ASNE edits minority goals

By: Mark Fitzgerald One of five newspaper newsroom employees should be a racial or ethnic minority member 10 years from now, under new interim diversity goals adopted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (asne).
At its fall board meeting, asne adopted benchmarks that will measure at three-year intervals the newspaper industry's progress towards employing a journalistic work force that mirrors the percentage of minorities in the general U.S. population.
Last year, asne acknowledged that newspapers would fall far short of meeting its Year 2000 parity goal. In 1999, asne said, minorities comprise 11.55% of newsroom employees ? but 28.4% in the United States at large.
asne pushed back its parity goal until 2025, but promised interim measures.
asne's benchmarks set a high standard considering the industry's hiring history: The benchmark for total minority employment uses the assumption that in 2000 minorities will comprise 12.55%, or a full percentage point higher than this year. asne noted that in the 20 years it has been tracking minority employment it has never increased that much in a single year.
From 12.55% in 2000, asne sets minority employment goals of 15.55% in 2003, 18.55% in 2006, and 21.55% in 20009. At that point, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates, minorities will comprise 32.4% of the general population.
The number of minority supervisors in the newsroom should increase from 9.1% now to 19% by 2009, asne said. The benchmarks also seek to reduce the number of daily newspapers that employ no minorities at all in their newsrooms from 380 now to 230. For the first time, asne will measure the number of newspapers whose newsrooms have already achieved parity with the percentages of minorities in their own communities.
If the number of minorities in newsrooms is going to mirror the 38.2% of the U.S. population who will be minorities in 2025, the newspaper industry will have to increase its percentage of minorities by 229%, asne warned.
"We have a lot of work to do to make America's newsrooms look like the America they cover every day," said Wanda Lloyd, chair of asne's Diversity Committee and managing editor/features, administration, and planning of The Greenville (S.C.) News. "We'd better get started today."

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