Unity 2004: Biggest Meeting of U.S. Journalists Ever?

By: Mark Fitzgerald Ending an animated Unity 2004 opening ceremony that had journalists beating drumsticks to the rhythms of a Cherokee hoop dancer, a Filipino musical troupe and African drummers, Unity President Ernest Sotomayer prompted the loudest audience reaction just by formally gavelling open the joint convention of African-American, Hispanic, Asian-American and Native American journalists associations.

"By this afternoon, our registration hit 7,500," Sotomayer, Long Island editor for Newsday.com, said to rising applause. "You are now the largest journalists convention ever in the history of the United States."

Unity opened with a mix of pride in the big numbers of journalists who made their way to the Washington Convention Center, and frustration at the slow pace of integrating more people of color into the newsrooms of newspapers and other news organizations.

"We didn't come here to the nation's capital to celebrate," said Herbert Lowe, the president of the National Association of Black Journalists, Newsday's courts reporter. "You know why we're here. Too few blacks. Too few journalists of color are employed in America's newsroom."

Minority journalists are interested in attending other big gatherings, such as the political conventions and the Olympics, as working journalists, Lowe said.

Lowe noted the participation in Unity of many prominent media companies (Belo, for instance, was co-sponsor with Toyota of the opening ceremony) and he had a warning for other publishers: "To the leaders of the industry who are not here, I say, gear up. Diversity is not just a buzzword. It's a reality, it's a fact, and it should be mandatory at every news organization across America. Welcome to the battleground, welcome to Unity."

The president of the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA), independent producer Patti Talahongva, used the occasion to plead the cause of journalists who work for tribal owned newspapers. "While the U.S. Constitution protects the mainstream press, the same cannot be said about journalists in the native media," she said. To those reporters, she added, NAJA "supports you, and we support free press in Indian Country."

Thursday, the clout of the joint convention will be on view as speakers include Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and Secretary of State Colin Powell.