Minority Journalists' Perceptions of the Impact of Minority Executives

Abstract

Annual newsroom surveys by industry groups show only miniscule progress in the effort to diversify the nation's newsrooms or to increase the ranks of minority newsroom managers. This survey explores minority journalists’ perceptions about minority executives’ ability to influence news coverage of minorities, and how career satisfaction relates to these perceptions. The findings suggest that minority journalists— regardless of ethnicity, occupation, or years in the business—believe that a minority executive can make a difference in several key areas, including a news operation's sensitivity to racism and how it covers minority groups. Overall, respondents felt that a minority executive could influence how the news media thinks of minorities. Implications of the findings for the hiring, promotion, job satisfaction, and retention of minorities in the newsroom are discussed.

Keywords:

• diversity
• minority journalists
• social responsibility
• journalists

Notes

x = average score; n = number of respondents. *denotes statistically significant difference between age and income groups. See text for explanation. Scale: 1 = strongly agree, 2 = agree, 3 = neither agree or disagree, 4 = disagree, 5 = strongly disagree.

^adenotes statistically significant difference at p < .05; ^bdenotes statistically significant difference at p < .001; ^cdenotes statistically significant difference at p < .001.

*This table includes only respondents who expressed various levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their jobs, and who intended to stay working in the media in five years; thus the figures do not reflect the total respondents.

*This table includes only respondents who expressed various levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their jobs, and who intended to stay working in the media in five years; thus the figures do not reflect the total respondents.

1 The terms Latino and Hispanic are used interchangeably. So are the terms ethnic minorities and people/ journalists of color.

2 Thanks also to Ray Chavez, chair of the journalism department at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, for his support of this project.

3 Four people responded “no” or “don't know” and they were excluded.

4 On the variable regarding poor people's sense of ownership (see item h in Table 1), a statistically significant difference (p < .01) was also observed in the average scores of Native Americans (2.23) and the respondents who indicated being members of more than one group (2.91). Given our limited data and knowledge of who comprised the latter category, we could not draw any inferences or conclusions about such differences.

5 One statement regarding coverage of poor people was “I think that a minority at the head of a media operation will mean that the media operation will cover more stories about poor people.” The other statement was “I think that a minority at the head of a media operation will give poor people more of a sense of ownership in the media operation.”

6 See the series of questions a–h, as listed in Table 1.