Minorities in the Newsroom: Pressure and Stigma (Part I)

By: Randy Dotinga Minorities make up an estimated 12.5% of all editorial employees at American newspapers. But they bear more than their share of resentment, especially if they get a boost from affirmative action.

One white reporter, a former stringer at the Los Angeles Times, recalls watching as a young woman just a year into a minority internship program chattered about her immediate job prospects. They included a position at The (Baltimore) Sun, a newspaper unlikely to give the white reporter the time of day despite her extra three years of experience.

"I wasn't too much older than she was, but I just knew there was no way those papers would look at me," said the reporter, who prefers to remain anonymous. "I felt like it wasn't fair."

Similar feelings arose in the mid-1980s in the journalism department at the University of Minnesota. Black graduates looked forward to internships at the nation's top newspapers, while their white counterparts competed for jobs at the Duluth News Tribune or the St. Cloud Times, said former student Tom Fudge, now a talk-show host at the public radio station in San Diego.

"It was common knowledge that they had the kind of opportunities that similarly skilled white student journalists simply didn't have," he recalled. While their feelings as white journalists didn't quite rise to the level of resentment, he said, they "grumbled about it, and you often heard them saying 'such-and-so who's black got this terrific job after college, and he wasn't better than anybody else.'"

Fudge, who is white, wrote an online commentary this week suggesting that diversity programs may move inexperienced minority students into big-time, high-pressure jobs: "You're just not doing young black journalists any favors by putting them in positions they're not ready for."

Some minority journalists worry about the same thing. Margarita Bauza, a Puerto Rican reporter who covers higher education at The Detroit News, said she's glad she started her career at smaller newspapers instead of quickly zipping to the top on the wings of her ethnicity. "I didn't want to be helped along the way," she said. "Ultimately that hurts people -- to not have to work for your promotions, not have to earn it, no matter what color you are."

Other critics think young minority journalists don't need diversity programs in the first place. One is Julio Moran, a former Los Angeles Times reporter and current executive director of the California Chicano News Media Association, which works to help Latinos get jobs in the media. Moran would like to see experienced young journalists avoid diversity programs, such as the two-year internships offered by several newspaper companies. The risk of stigma is just too high, Moran said.

"A lot of journalists of color are being forced to go through these kinds of programs, even though they should be able to find jobs on their own," he said. "I think it does hurt them. The perception is you're only there because you're a minority and you need additional help. It takes some years to get over that."

The Jayson Blair mess, of course, hasn't helped the reputation of affirmative action. Neil Henry, a black professor of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, is warning former students of color to prepare for the backlash. In an interview, he said minority journalists shouldn't turn down job prospects, even if they're tied to affirmative action. "Black people can't afford to distinguish between them," he said. "There aren't that many opportunities out there."

He thinks white journalists fail to understand the sad history of race in the newsroom. When the 1965 Watts riots took place, for example, the Los Angeles Times didn't have a single black reporter to send to the scene. Editors ended up recruiting a black man who worked as a messenger in the classified department. He covered the riots for days.

Nearly four decades later, at least 373 newspapers don't have a single minority on their newsroom staffs, according to a newly released survey by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. That, in the minds of some diversity advocates, is the best evidence in support of affirmative action.

"Even with their 'unfair advantage,' people of color are woefully underrepresented in the news industry," said Pamela Newkirk, journalism professor at New York University and author of "Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media," published in 2000. "The tragedy is that before you had these diversity programs, you had all-white newsrooms. That's the problem. You get rid of diversity programs, you get rid of diversity."