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August 11, 2004
Guest Critic: Former TV News Director Terry Heaton Says Diversity Falls Apart in the WorkplaceA television news director with 28 years in the biz--now a writer--tells PressThink: "I can recall instances where coverage actually was influenced and reporters with the courage to step forward actually did. The vast majority of times, however, efforts to involve minorities in 'their' stories erupted into arguments about type-casting." Critique of the diversity project from an ex-newsroom boss.Special to PressThink By Terry Heaton August 11, 2004 I spent 28 years in TV news management positions, including news director at six local stations. I really tried hard to work the diversity concept during my career, because I was so supportive of what it meant. I wanted our views and our programs to genuinely reflect the communities we served, and I think that’s the wish of most news directors. In reality, however, the reflection we most often settle for is simply the color of skin, the shape of the eyes, or some other differentiating factor that shows up on TV. That’s superficial. If groups such as Unity really want to accomplish something, they would do well to examine what actually happens in newsrooms after minorities are hired, because it’s in the newsroom where the premise of the editorial diversity experiment often fails. I’ve had numerous black reporters either refuse to do “community” stories or get resentful when asked to cover any story involving blacks. The same is true with many gays, Asians, and Jews. The drumbeat for bringing diverse thoughts and stories to the newsroom, where they’ll influence the overall editorial judgment of the station, is barely audible. In theory, it makes sense: bring under-represented groups in, and they will represent. In practice, I’ve found, it’s just another occasion for divisiveness in the newsroom. I’ve actually turned to minority reporters during discussion of an issue pertaining to their race, only to be told, “Why are you looking at me?” The fear of being branded a “token” interferes with the mission of diversity, because the only response offered is the theoretical “anybody should be able to cover ‘those’ stories.” And anybody should. But I thought diversity efforts in journalism were supposed to acknowledge the special contribution minority journalists could make to some stories. Is asking a black reporter to cover a dispute involving the black community really an attempt to “ghettoize?” I don’t wish to broad brush the entire movement, because I can recall instances where coverage actually was influenced and reporters with the courage to step forward actually did. The vast majority of times, however, efforts to involve minorities in “their” stories erupted into arguments about type-casting. Stories are commonplace in the industry about black reporters who actually refuse to go into the black community. Do we really expect them to offer their beliefs and ideas in the editorial process? Moreover, like everybody else in the business these days, many minorities are more concerned with labels that might interfere with their journey to the big bucks of the anchor desk than anything remotely resembling activism or journalism. After Matter: Notes, reactions and links… Terry Heaton, who blogs here, is a PressThink reader. He was news director at the following stations: WAAY-TV, Huntsville, Alabama (1996-1998) More on this debate: A PressThink exclusive… Ernest Sotomayor, President of UNITY writes a guest column: The President of Unity Says Don’t Blame Us for the “Liberal Media” Charge. (Aug. 10) For the background see PressThink (Aug. 8): “The Crowd’s Reaction Made Some Unity Delegates Uncomfortable.” Richard Prince at the Maynard Institute has a first class round up of reactions to the Unity events. Prince continues to collect reactions here. Vanessa Williams, column in the Washiongton Post: “Nearly 40 years [after the Kerner Commission] the news media for the most part continue to cover black people in America through a narrow prism of extremes. I call it the first and the worst approach, focusing on black people who soar to unprecedented heights (Obama was the first black Harvard Law Review president) or sink to unspeakable lows (see the suspects on your local television station almost any weeknight at 11).” Tim Porter at First Draft has an extended reply to Terry Heaton and to this comment from PressThink reader (and NYU J-student) Andres Martinez: Heaton deserves some credit for raising an controversial issue, but he too easily dismisses in statements like this one the concerns minority reporters have with being typecast : “Stories are commonplace in the industry about black reporters who actually refuse to go into the black community.” Reader Cody Williams emails: On the issue of diversity in the workplace Heaton completely misses the point.
Posted by Jay Rosen at August 11, 2004 5:06 PM
Comments
Prof. Rosen, I think that another problem that occurs once you are inside the newsroom (minority or not) is that young people and the ideas they can bring are stifled. This is extremely harmful to someone's creative powers and can engender an atmosphere of conservative newsrooms. People want to be hired because they are capable talented individuals, not because if they are young, black or whatever else, then they are able to cover that group. The minorities who are being hired are also usually young (for instance the existence of young minority development programs at all the major newspaper chains). I would be interested in hearing you talk more about youth and how newsrooms handle it. Andres ps. It is also the idea of novelty and change that scares newsrooms. Minorities and young people represent that. Posted by: Andres Martinez at August 11, 2004 7:23 PM | Permalink Jay ... I fear Terry Heaton missed the mark and young Andres Martinez found it. It is too easy to dismiss the desires of minority journalists not to be typecast without considering the management-think that rules most newsrooms. It is a mindset that prefers to categorize rather than analyze, to go narrow rather than wide and to choose the status quo over change because if anything makes most news managers more uncomfortable than race it is change. Within this environment, newsrom diversity takes on a new meanings. Here's what I said First Draft: Newspapers need more minorities. Period. End of argument. But the concept of "minority" needs to be redefined: Color is a minority, but so is youth, creativity, political viewpoint, bilingualism and, much too often these days, idiosyncrasy. There's more here. Cheers, Tim Posted by: Tim Porter at August 11, 2004 9:21 PM | Permalink Professor Rosen and Terry Heaton, I really appreciate this discussion and just want to agree that points of increased diversity in a newsroom should NOT serve as "token spokespeople" on multicultural topics (nor should students in classes be forced into this role)... and to add an observation. My sense is that newsrooms even at organizations with a strong commitment to diversity (and I work in one of the most diverse newsrooms I've seen in my years in the field) suffer from something more oppressive that can't be countered by adding a more diverse workforce and stirring. That oppressive force is a highly modernist, Englightment-based construction of what is "good news judgment." In newsroom cultures, this attitude is indoctrinated by the traditional "old salts," by a hard news bias that focuses on concentric circles around centers of power (rich white men in suits) and blindly fails to see that which does not occur in those centers of power (unless it involves a missing girl or woman, or someone bitten by a shark). I am criticizing the indoctrinated methods with which the traditional news pegs are interpreted... literally how we define what is news. People in different minority groups in newsrooms, in order to move up the ranks, in order to write in the monolithic depersonalized "newsroom voice," basically must learn to "write white." Regardless of how diverse the newsroom may be, the value judgments made in traditional newsroom fashion (often dictated by copyeditors in authoritarian, right/wrong terms that deadlines often force people to adopt), lead newsrooms unconsciously to homogenize around news values that give white male suits more credibility and power and thus higher rank on the scale of news criteria, and give African American males, for instance, more "face time" on the screen for an extended "group hate" when they do something bad. Sincerely, Chris Boese Posted by: Dr Christine Boese at August 12, 2004 4:04 PM | Permalink Tim Porter, I'm afraid you took a swing-and-a-miss on this one. Also: "That’s not diversity. We, all people, Blacks included, bring to the table a unique perspective on all issues, and should be recognized for that. Diversity means recognizing the talents of the individual because of who they are, not because of what they are: Black." My point exactly, which leads one who can reason to question the purpose of the Unity Convention, to begin with. And this group has been meeting for how many years?? "So, you can send me to Washington to cover the ‘big story’ understanding that I’ll bring a different set of eyes, a different confluence of experiences, a different insight, to the story than someone white would. It may, or may not, be a better story, but it will be a different story, a diverse story, a yet untold story. Excuse me, please. Am I hearing this correctly?? Where you say "to the story than someone white would", that implies some things. It implies you are non-white for one thing. I have no problem with that. However, reverse-prejudice is still prejudice. "Do you get that?" My question, exactly, to some-a you well-educated ignoramouses. (sp?) Lemme explain something to those who might understand something: Journalism gives EVERY APPEARANCE of being identical in EVERY RESPECT to every job I've ever had, since I started working.. (for a black father and along side his upstart-son, to the extent that it matters, and I virtually lived something pretty akin to the sitcom "Sanford and Son", but it was more like school than sitcom).. when I was 15. "... Young people are treated like incoming cattle to the slaughterhouse at most newspapers. They receive no training, are given little feedback, have no career path and are taught that the best way to get ahead is do things the way the boss did them." The young are spoilt, some rotten. As power is turned over to them prematurely, what do you suppose is going to happen to the core...? Journalism feels the effects more than some professions, due to a number of factors, which has (imv, in my view of the facts) lead directly to the Libertarian Lobotomy. Inability to see self, because using circus mirror. Posted by: JamesJayTrouble at August 12, 2004 6:32 PM | Permalink Dr. Boise, You wrote: "That oppressive force is a highly modernist, Englightment-based construction of what is 'good news judgment.'" I was going to agree, but then you seem to express that very modernist, pseudo-Enlightenment-based construction yourself, in the rest of the post. Iow, if the Press actually behaved as you said, then why on this planet would it be so universally-skewed against Republicans?? Your explanation seems, to me, to explain why it is that gravity pulls upwards, and I'm not buying it. Posted by: JamesJayTrouble at August 12, 2004 6:38 PM | Permalink |
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