Daily News Diversity Inches Up As Part of Latino Project

Additional Members of Advisory Group Sought

By Mark R. Madler, San Fernando Valley Business Journal

Nearly a year ago, a crowd of almost 70 people came to the California State University Northridge campus to discuss how the Daily News could better cover Latinos in the San Fernando Valley and increase its number of Latino reporters.

What has changed in those 12 months since the paper joined the Parity Project of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists?

An advisory committee of educators, students, business people, media relations professionals and retirees has met twice to discuss coverage in the paper and ways to improve its reporting on Latino issues.

Managing Editor Melissa Lalum likes the feedback she gets from the sessions and appreciated CSUN journalism instructor Jose Luis Benavides bringing a group of his students to report on a six-week study comparing Daily News coverage with that of Spanish-language publication La Opinion.

“We tend not to run as much Central and South America and Mexico news off the wires whereas La Opinion would run a lot more,” Lalum said. “They definitely saw that as an area where we could grow.”

The advisory committee, however, could use more members. Lalum said she would like to see representatives from the education field and a religious leader or two.

Lalum’s enthusiasm for taking part in the project is encouraging to Rosa Maria Santana, the associate director with the Parity Project on the West Coast.

Visiting other western state newspapers taking part in the project, including the Ventura County Star, Santana said she recognizes that newspapers run on their own schedules of hiring and that some papers have cut staff.

Successful participation in the project comes from recognition within newsrooms of its long-term goals, Santana said.

“Ultimately it comes to the individual newspapers saying we are going to do this and see the importance of diverse voices in the newsroom,” Santana said.

At the time of last year’s meeting, 10 percent of the newsroom staff was Latino. A year later it is 13 percent. Over the summer the paper hired an intern it had found through a program with the California Chicano News Media Association.

The paper is also eyeing pairing up with San Fernando High School to get an intern through a program sponsored by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

“That’s a nice way to cultivate young journalists,” Lalum said.

Santana does her part in getting potential candidates on the Daily News’ radar screen by getting names and resumes when visiting journalism schools and conferences and passing them along to Lalum.