Landmark: One In Five Gannett Newsroom Managers Are People Of Color

By: E&P Staff For the first time, more than 20% of Gannett Co.'s newsroom managers are people of color, the nation's largest newspaper chain says.

In its latest "All-American Review" of diversity efforts, Gannett News Executive Ann Clark reported that 20.4% of its "Information Center" managers are people of color, up from 19.1% in 2006. Last year, Gannett restructured its newsrooms across the chain as multimedia Information Centers.

Clark said the total percentage of journalists who are people of color -- African American, Hispanic, Asian American or Native American -- in Gannett was 19.5%, unchanged from the level in 2006, which was a record.

She noted that the 2007 Newsroom Census conducted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) found that journalists of color comprised 13.62% of newsroom employees at daily newspapers. ASNE's 2007 census found that 10.9% of all managers in U.S. newsrooms were people of color.

"The number of people of color who were promoted also showed progress, with 31.2%," Clark said. That compared to 27.8% in 2006.

Clark said the number of people of color hired to fill information center positions dropped to 28% from 28.5% in 2006. While the total number of interns taken on dropped, the percentage who were people of color jumped to 49.3% from 46.7%.

Phil Currie, Gannett's senior vice president/news, said the chain's census also showed work remained to be done on diversity.

"But what also should get our attention -- along with pride in the good performance -- is that we have seen some slippage in the number of newspapers that are equal to or surpass the minority populations in their Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)," he reported. " We work hard at least to match the staffing percentages with the percentage of people of color in our communities. Thirty-three newspapers have done that. But a year ago, 39 did it."