America's Daily Newsrooms Dramatically Miss Ethnic Diversity Goals

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Most of you are probably familiar with a book written by Peter Schweizer entitled “Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy.” In it, Schweizer chronicled numerous examples of how prominent liberals say one thing in public, but hardly follow their own prescribed ideals.

Since its publication, how often have you read an article by a member of the drive by media and buckled over in uncontrollable laughter thinking just how much it fit into Schweizer’s model of liberals not practicing what they preach?

Well, this article from Editor & Publisher dealing with the lack of ethnic diversity in America's daily newsrooms has to more than qualify: “Journalists of color represented only 13.87% of the staff in America's daily newsrooms in 2005, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors' (ASNE) 29th annual newsroom census released Tuesday.”

Huh? Excuse me? Are these the same newsrooms that are constantly pointing fingers at American corporations as well as the Bush administration and the Republican Party for being bigoted and ethnically intolerant? After all, six of President Bush’s cabinet members are racial or ethnic minorities comprising 40 percent of the fifteen available positions. And, since 37.4 percent of Americans are considered to be part of a racial or ethnic minority according to the 2000 Census, America’s newsrooms are missing the goal of looking like America by fully 63 percent, while President Bush with his cabinet appointments exceeded this diversity goal by seven percent. In fact, as a percentage, President Bush appointed almost three times as many ethnic and racial minorities to his cabinet than currently work in America’s daily newsrooms

So, are these holier-than-thou organizations at least showing improvement in this regard? Hardly: “That percentage represented a nearly invisible increase from last year's census, which identified 13.42% of daily journalists as belonging to racial and ethnic minority groups.”

What? Are you kidding me? Certainly, that has to be a mistake! At the very least, America’s newsrooms must be doing a good job of achieving their own desired ethnic diversity goals, correct? Well…not exactly: “ASNE established three-year ‘benchmarks’ to check progress toward the goal. The benchmark for this year's census was a minority newsroom percentage of 18.55%.”

18.55 percent? Are you serious? This means that while the Bush cabinet exceeds the percentage of minorities in the actual population, America’s daily newsrooms are not only almost 63% below this ultimate goal, they are also 34 percent below their own three-year benchmark.

Does this fit into Peter Schweizer’s view of the prominent liberal credo “Do As I Say (Not As I Do)?