still there. We’re going through a readjustment and a shakeout. Maybe I’m whistling past the graveyard, but I don’t believe newspapers and broadcast are going to die.”

Susan Chandler/Chicago Tribune/MCT contributed to this report.