Unity and Diversity--to a Point : While newsrooms reflect our multicolored society, executive suites don’t, which can translate into operational cluelessness.

Several years ago, a friend of mine who once worked for a major magazine was sent out in the field with a list of names and asked to photograph families for a huge story on welfare reform. He obliged and sent his film to the main office in New York and received, in fairly short order, a stiff rebuke:

“What are you trying to say here?” a senior editor barked.” Are you trying to make some sort of snide observation?”

“Not at all,” my friend replied. “I merely did what I was asked.”

“You were asked to take photos of welfare recipients,” the editor snapped. “All these people are white!”

“Yes, they are,” my friend agreed. “they are white and on welfare--and you guys sent me the list. I had no idea what race any of the subjects were.”

This is a true story, and it illustrates what journalists at the Unity conference in Atlanta last month have been trying to point out for years. Unity was the convergence of four groups of minority journalists, (many of them from major newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations) who happen to be African American, Asian American, Latino and Native American.

The Unity conference brought them together, and while the consensus seemed to be that there has been some heartening progress in the way newsrooms look, there has been very little advancement on the way they operate. The reason is simple: The editorial suites where decisions are made still pretty much look like newsrooms did 20 years ago, before they began to be integrated.

That lack of integration at the highest levels leads to an operational cluelessness that results in such suppositions that all, or even most, welfare recipients are black. (Wrong. Statistically speaking, there are more white than black recipients, although within their own populations, blacks may have a slightly higher percentage than whites.) It results in editors being caught by surprise at the offense taken by persons of many races when the graphically darkened, sinister photo of O.J. Simpson appeared on the cover of Time magazine.

And that editorial cluelessness allows media stereotypes to percolate through the general populace, where they ossify into “truth,” bolstered by “I read it somewhere” or “I heard it on the news.” The end products are things like Ronald Reagan’s ridiculous anecdote about “young bucks” (wonder what ethnic group he’s referring to there) buying vodka with food stamps. (You can’t even buy toilet paper with food stamps! Vodka?) Or the assumption that most Latinos are illegal immigrants. (According to the Urban Institute, about 15% of all foreign-born persons in America are undocumented; almost two-thirds come from places other than Mexico.) Or the “certainty” that all Asians are meek, model minorities (not a negative stereotype, but one that possesses its own curse nonetheless). Or that all Native Americans are illiterate alcoholics. (Then who’s running those businesses, like casinos, crafts co-ops, fishing and farming enterprises?)

Those are crude assumptions, to which most civilized people would not see themselves subscribing. But the acid drip of stereotyping eats away at the rock of everyone’s good intentions, and it badly compromises the common structure we share as Americans. We can ill afford that, given our increasing interconnectedness. It hurts us not only in California where (like it or not) we are multicultural, but also in states like Utah and Idaho, that are, for the moment, more monochromatic.

So if editors and executive producers are as smart as they’re purported to be, they will make their editorial suites look more like the America outside their polished doors--before those ethnic Americans lose patience and pass up their product. Because if, as demographics seem to indicate, the United States is running out of white folks, it would behoove the white folks who are left--the future minorities--to truly diversify their product so that there will be room and a need for it in the 21st Century.