Washington -- The number of full-time minority journalists increased sharply last year at the first two newspapers participating in a new diversity project of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

NAHJ announced last April that its Parity Project would tackle one of the most intractable problems facing the American news media -- the industry's continuing failure over many decades to hire and promote significant numbers of minority journalists.

NAHJ leaders described the Parity Project as a strategic, holistic, fast-track approach to improve both hiring of Hispanic journalists and news coverage of the nation's 35 million Latinos, but when it began, many industry executives were understandably skeptical about the unproven method.

The Parity Project program identifies cities where Latinos make up a significant portion of the city's population but are underrepresented in the newsrooms of local media outlets. In those cities, NAHJ will offer to work jointly with existing print and broadcast media, area journalism schools, foundations and Latino community leaders to develop comprehensive model programs that will increase Latino newsroom presence and influence.

E.W. Scripps Co. became the first major chain to take a chance and partner with NAHJ, and the project was subsequently launched at six Scripps papers during the latter half of the year. NAHJ received funding to support the project from the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation, a charitable grantmaking organization that supports work in journalism, communities, citizenship, and education. The project also received funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, a private foundation dedicated to furthering service to the community, to furthering the highest standards of journalistic excellence and to defending a free press.

At Denver's Rocky Mountain News, the first to join the project in April, the percentage of minority journalists on staff jumped from 8.5% in Dec. 2002 to 11.6% in Dec. 2003 -- an increase of 36% in just nine months.

At Southern California's Ventura County Star, which launched the project in June, the percentage of minority reporters and editors went up from 11.8% to 17.2% -- an even bigger jump of 46%.

"These are startling numbers in such a short time," said Juan Gonzalez, president of NAHJ and founder of the Parity Project. "We now have indisputable evidence that when a company's top executives, like our friends at Scripps, are committed to both diversity and excellence in news, and when all the stakeholders in a community join together with a clear plan, we can achieve wonders, quickly and without huge costs."

Gonzalez said he was even more elated that the increases in staff diversity did not affect solely Hispanics. At both newspapers, the number of African American, Asian and Native American journalists also increased.

"NAHJ made it clear from the start that we didn't want Hispanics hired at the expense of our fellow journalists of color or fellow white journalists," Gonzalez said. "We believe all future hiring efforts at Parity Project newspapers should be aimed at recruiting the best journalists of all races and ethnic groups, to create a team of reporters capable of reporting fairly and comprehensively on the entire community."

"Working with NAHJ on this project has been a very positive experience," said John Temple, president, publisher and editor of the Rocky Mountain News. "We've been partners rather than adversaries. This has helped us step up our efforts and achieve results."

Tim Gallagher, editor of the Ventura County Star, stated: "I believe in the Parity Project because I think it is ultimately about producing a better newspaper that more accurately reflects the communities we cover. This is not just another flavor-of-the-month program designed to increase hiring of Latinos in newsrooms. At its core, the Parity Project aims to help us do better journalism. And that's what we're in the business of doing."

The other Scripps newspapers to participate in the Parity Project are the Naples Daily News, the Abilene Reporter-News, the San Angelo Standard-Times and the Wichita Falls Times Record News. The latter papers started the project too late in the year to register measurable gains, but Gonzalez said he was confident they too would show marked improvement this year.

In addition to the hiring successes, the Parity Project has helped create local advisory task forces at each newspaper to develop long-term relationships between the newsrooms and their communities and to improve coverage.

Moreover, Scripps also announced on Dec. 3 that as part of the Parity Project the chain is creating a young reporters training program at the Rocky Mountain News. Under the project, the Scripps Academy for Hispanic Journalists, four Latino college graduates or young reporters will be hired each year at the News, trained and mentored for two years, then offered a permanent job at one of the Scripps papers.

NAHJ member Sarah Langbein, 23, a former reporter at the Fort Collins Coloradoan, has already been selected as the first member of the Scripps Academy. She starts work at the Rocky Mountain News Jan. 26.

Next week, NAHJ will launch the Parity Project at its seventh newspaper, the North County Times in Escondido, Ca., part of the Lee newspaper chain. Plans for 2004 are to start the project at another half-dozen newspaper and television stations, although all the new companies have not yet been identified.

"America's population is changing rapidly," Gonzalez said. "Any media company that is serious about diversifying its staff while also improving the quality of its journalism should consider partnering with NAHJ in the Parity Project. Let's stop talking about diversity and let's just do it."

NAHJ was founded in 1984 and has close to 2,000 members. The goal of the association is to improve news coverage of the Latino community and to increase the number of Latinos working in our nation's newsrooms.