News coverage still misses minorities, speakers say
April Davis
Special to The Freedom Forum Online
06.12.00
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NEW YORK — Recruitment and retention of minority journalists was the story of the night, but the real heat came from Dan Rather as he defended dedicating 13 1/2 minutes with no commercials to an emotional racial story from Jasper, Texas.
"The proof in the pudding was up on that screen for 13-and-a-half-minutes on the 'CBS Evening News,' " Rather answered after Fox 5/Atlanta Executive Director Sidmel Estes-Sumpter expressed impatience with the lack of minority input into news division decision-making and repeatedly asked for proof of CBS' commitment to diversity issues.
Rather was on hand to be recognized along with CBS President Andrew Heyward and Newsday Managing Editor Charlotte Hall by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for coverage of racial issues. The program was co-sponsored by the Media Studies Center.
The program, just one part of a long evening's discussion of "Journalism, Race and Ethnicity," featured a piece that CBS produced on the day of the guilty verdict against John William King, who was sentenced to die for his part in the Jasper dragging death of James Byrd.
Rather, who moved with the CBS broadcast to Jasper, defended the work while admitting that it could have been done differently.
"Show me, and I say this respectfully, show me another network that did that. You say, 'Where is the meat, Dan?' and I say this gently to you, 'There it is.' I don't say it [the broadcast] was done perfectly — it wasn't. I don't even say it's the best we can do. To answer your question, 'Where's the meat; what are you doing?' I say there's part of the meat. It's not to argue with the point that we haven't done nearly enough."
CBS News isn't alone in not doing nearly enough, according to a survey conducted by The Freedom Forum with the American Society of Newspaper Editors. It shows the gap between the racial and ethnic composition of America's newsrooms and America's communities has not narrowed. Despite years of job fairs, internship offers, recruitment drives, campus visits and increased awareness of the divide, too little progress has been made.
According to the report, presented by Robert Giles, senior vice president of The Freedom Forum, "nearly three of every five new hires in the newspaper industry over the next 25 years would have to be journalists of color to achieve racial parity by 2025."
While some of the problem lies in recruiting journalists of color to the news business, the larger issue is one of retention, the survey indicates. Why are people fleeing the business? The most commonly cited reasons were burnout and lack of advancement. One finding demonstrated the seriousness of the advancement issue.
"Three fourths of journalists of color agreed with the statement, 'As a journalist of color, I sometimes feel that I have to work harder than white journalists to get ahead,' " Giles reported.
At a follow-up presentation and dialogue about the survey results, a panel of both newspaper and television journalists answered that question from personal experience.
"Journalists of color think if they screw up or if they make a mistake that it's not they as a journalist who screwed up," said Willie Chriesman, vice president of news for WVTM in Birmingham, Ala. "It's that I as a black person screwed up, and I will be perceived as a black person screwing up and not as a journalist screwing up. There is probably a little paranoia in there as well, but overall I think there is reason for that finding to be in there."
Chriesman was joined on the panel by Lucy Himstedt, vice president /general manager of WFIE in Evansville, Ind.; Anders Gyllenhaal, executive director of the Raleigh, N.C., News and Observer; and Deborah Goeken, managing editor of the Denver Rocky Mountain News. Les Payne, assistant managing editor of Newsday, moderated the discussion.
Himstedt agreed that some have to — or think they have to — work a little harder to get ahead.
"I think obviously many women feel the same way, too. You feel like, 'I am one of 12 general managers in our company, and I'm the only female.' Coming out of a news background as well and not out of sales like a lot of the folks, it makes me at least try to make myself be smarter, think harder."
But Sidmel Estes-Sumpter demanded a broader view of the institution of journalism as a whole.
"I think that we have a lot of mediocre journalists out there," she said. "That is because white journalists do not, on the whole, get to know these other communities. They become very insular and therefore do not get to know or develop sources in the community."
For Deborah Goeken, it wasn't even a question that her reporters, black and white alike, must keep the newspaper up to date on happenings in their neighborhoods, with their friends and families.
"We encourage reporters to tell us what is going on in their communities and to help us better understand how to cover their communities," she said. "That tends to make them more involved and have a higher stake in it."
Ramon Escobar of MSNBC expressed a similar attitude.
"It is my responsibility to help those who don't understand the Hispanic community. I have taken that on. Maybe that's wrong ... but it is [my responsibility] to a certain extent. I think we have to reach out to those in the non-minority community to break down the barriers," he said.
Perhaps one way to get past the barriers is to devote more attention to racial stories like the one CBS News made a major commitment to in Jasper.
"At my age and stage, having been in the business more than 50 years now, there are hours when I say to myself that nothing really can shake me anymore. I've seen it all. But when this crime happened I was shaken," Rather said.
"Beyond being the right thing to do," he added, "I do think it was a smart thing for the broadcast to do. Given our history — CBS News was on the front edge of reporting the civil rights movement — it's consistent with our history, it's consistent with our reputation, it's consistent with what we want to be. I could be wrong, but I think that the audience will understand why we're there. As journalists, part of our responsibility is to help people understand why it's important."
Heyward chimed in, "You're witnessing something almost unheard-of in television history; it's usually an oxymoron: anchor and modesty. This was very much Dan's project and his passion that propelled us into what I really think is a terrific broadcast. And it is an honor for us to be recognized for it. Race is undercovered. The Jasper crime was so horrifying and egregious, even to a jaded public, that it gave us a chance to examine a fundamental, important American story in the context of a hard news program."
In recognizing the limited number of stories about those issues, did CBS take a ratings risk in devoting 13 minutes — with no commercial breaks — to the Jasper story?
"In the moments when you have to put it that way, it's not a bad ratings gamble," Rather said. "You know what? If it turns out to be a bad ratings gamble, I can tell you we and other people have gambled a whole lot more on a whole lot less. At least on this, the worse thing is to do something you are not proud of and lose in the ratings."
One person clearly looking to steer clear of bad numbers, in the form of lower circulation, is Charlotte Hall. As Newsday's managing editor, Hall is charged with making her newspaper reflect the community it serves. That means keeping up with the fast-changing demographics of Long Island, once a haven for white suburbanites and now a rapidly growing Hispanic enclave.
"If I were a publisher, two things would keep me awake at night: What to do about this damn Web thing and, No. 2, what to do about this damn demographic thing," Hall said. "Why is the damn demographic thing so bad? Well, it's because the newcomers, the Hispanics, the immigrants from all over Asia, from the Caribbean and, yes, African-Americans — they don't read your papers in the same numbers that those white suburbanites do, and there goes the circulation penetration. Once that goes, forget it."
The newspaper's circulation project, Focus 2020, has an essential goal: To build a new generation of readers and customers that reflects the diversity of their marketplace. "Diversity is (in part) a business issue: everybody's job and essential to the future of the paper," Hall said.
But how do you make the marketing and business imperatives palatable to the editorial side of the newspaper? Write it into the manager's goals and tie their paychecks to its success, she said.
"Set the goal. Be explicit with your people and tell them it's their responsibility. Do journalism that matters. Really matters. Marshal your resources and do big things, continually, not just once. Make a commitment to cover the issues of racism, ethnic change, immigration in your communities, and in America, in an enterprising and investigative way and in an unflinching way. Take on tough questions and do it across departments … from news to business to sports to photo."
And finally, Hall added, "Do it every day, knitting it into your coverage in every way."
So now at least Newsday has a plan to go forward, but didn't anyone develop a plan in 1978 when the ASNE census reported a 15% gap between the makeup of the U.S. population and its news organizations? The Chicago Tribune's Don Wycliff asked the question: "Why no progress? How do we come up so short in the year 2000?"
Rather replied, "Failure to take personal responsibility. I do not except myself from this criticism and, indeed, I put myself in the first rank of reluctance or a negligence to take personal responsibility. There is always that sense that CBS ought to be doing something about this, CBS News ought to be doing something about it, or the evening news ought to be doing something about it." Rather also noted, "There is a tendency to blame the organization and not take your own personal responsibility for leadership."
Still, Rather was convinced that the public understands the gravity of the situation.
"People get it. People know that race matters," he said. "They don't talk about it all that often, and it is the unspoken, but we all know. Overwhelmingly, Americans know that whether this country makes it as a multiethic, multiracial, multireligious, constitutional republic based on democratic principles in the end depends more than any single other thing on unity. Can we hold ourselves together? Can we get along? Can we hold ourselves together?"
