Rekindling the Fire: The Compromise That Initiated the Formal Integration of Daily Newspaper Newsrooms

Abstract

The American Society of Newspaper Editors agreed in 1978 to sponsor a newsroom integration initiative only after an interracial group of activists persuaded ASNE directors that this was the morally correct path to take. Ofparticular note were the efforts of African-American journalists who agitatedfrom outside the ASNEandofprominent Southern editors who championedthe cause from within. Drawing upon oral history interviews and the archival record. this article explores the negotiations that led to the ASNE board's 1978 vote as well as the ASNE membership's resistance to hiring non-white journalists. Ultimately, this article demonstrates that the ASNE newsroom diversity initiative, rather than being an uncomplicated decision spurred by social change, emerged from a mix ofpassion and logic, conviction and ambivalence, selflessness and self-interest.