WASHINGTON - The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) has been awarded a grant of $1 million from the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation to support the expansion of the association's newly created Parity Project.

The Parity Project, launched in April of 2003, 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 works jointly with existing print and broadcast media, area journalism schools, foundations and Latino community leaders to develop comprehensive model programs to increase the representation of Latinos in newsrooms and improve news coverage of the nation's Latino community.

The new three-year grant will enable NAHJ to bring the Parity Project to a total of 48 print and broadcast media outlets across the country by 2007, a rapid expansion from the six media outlets involved in the first year pilot.

Since the NAHJ Parity Project was launched, the first two project partners have experienced dramatic increases in the percentage of minorities working in their newsrooms.

At Denver's Rocky Mountain News, the first to join the project in April 2003, the percentage of minority journalists on staff jumped from 8.5 percent to 11.6 percent in just nine months. At Southern California's Ventura County Star, which launched the project last June, the percentage of minority reporters and editors went from 11.8 percent to 17.2 percent in just six months.

"The Parity Project is one of the most innovative, constructive and strategic diversity programs we have seen, so we're happy to support its rapid expansion," said Richard A. Behrenhausen, President and Chief Executive Officer of the McCormick Tribune Foundation.

"The project addresses a real need --- for news organizations to better reach, reflect and serve the growing Hispanic population in their areas. NAHJ helps news organizations that want to improve, by providing valuable insight, talent, connections and programs," he added.

The McCormick Tribune Foundation was the first sponsor of the Parity Project, providing $80,000 in seed money for the pilot project in 2003. NAHJ's Parity Project has also received support and funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

"We are thankful to the McCormick Tribune Foundation for believing in the project from its inception," said NAHJ President Juan Gonzalez. "NAHJ believes the expansion of the project will provide media companies nationwide with a model and a roadmap for quickly improving their diversity efforts despite years of frustration and lackluster results."

Gonzalez added: "NAHJ has 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. We believe all future hiring efforts with companies we are working with on the project 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."

NAHJ plans to use the three-year grant to expand the Parity Project, particularly in California and Texas, two key states that are essential to the success of this program. NAHJ will add staff members in those states.

Current NAHJ Parity Project partners include several daily newspapers that are owned by the E.W. Scripps Company; Lee Enterprises, Inc. and Pulitzer Newspapers, Inc. NAHJ is also in talks with several broadcast companies that have expressed interest in the Parity Project.

The NAHJ Parity Project was brought about by the continued under-representation of Latinos in American newsrooms, despite numerous diversity efforts. Recent studies show that Latinos make up only 4 percent of the newsroom personnel at daily English-language newspapers and only 5 percent of all newsroom staffers at English-language TV news outlets. The most recent census figures show that Latinos are 13.5 percent of the U.S. population.

NAHJ was founded in 1984 and has close to 2,000 members. The association's mission is to improve news coverage of the Latino community and to increase the number of Latinos working in our nation's newsrooms. For more information, visit www.nahj.org.

The McCormick Tribune Foundation is one of the nation's largest charitable organizations, with combined assets of almost $2 billion and giving of more than $88 million in 2003. The foundation's mission is to improve the social and economic environment; encourage a free and responsible discussion of issues affecting the nation; enhance the effectiveness of American education; and stimulate responsible citizenship. Since 1992, its journalism program has invested more than $11 million in various programs designed to achieve diversity of staffing and content at news organizations. The Foundation was established as a charitable trust in 1955 upon the death of Col. Robert R. McCormick, longtime editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune. For more information, visit www.mccormicktribune.org.