Expanded pipeline critical to diversity
Commentary
By Charles L. Overby
Chairman and CEO, The Freedom Forum
08.15.99
Más Chips! That was the rallying cry whenever Paul Gutierrez and friends gathered at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C., in 1993. They consumed a lot of tortilla chips as he prepared to become a Chips Quinn scholar/intern at The Oakland (Calif.) Tribune.
Gutierrez is one of 326 students who have participated in the minority intern program since it began in 1991. Today, he is a sportswriter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The Chips Quinn Scholars program has done a lot to attract and train young minority students for the newspaper profession. More than 85% of employed Chips Quinn alumni work in media-related jobs, 70% of them at newspapers, according to our 1997 research.
It's a good thing. Most editors recognize that more needs to be done — much more — to bring additional minorities into newsrooms.
This successful Freedom Forum program was founded out of tragedy in 1991, when John "Chips" Quinn Jr., editor of the Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal, was killed in an auto accident at 34. His parents, John Quinn, a trustee of The Freedom Forum, and Loie Quinn, quickly established this intern program with memorial gifts. Six students were interns at newspapers the first year.
The program's success was immediate. Now funded by The Freedom Forum, the program has expanded rapidly, with 76 interns this summer. This is not your average intern program.
When the 76 interns gathered at The Freedom Forum in Arlington, Va., in May, a rigorous four-day orientation program prepared them for their summer work at 39 newspapers and one television station. The orientation featured nuts-and-bolts reporting lessons, along with practical work and survival tips from 34 editors.
At eight clusters this summer, the interns are offered intense critique and writing sessions. Mentors fly in to augment newsroom training.
The Freedom Forum provides each intern with travel costs to and from the internship city, a $500 housing stipend and, upon successful completion of the internship, a $1,000 scholarship. This program has flourished because of a unique partnership between The Freedom Forum and colleges, universities and daily newspapers.
This is a critical time for newspapers on diversity. The percentage of minority staffers in newsrooms is essentially flat, in spite of the rapid growth of minorities in the population. Minorities make up about 12% of newsroom staffs, far less than the 28% in the general population. More than 1,000 new minority journalists must be found in one year just to increase the work force to 13% from 12%. Nearly one-half that number would replace minorities who are leaving the newspaper business.
A Freedom Forum survey released at the Unity '99 convention in Seattle last month shows that four in 10 minority journalists say they may leave newspapers within five years. The pipeline providing minority journalists must be expanded dramatically.
The calculus for this is plain:
To keep the pipeline flowing, people who care about this subject must pay more attention to the beginning of the pipeline. That starts in the classroom and at small newspapers.
The Chips Quinn program has contributed successfully to the pipeline, and that is why The Freedom Forum has expanded its commitment. More expansion is coming:
A powerful indicator of the value of networking came at Unity '99. More than 90 of the Chips Quinn alumni gathered in Seattle in advance of the Unity convention. Their testimonies provided inspiration for everyone who cares about diversity.
Sheba Wheeler, Class of 1995 and now a reporter for The Denver Post, exemplifies the growing confidence of these young journalists. "There was a time when I didn't think I belonged, and now I know I do," she said.
Merv Aubespin, an associate editor at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., has worked with many of the interns in Louisville or at the orientation programs. He said he is sure the program is producing good journalists. "This program has done more to change the color of newsrooms than any single program I know of," he said.
The Freedom Forum is committed to recruiting more students and more newspaper partners to expand this special Chips Quinn program. Más Chips!