Diversity Lagging in Newsrooms

The American Society of Newsroom Editors (ASNE) has issued the results of a recent survey of newsroom employees.

Disturbingly, it was found that diversity in the newsroom is not keeping up with changes in population demographics.

This is the third consecutive year that the percentage of African-American, Asian, Latino, and Native American journalists has declined in U.S. newsrooms.

The number of professional journalists rose from an estimated 41,500 in 2009 to 41,600 in 2010, according to ASNE’s most recently completed census of online and traditional newspapers. American daily newspapers lost 13,500 newsroom jobs from 2007 to 2010.

In the most recent ASNE census, minority journalists declined from 5,500 to 5,300.

“At a time when the U.S. Census shows that minorities are 36 percent of the U.S. population, newsrooms are going in the opposite direction. This is an accuracy and credibility issue for our newsrooms,” said Milton Coleman, ASNE president.

Frankly, my apparently naive perspective of the field of journalism is that skin color shouldn't matter. Despite demographics, competent journalists should produce competent reporting.

Presumably, the position of the ASNE is that journalists harbor unacceptable ethnicity-based biases which must be countered with more-acceptable ethnicity-based biased journalists.

Companion post at The Jawa Report.