Two top priorities: First Amendment, diversity
Commentary
By Charles L. Overby
Chairman and CEO, The Freedom Forum
02.15.00
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The key to any organization's success is first identifying a few priorities, rather than a long laundry list.
After nearly a year of discussions with advisory committees, staff and senior management, the trustees of The Freedom Forum have targeted three main domestic priorities: improving public under-standing of the First Amendment, increasing diversity in newsrooms and expanding the impact of the Newseum.
Our work with journalists and aspiring journalists abroad will continue as well.
The First Amendment and diversity are concepts that get a lot of rhetoric and good intentions. But public regard for the First Amendment has declined, and the minority population in newspaper newsrooms is far below the overall minority population in the United States.
These are two mountains that need to be moved.
Achieving any measure of success will take more than lip service from The Freedom Forum. It will require a major commitment of resources, a disciplined focus and creative, far-reaching partner-ships.
We're making a few moves to facilitate this commitment. On the First Amendment front, our First Amendment Center will expand its work to our office in New York. The center on the Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville will continue its important work, but new programs and features will originate from New York.
Ken Paulson, executive director of the First Amendment Center, will oversee our New York operations at 57th and Madison Avenue. Paulson is a veteran newspaper editor as well as a lawyer. His work with John Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center, has given our First Amendment priority increased visibility.
Paulson and Seigenthaler are asked to speak around the country on behalf of the First Amendment. Their job will be to expand their work to even broader audiences. They repeatedly emphasize that the First Amendment goes beyond freedom of the press.
The First Amendment's strength comes from its embrace of five separate freedoms. The public needs to understand better all these freedoms: press, speech, religion, petition and assembly.
Paulson's wide array of interests make him a valuable partner with Seigenthaler, who has probably done more than any other editor to expound First Amendment values. They both speak to every group attending the American Press Institute in Reston, Va. This means they are helping to educate nearly 1,000 top newspaper executives and managers every year.
There is much more that needs to be done with young people. Paulson has the creativity and energy to oversee this effort.
On the diversity front, Mary Kay Blake, vice president of partnerships and initiatives, and Félix Gutiérrez, senior vice president and executive director of the Pacific Coast Center, will attempt to develop new ideas to improve minority participation in newspaper newsrooms.
We're looking for new approaches. The old way has not kept pace with the rising minority population.
Both Blake and Gutiérrez have devoted their lives to pushing hard for minority representation in newsrooms. Blake spent 25 years at the Gannett Co. working with editors around the country to increase their minority numbers — not because it was a corporate goal, but because she believed it was the right thing to do.
She will be responsible for working with the newspaper companies, colleges and universities, minority groups and others to find new ways to make an impact. Gutiérrez, who oversees our journalism education efforts as well as the Pacific Coast Center, will work closely with Blake. Bob Giles, senior vice president of The Freedom Forum, will use his considerable experience and institutional knowledge to assist in this effort as well.
That's a lot of firepower. All three have been encouraged to focus tightly on the career pathways for minority journalists. They will enlist new leaders and new faces to help. We will emphasize work with small and medium-sized newspapers, where the path-ways begin.
Any program that we sup-port in this area will have to demonstrate a clear ability to increase the number of minorities entering the news business.
We are working to establish a major creative partnership with the American Society of Newspaper Editors. ASNE President Chris Anderson, publisher of The Orange County Register in Santa Ana, Calif., shares our commitment. So do other editors.
We plan to work with individual newspapers regarding minority high school students. And we will seek close partnerships with the major newspaper companies, which account for most of the hiring of journalists.
In five years, will this new work have any impact? Who can say for sure? But it's time for The Freedom Forum and others to put their money and their time where their mouths are.
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