News-Record.com

John,

Thanks for letting us know about this.

I think I mentioned this question before, but I can't remember your response:

Why doesn't the News & Record include a copy of "Sound Off" for all readers to see?

It seems like that would be a great way to advertise the program and the newspaper's interest in attracting minority journalists.

I know that some people will take the time to look at the on-line copy you posted, but it seems like a lot of people may never even know it exists.

I've read some of "Sound Off" and look forward to reading the rest.

And I made a post about it as well that highlights some of the students I know.

Now I'm looking forward to the teen page in the fall!

Sincerely,

Hardy

It's a great idea, and we'd like to do that, but the the reason we don't distribute to all of our readers is cost. Printing enough copies would cost us several thousand dollars alone.

Thanks for your post. I especially agree with your remarks: "If we're lucky, maybe some of them will continue making positive contributions to our community as local journalists.

"Regardless of what professions they ultimately choose, their futures are very bright.

"And they no doubt will be making a positive difference in our world."

Hi John. I read the work you linked to...outstanding!

About 20 years ago I attended a weekend seminar on Christians in the media. Fred Barnes, Oz Guiness and others spoke about the subject. The consensus was that Christians left the media rather than the other way around.

Barnes had just hosted the Reagan-Mondale debate where he raised eyebrows by asking both men if they were born again. At the time he was with the Wash Post. He talked about being invited to a Christmas party in DC for Christians in the media. He attended and was shocked to find he was the only person employed by the MSM. Everyone else at theparty was affiliated with Christian publications. He felt that the talented writers who were Christians seemed to feel they had no place in the MSM and that this is a huge mistake.

I share this because you are interested in raising a new generation of journalists.

Thanks, Chip. I've done no survey, but I'd guess, based on anecdotal information, that the number of folks in our newsroom who regularly go to church or temple at least parallels the general population. (We're much more spiritual than people give us credit for.) Unfortunately, that's not true for the racial makeup of the news department.

Maybe you should conduct a survey of the political leanings of the news department to see how they parallel the general population. If someone's color has a desirous effect or influence on their news stories, certainly their political leanings would have an even greater effect. After all, people have different political leanings regardless of color, so why is color so important to you? What do you expect to get out of it? Your logic seems to be that a person of color will inject their color into their approach to a news story, but a person with a particular political view will not. Explain the logic of that? A black person is supposed to act/write like a black person, but a Democrat is not expected to act/write like a Democrat? Diversity of thought should rank up there much higher than diversity of race, at least in the news business where thoughts and ideas are critical.

I'm all for having more minorities in news, but not because of the color of their skin, but because of their qualifications and intellectual qualities. These are things that are not determined by race.

A couple thoughts, Samuel. I agree with you on the need for more minorities in news. That they would be qualified and have appropriate intellectual qualities has been a given. Nowhere have I ever said otherwise.

We also agree on the importance of diversity of thought. Having a variety of races in the newsroom will help get us there.

We want more minorities in our newsroom because we want the paper to reflect the diversity of the community. We know it doesn't racially. We don't want minorities "to inject their color" into the story. But minorities know of stories in the community because of where they live and their life experiences that white people don't. They will help make the paper more inclusive. But don't expect to read news articles with "black" or "Latino" views injected. That's not why we want more journalists of color in the newsroom.

We purposely try to rid political leanings from our news coverage. I've heard many commenters suggest that our news staff has a political bias. No one has provided any real evidence of it, though. More important, I've also heard much comment about how our news report has a political bias. The evidence is slim, usually directed at a single story or headline, which was usually written by a wire service. You may be interested to know that because of our cancellation of The New York Times News Service and because we haven't trumpeted the Downing Street memo, many readers are accusing us of being in the pockets of conservatives.

Well, you make a generalization e.g., a black person lives in a black community- are you sure about that? In any case, there may be some truth to what you claim. However, my point is that you seem so focused and obsessed with this one form of diversity (racial) and not to the many other forms of diversity that may have a much more significant impact on the news division. Truce for now.

My statement is a generality but it is supported by an awful lot of census data.

We are focused on putting out a good newspaper. To do that, we want to expand the racial diversity of our staff. (I assure you that we aren't obsessed with it.) We're also focused, perhaps even more, on NOT showing our political colors inappropriately.