Newsroom minorities fall

DALLAS -- In just two years, the percentage of minorities in television newsrooms nationwide has dropped from 25 percent to 18 percent, according to an annual survey.\nLeaders of three groups of journalists, speaking Friday at the National Association of Black Journalists' national convention in Dallas, called the decline highly alarming and pledged to work together to increase minority participation in television and radio newsrooms.\n"We do view this as a serious problem," said Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. "We've always worked to promote diversity ... but we think this calls for a redoubled effort."\nCochran cited an annual survey conducted by the radio-television news directors association and Ball State University in Muncie.\nThe 2003 survey found that the minority work force in television news dropped to 18 percent, down from 21 percent last year and 25 percent the year before. That compares with minorities' roughly 30 percent share of the U.S. population.\nErnest Sotomayor, president of Unity: Journalists of Color, a consortium of four minority journalist associations, could not explain the reason for the declining numbers.\n"We don't have enough information," he said. "That really is placing us in a crisis and it's got to be dealt with in that way.\n"Part of our effort is to get better information from the industry as a whole. We can't understand what kind of progress we're making if we don't really know where we're at right now."\nTo that end, the radio-television news directors and Unity -- which includes black, Hispanic, Asian-American and American Indian journalists -- plan a diversity summit to develop goals and explore research needs, officials said. A timetable for the summit has not been set.\nThe black journalists association will also work with broadcast news directors to help advertise and fill internships.\nCondace Pressley, president of the black journalists' association, said both groups will benefit from the effort.\nThe survey also found that minority television news directors fell to 6.6 percent from 9.2 percent a year ago. The number of minorities in television news actually increased, but not as quickly as overall staff rose.\nIt was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2002 among all 1,421 operating, nonsatellite television stations and a random sample of 1,490 radio stations.\nIn radio, the minority work force represented 6.5 percent in 2003, down from 8 percent in 2002. The proportion of minority radio news directors inched down to 5 percent from 5.1 percent.\nThe proportion of blacks in television news has fallen steadily over the last decade, from 10.1 percent in 1994 to 8.4 percent in 2003. In radio, blacks represent 4.8 percent of the work force, up from 4.1 percent last year but down from 5.7 percent in 1994.\nBlacks fare even worse in broadcast news management, representing only 0.9 percent of TV news directors and 2.5 percent of radio news directors. In 1994, 1.6 percent of TV news directors and 5.4 percent of radio news directors were black, according to the annual survey.