"According to the latest survey results, people of color ù African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Native Americans ù make up less than 12% of professionals in daily newspaper newsrooms." (Lloyd, 2002, 1) Yet, the general population, especially in some California communities is made up of over 50% ethnicity creating a situation wherein white news professionals no longer reflect a majority view. "Currently, minorities make up 28.4 percent of the U.S. population and will grow to an estimated 38.2 percent by 2025, according to the U.S. Census Bureau." (Bowman, 2000, 1)
Historically, some of the impediments to an ethnically diverse newsroom were the practices of hiring managers. Racial and ethnic stereotypes in reporting of the news have also been seen as impeding the focus and truth in the coverage of stories. For instance, framing a story about the Latino community in a fashion that makes it sound "us vs. them" is not a diverse coverage of the news within that community. Utilizing experts from their community on an issue worth reporting to the entire community makes it diverse reporting.
It is not only advantageous, but necessary to have a newsroom and expert sources that reflect the community to whom the newsroom reports. "If you are writing a story by covering just one segment of society, you're not going to get it accurately. We could increase credibility and accuracy of our reporting by broadening the perspectives." (Yamada, 1999, 1) This is because "inclusion is not only fair, but it's good business to encourage representation among all minorities in newsrooms. The more voices making a commitment toward diversity, the better." (Gray & Salazar, 1998, 1)
And in order to insure the diversity of the newsroom, the American Society of Newspaper editors has been tracking minority newspaper employees since 1978. At that time, it was estimated that roughly 4% of the actual newsroom workforce was of ethnic, ...