Diversity in news media could falter

With minority journalists meeting this week in one of the world's largest conventions of journalists, leaders warned that as the economy sputters and media companies slash jobs, diversity in US newsrooms is likely to suffer. The percentage of minority journalists at TV and radio stations rose to 24% in 2007 from 22% in 2006, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE). The ranks of minority newspaper journalists this year are flat at 13.5% compared with 2007, ASNE said. Despite the slow progress, journalism leaders vow to keep pushing media companies for more diversity in workforces and editorial coverage. The sluggish economy, cutbacks in travel budgets and more than 2,000 lost newspaper jobs in the past year appear to have hurt attendance at Unity, a professional alliance of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) and the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA). About 6,600 are at the Chicago convention, compared with an all-time high of 8,100 at the last convention, four years ago in Washington (DC).