NAHJ Blasts Broadcast Industry for Backpedaling on Commitment to Diversity
Washington -- The president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists blasted the nation’s broadcasters for paying lip service to diversity and backpedaling in their commitment to full racial and ethnic integration of their newsrooms.
The remarks from NAHJ president Juan González came after the Radio and Television News Directors Association announced for the second straight year that the association’s annual employment survey has shown a sharp decline in the percentage of Hispanics and other minorities working in local radio and television news.
The percentage of Hispanics in local television news in 2003 was 6.5 percent, down from 7.7 percent last year and 10.1 percent in 2001, according to the RTNDA study.
Hispanics currently comprise 13.5 percent of the overall U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census.
When the large number of news professionals working in Spanish-language television are separated out, the employment percentages are even more dismal. Only 5.2 percent of newsroom employees in English-language television are Hispanic.
"The virtual disappearance of Hispanics from radio news is especially alarming," González said. In 2003, only 1.2 percent of news personnel in local radio news were Hispanic, compared to 2.4 percent the previous year and 5.5 percent in 2001.
Radio’s "near-relentless slide" in minority employment, according to the study, began with the elimination of the old EEO rules in broadcasting.
The RTNDA study also found drops in television news employment percentages among African Americans and Asians.
As for broadcast news directors, only Asians registered a small percentage increase over previous years, and in radio only African Americans saw a small increase in their percentage of newsroom workers.
The drop in minority percentages is not due to downsizing, according to the RTNDA. The number of all workers in broadcast news grew this year, but the number for whites grew most.
The numbers are actually worse than the RTNDA indicates, because several thousand of the most coveted jobs in broadcasting -- those at the network news divisions -- are not accounted for in the annual survey, González said. "How can broadcasters assure the diversity of voices that federal law requires when their newsrooms are moving in the opposite direction from the rest of the nation?"
NAHJ reiterated its call for the television network news divisions to report the makeup of their newsrooms annually.
In addition, González called for major broadcasters to adopt a more pro-active approach to newsroom diversity, such as NAHJ has developed with its Parity Project for newspapers.
The NAHJ is working with media companies to increase rapidly the presence and influence of Latino journalists in selected cities by involving expertise and resources from the total community.
"We are ready to partner with any broadcast company that is serious about diversity and quality news coverage," González said. "But we will not accept a return to the tokenism of the past."
Founded in 1984, NAHJ’s mission is to increase the percentage of Latinos working in our nation’s newsrooms and to improve news coverage of the country’s Latino community.
With more than 2,000 members, NAHJ is located in Washington, D.C.
