The pitfalls of ‘last-hired, first-fired’

01 Feb 2009

The Guild Reporter

Rafael Olmeda, addressing CWA members at the Baltimore conference

Forty years ago, the Kerner Commission issued its famous finding that there were two Americas, one white, one black, separate and unequal. As part of its findings, the commission noted that the absence of minorities in newsrooms contributed to a sense of isolation among black communities in America. We were not seeing our issues addressed in the pages of our newspapers or in broadcasts on the network news.

One by one, newsrooms began to take note, and soon enough we began to see small handfuls of journalists gather to address issues of particular concern. Each of these groups had its own agenda, its own core mission. The National Association of Black Journalists came first, followed by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association and the Native American Journalists Association.

By the late 1980s, these four groups had a foothold in newsrooms, but two leaders were concerned that the issues we held in common might be better served by standing together than standing separately. Both were Philadelphia journalists: Will Sutton and Juan Gonzalez. With their guidance, these four groups broke bread and united under a common purpose: the public service of journalism will never live up to its standards and its promises if newsrooms are not integrated and communities are not adequately covered.

We met for the first time in 1994, four associations holding conventions together in Atlanta, Georgia, It was glorious. It was huge. It was, truth be told, a tad chaotic.

We agreed to meet again in five years. In 1999, more than 6,000 journalists gathered in Seattle, Washington. . . . By now, UNITY was its own organization, a coalition dedicated to furthering the joint mission of inclusion in our newsrooms and our news product. . . .

Our 2008 convention in Chicago came during a tumultuous time in our industry. Gone was the notion that we could continue to chastise the industry for not doing an effective enough job of hiring people of color. For the first time, retention actually eclipsed recruitment as the primary concern of too many in attendance. Instead of demanding that diversity be taken into account during hiring, we demanded that it be taken into account when deciding who to lay off. As noble as the concept of “last-hired, first laid-off” can be, we at UNITY are concerned that it is a principle that threatens to erase the already too-small gains in diversity that have been made during our years of struggle.

That’s not something I say lightly: unions have long fought for fair labor practices that protect us all. Sometimes noble ideas and principles conflict, and it’s up to fair-minded people to broker agreements and develop solutions that are just, that are noble.

You see, I believe that in principle, the UNITY partners have won the philosophical battle when it comes to diversity. You’d be hard-pressed to find a newsroom executive who is willing to say newsrooms can be ethnic monoliths and still cover a city with fairness, accuracy and depth.

I’ll give you two examples from my own newsroom, a newsroom that deeply values diversity and has supported me in my involvement with UNITY and with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

A few years ago, I walked past the desk of our metro columnist, who happens to be white. I looked downcast.

“What’s the matter?” he asked me.

“Didn’t you hear?” I said. “Celia Cruz just died.”

“Who?” he asked.

This question astonished me. Our newsroom is in South Florida, a stone’s throw from Miami, home of the largest and most influential community of Cuban exiles in the world. And here was someone who had no idea who I was talking about when I mentioned the passing of an icon of salsa.

“You don’t know who Celia Cruz is?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I never heard of her.”

“Let me ask you something,” I said. “Have you ever heard of Tito Puente?”

“Sure,” he said. “Everyone’s heard of Tito Puente.”

“OK,” I said. “Imagine what you would think if I came up to you and said, ‘I’ve heard of Bruce Springsteen, but who’s Madonna?’ ”

The columnist got my point, but beyond that, he ventured into Miami to stand in line with mourners filing past the casket of Celia Cruz and he turned in a sensitive story about his attempt to understand what he had missed. In doing so, this white columnist bridged the gap between the Latino community and the other South Florida communities that had no idea what we had just lost.

That’s what happens in a diverse newsroom. People from different backgrounds and perspectives talk, they share, they grow, they learn, they immerse and they write. This helps communities bond.

But something else happened in our newsroom. Something I’m not as proud of. The mayor of Pembroke Park, a small city in our coverage area, died one Thursday. He was loved in his city, and his loss marked the passing of an important era in the city’s history. He died, as I mentioned, on a Thursday. Neither our paper, nor our competition, knew about it until Saturday. Neither did any of the local television or radio stations. The mayor died, and no one knew.

And that’s what happens when retrenchment leaves newsrooms with no choice but to forego full coverage of their communities.

The mayor, by the way, was white. I tell that story because I want to make the point that minority communities aren’t the only ones to lose out when newsrooms cut staff. Coverage suffers in all our communities, black and white, Asian and Hispanic, Native American and Arab, gay and straight, religious and atheist: when cuts are made in newsrooms, communities bleed.

That was in 2006.

Since then, the journalism industry has shed thousands upon thousands of jobs. And while it can probably be argued that some of those cuts have made newsrooms more efficient, it is more likely that they have made newsrooms less responsive to the people around them, the people who depend on them the most.

My great fear is that we at UNITY will score philosophical victories in our quest for diversity but catastrophic failures in seeing the practical results: truly integrated newsrooms and well-rounded coverage. We have made the moral case for covering communities of color, only to be hamstrung by the economic conclusions of those who worry that covering those communities won’t translate into revenue.

Our partner associations have sounded the alarm: Journalism cannot cut its way to prosperity. Our financial woes are tied to the fact that advertisers have found other ways to reach the masses, and journalism, which is a money-spending venture, has to find new ways to come up with that money in order to survive.

If I had the solution to this, I would be a wealthier man than I am. I do know and believe this: The current state of our industry will require our best minds and the most dedicated practitioners to fight together for a mission we love: the delivery of news, all the news that’s fit to print, air and post.

The diversity movement has seen its share of criticism. We can take it. We believe in our mission. We come to you and to management with a moral cause and a moral case. Anyone who has paid attention to census figures knows that our cause can no longer be dismissed as “the diversity movement.” We are the reality movement, and we urge you and management to work with us to protect and preserve a journalism in which we can all take pride.