Lagging in minority hiring p.

By: George Garneau

Lagging in minority hiring p.
Alternative papers more conservative
than their mainstream daily counterparts
WHEN IT COMES to minority hiring, the alternative weeklies are a lot more conservative than their reviled daily newspaper antagonists.
The alternatives' self-proclaimed role as crusader of progressive causes and challenger of the status quo belies a marked inability to translate the nation's racial and cultural diversity into employment.
Staffing on alternative papers remains overwhelmingly Caucasian, more so than daily newspapers, which noticed the problem a decade ago and have gradually improved minority hiring substantially.
A larger share of minorities is working at alternative papers this year, compared with the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies' first minority employment survey last year. Nearly nine out of 10 (89%) employees are Caucasian. Only 11% are minorities.
That compares with 18% minorities at daily newspapers.
The diversity picture is more "dismal" in alternative editorial departments, said outgoing AAN president Ray Hartmann, publisher of the River Front Times in St. Louis.
Only 8% of the people responsible for "alternative" news coverage are minorities, compared with 10.3% minorities in daily newspaper newsrooms.
"As progressive newspapers, we need to realize that we need to improve," Hartmann told conventioneers at AAN's convention in Austin, Texas.
He said that it was a "real priority" to "help" AAN papers become more representative of the nation's diversity, but AAN would not police obedience.
The alternatives are more evenly divided along gender lines: 56% of employees are female. That compares with 39% female employees at dailies.
On the advertising side of alternative papers, women dominate by a 2-1 margin, and on the editorial side, men hold 58% of the jobs.
"It offends me morally to see so few black faces at AAN," said Steve F. Hammer, who attended a session on minority newsroom hiring.
Hammer, who is white but worked at the black-oriented Indianapolis Recorder before becoming managing editor of Nuvo in Indianapolis, saw only three or four African-Americans among several dozen people at the session on minority hiring.
"To me that doesn't bode too well for the future of alternative newspapers," Hammer said. "Don't proclaim to be for diversity if you don't cover the black community except in a condescending way. Some stories need to be written by an African-American reporter."
He said the alternatives, mainly centered in urban areas with large minority populations, need to reach out more to hire minorities and cover minority communities.
Alternatives say they just cannot pay as much as their well-funded daily rivals to attract minorities. It is a refrain that is repeated from editors at small dailies who complain that competition is stiff for a small pool of qualified minority journalists, and smaller papers paying smaller salaries just cannot compete.
"We just don't have that kind of money," said one alternative editor who lost several candidates to a metro paper.
The session at least addressed the issue. Ironically, AAN turned to Gannett Co. ? the epitome of what the alternatives decry in terms such as "corporate," "monopoly," "cookie cutter" daily newspapers ? for its expertise on hiring and promoting minorities and women.
"This is an education for us," AAN president Scott Spear explained about inviting LaBarbara Bowman, who heads Gannett's college recruitment. The alternatives and dailies may be fierce rivals, he said, "but we have things to learn and we are civilized."
Bowman said the alternative press has a big advantage over small-town dailies in Middle America because the alternatives operate in larger cities, where minorities are concentrated and often want to stay.
Mercedes de Uriarte, University of Texas journalism professor and former Los Angeles Times editorial section editor, praised the alternative papers for reporting what the dailies ignore and said they have "particular strengths to attract minority writers."
The alternatives' biggest attraction, de Uriarte said, is their content. Minority journalists who are allowed to cover minorities in a serious way will remain rather than face the "liberal, smug" approach that often produces mainstream coverage "insulting" to minorities.
She urged the alternative papers to look to alternative sources, beyond college journalism departments and campus papers.
Minorities often find college papers inhospitable, and journalism programs do not teach the "critical thinking" that alternatives want, according to de Uriarte.
She urged the alternatives to get to know minority educators, conduct open houses, hire interns and watch for minority reporters who get discouraged covering "mundane" local meetings at suburban bureaus of metro dailies.
However, the issue goes beyond numbers of minority faces, said de Uriarte, who consults on minority hiring. She pointed out that the oldest alternative papers are the nation's black papers, which have been chronicling the "parallel realities" of African-Americans for years.
"Newsroom culture must change to retain minorities," she said. When it comes to covering minority communities, she told the alternative editors, "You have visited the issue, but you haven't lived it."
In one effort to aid diversity, AAN and its affiliate, the Institute for Alternative for Journalism in New York, have put together $20,000 to fund fellowships for two minority journalists. This year they will work at Metro Times in Detroit and the Sacramento News & Review.