ASU Key Researcher in News Room Diversity

According to research done last spring and summer, racial and ethnic diversity has been increasing in the news media in recent years.

ASU Journalism Professor Steve Doig, and Kristin Gilger, Assistant Dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, gave a recent speech on how they spent the last spring and summer researching how diversity in the media has changed in the past few decades.

Although the two did different academic research, both Gilger and Doig presented their work in May of 2008 at the Unity Journalist of Color Convention, which is the largest gathering of minority journalists in the country.

“Professor Doig has done the leading work around the country on the issue,” said Gilger. “The study he did is the key indicator of diversity in the news media around the country.”

According to Doig, what he did was create a database of racial and ethnic make up of the newsrooms compared to the race and ethnicity of the surrounding communities they serve. The articles touch on everything from every different race, to newsrooms, to education.

Thanks to a generous donation from the McCormick Foundation, Doig said he found over 400 abstracts of academic and professional research done in articles and books about diversity dating all the way back to the 1960′s.

According to Doig, racial diversity has been a problem in the newsrooms for quite some time and, “the database was created to make it easier for professionals who are trying to do something about the problem.”

The most diversity abstracts published came from the Nieman Reports and the Newspaper Research Journal while Newsrooms and Diversity were the most discussed topics in the academic research done.  The Dean of the Walter Cronkite School at ASU, Christopher Callahan, was among the authors who published the most (back when he was working for the American Journalism Review), along with Journalism Professor at ASU, Sharon Bramlett-Solomon.

Although things have gotten more diverse in recent years, “the newsrooms made a pledge that they would meet diversity goals by 2000, but still have yet to reach their goal”, said Doig.

Assistant Dean Gilger’s research was focused specifically on racial and ethnic diversity in Washington D.C.

When Gilger was asked why cover just Washington D.C., she said that the journalists who cover Washington D.C. are at the top tier of journalists in terms of their influence on the country, their agenda and that they have the most widespread coverage.

Her studies revealed that 13.1% of the people who report the nations news are people of color, and that is compared to 10.5% being of color in 2004, according to Gilger.

“There were two reasons for the rise in people of color reporting the nation’s news,” said Gilger. “One reason being that the press corps is shrinking and the other being that there are efforts being taken to incorporate minorities into the news media.”

When gathering the information Gilger said that she asked the newsrooms to divide their newsrooms by race and gender and then she contacted each person.

She found that almost all journalists said that race doesn’t hurt their chance to move up in their job, and that 40% said it actually helps them, according to Gilger’s research.

Both Gilger and Doig said that they are planning to do another report after the 2010 census comes out, but until then they both agreed that the media needs to continuously try and reach people to join journalism.

“The Cronkite School is trying aggressively to outreach minorities and bring the message of journalism to young, bright kids who would be great journalist, but who are being wooed by other work forces,” said Doig. 

Guest Article Contributed by Ryan Nettleship      
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Technorati Tags: ASU, census, Christopher Callahan, diversity, journal, journalism, journalist, Kristin Gilger, McCormick Foundation, media, News, newspaper, Newspaper Research Journal, newsrooms, Nieman Reports, press corps, Research, Sharon Bramlett-Solomon, Steve Doig, Unity Journalist of Color, Walter Cronkite School