When I walked into the newsroom of The Houston Post on August 16,
1972, there were only three other African Americans working at this
major daily as full-time journalists. I was twenty-three years old,
just two months out of school, armed with a master’s degree from the
University of Illinois and the memories of growing up in segregated
North Louisiana.
There were very few Blacks working at what we referred to then as a
“White newspaper,” and there were even fewer of us in television. A
decade before, the only way Blacks would get on the front page of most
newspapers was if we were accused of a crime or accomplished some
super-Herculean feat like winning a medal in the Olympics. And here I
was getting front page bylines. “Look how far we have come!” I thought.
Back then, we were like heroes to people in our Communities. More
often, though, we were lonely Black faces in mostly White crowds.
We resented being called tokens or being accused of getting where
we were because we were Black. And although we were qualified, some
will admit now — a generation later — that in most cases, we were
there because we were Black. Although we had this naive optimism that
we would get to the “Promised Land” of the American Dream, we also
realized we carried the burden of a whole race on our shoulders.
Well, we still haven’t gotten to the “Promised Land,” and too many
of us have forgotten about the burden. In 1968, the Kerner Commission
concluded news coverage was biased against Blacks and the media were
partially responsible for the “[B]lack-[W]hite schism.” Thirty years
later, things in the newsroom and society are not that much better.
This year is the twentieth anniversary of the American Society of
Newspaper Editors’ (ASNE) declaration of the goal to ensure the number
of non-Whites working at daily newspapers reflect their percentage in
society by the year 2000. When the goal was set in 1978, only 3.95
percent of the daily newspaper workforce was non-White compared to
11.46 percent in 1998. Currently, Blacks account for only 5.38 percent
of those working at daily newspapers, according to the ASNE survey.
With less than two years to go, ASNE has essentially abandoned its
original 1978 goal.
“As a benchmark, the representation of journalists of color should
reach at least 20 percent industry wide by 2010,” said the ASNE board
in a statement released in April. ASNE not only has extended the
deadline, but also has lowered the goal. This is a call for us to get
back to our roots before we get too comfortable with where we are and
how far we have come.
