Minorities Rapidly Leaving Newspapers : Study Finds They Are Quitting at Three Times the Rate of Whites

Minority journalists are leaving the newspaper profession at three times the rate of their white colleagues, and 40% of those remaining expect to leave, according to a study announced here Monday during the annual meeting of the American Newspaper Publishers Assn.

The Institute for Journalism Education, which conducted the study with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, polled 175 minority journalists comprising 86% of all those hired by newspapers in 10 American cities between 1969 and 1979. During that period, the number of minority persons working for the newspapers rose from just 400 to roughly 1,700, said Ellis Cose, president of the institute. According to recent studies, Cose said, minority journalists currently fill only about 3,000 of the approximately 50,000 newsroom jobs available in America.

Thirteen percent of the minority journalists interviewed already had left the profession, and 40% said they expect to leave, the study found. Among 125 whites interviewed, 22% said they expect to leave journalism.

Lack of Opportunity

The reason for leaving most often given by minority journalists, Cose said, was a sense that they lacked opportunities to advance. The most common reasons among whites were boredom or lack of financial reward.

Today, only 32 black journalists hold positions as department heads--such as feature or city editor--or above on any American newspaper, Cose said. In the 10 cities studied by the survey, roughly 28% of minority journalists have any managerial responsibilities at all, compared to 40% for whites.

The study also found that half of all minority journalists want to rise into newspaper management, while only 28% of whites have similar ambitions.

Minorities’ Paradox

“To be a minority newspaper professional in America,” Cose said, “is to live in a paradox: to be more ambitious than your white peers but less likely to be promoted to the upper echelons of the profession.”

Cose also said that “though the losses of minority journalists may go unnoticed at first, this talent drain will leave newspapers increasingly incapable of accurately reflecting the larger, multiracial society . . . and leave the news industry vulnerable to losses of credibility among readers, which could result in circulation problems.”

The study, which will be published this fall, interviewed 300 journalists in Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, Detroit, Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia, Tucson and El Paso. All are cities with large minority populations and newspapers that have made efforts to hire minorities.