A total of 763 U.S. daily newspapers said they have no Latinos on staff.
Percy Lujan, Hispanic Link News Service
WASHINGTON DC -- As job losses have devastated U.S.
daily newspapers, the disparity between the percentage of Hispanics in the
newsroom and in the general population has widened. That can affect coverage of
issues important to Latinos and others. — The annual census by the American
Society of News Editors shows that Latinos represent an even 4 percent of
newsroom employees on daily papers, while comprising 17 percent of the U.S.
population.
That's the lowest Hispanic participation rate since
2001, when they made up 3.9 percent. It peaked at 4.6 percent in 2009.
In 2001, the nation's dailies had 2,098 Hispanics in
newsroom jobs. By last year, the number had fallen to 1,512.
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Rick Rodriguez |
"Unfortunately, the focus on diversity has been
another one of the casualties of the current industry upheaval," says Rick
Rodriguez , who became ASNE's first
Latino president in 2005 while serving as the Sacramento Bee's executive
editor. The office has a one-year term.
Hugo Balta, president of the National Association of
Hispanic Journalists, added that hiring for diversity is "the right thing
to do for business."
"The more that decision makers and reporters
represent the emerging majority, the more relevant these newspapers will be to
their readers," Balta explained.
Overall,
non-Hispanic whites comprised nearly 88 percent of daily newsroom staffs last
year. Media watchers doubt that non-white representation will match the general
population for years, if ever, in light of the economic tumult rocking the
industry. Total newsroom staffing decreased 37 percent -- from 55,000 in 2006
to 38,000 in 2012.
ASNE sent its survey to 1,382 daily newspapers. From 978
responses, it extrapolated the likely ethnic representation among all papers
within that same circulation range.
A total of 215 papers reported having at least one
Latino on staff; 763 said they have none, said Ken Fleming, associate director
of research at the University of Missouri's Donald W. Reynolds Journalism
Institute, who analyzed the data for ASNE.
In the
last four years 569 Hispanics left the newsrooms of the country's dailies.
"There has been a lot of talk about making the
situation better, but there has not been a lot of energy," says Mercedes
Lynn de Uriarte, a journalism professor at the University of Texas in Austin
who spend 10 years on The Los Angeles Times' editorial staff.
In 1978, when 15 percent of the U.S. population was
non-white, ASNE committed to bring newsrooms to parity with the country's
ethnic composition by 2000. Then, only 4 percent of daily newsroom employees
were non-white. From 2005 to 2012, the percentage of non-white journalists declined
from 14 to 12 percent. ASNE pushed its parity deadline back to 2025.
Rodriguez,
now the Carnegie journalism professor at Arizona State University, says he
expects ASNE to fall further behind on its goal. "And that means that
newsrooms won't be in the best position to understand what is going on in their
communities and to communicate that to readers."
Of ASNE's 22 board members, two are Latino: Alfredo
Carbajal, managing editor of Al Dia in Dallas and Manny Garcia, executive editor/general manager of El Nuevo Herald in Miami.
Last year, Carbajal, then co-chair of ASNE's diversity
committee, created its Minority Leadership Institute to ensure that more
journalists of color learn management skills.
Even as the print industry contracts, the ethnic and alternative
press -- including Latino bloggers and websites -- is expanding, de Uriarte
says.
She was honored by Yale University in 2010 for breaking
a barrier of her own in 1977, when she became the school's first Latina
graduate.
(Percy Lujan is a reporter with Hispanic
Link News Service. Email percylujan@gmail.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard
News Service.)
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