The Guilds Join Push for Diversity

At a time when network executives normally would be plotting last-minute strategies for the final sweeps of the century, they still find themselves grappling with groups concerned about television’s perceived lack of racial and ethnic diversity.

Top brass from the NAACP and that organization’s Beverly Hills/Hollywood chapter, as well as the Writers Guild of America and at least two of its minority subcommittees, continue to press broadcasters over the shortage of minority actors in the 26 new prime-time programs scheduled in May.

While each group has a slightly different focus--and five of those shows already have been canceled because of troubled productions or low ratings--action initiated in response to the network shortcomings documented over the summer have continued unabated.

In addition to the groups mentioned, the Screen Actors Guild is funding a study, which gets underway this week, that will examine racial stereotypes and images in the remaining prime-time shows. The study principally will look at the depiction of African Americans, said actress Anne-Marie Johnson, who will be working with Darnell Hunt, professor of sociology at USC, to collect and analyze the data.

“We are going to tape 735 hours of television from now till February, and then edit it down to a 10-minute presentation that we plan to take to all the networks,” Johnson said. “We’re looking at how African Americans are portrayed, what impact they make, and indicate opportunities that were lost. We also want to highlight shows that are doing the right thing.”

Johnson, who has appeared in such shows as “Melrose Place” and “In Living Color,” said the decision to focus on black performers came after she learned the guild would soon release a study on Latinos. An independent study on Native American performers is also said to be under consideration, according to Johnson.

“Besides,” Johnson said, “African Americans have never been studied this extensively.”

While the plan is to pare down the analysis to a 10-minute presentation--an easily digestible size for network and studio executives--the reality is that many of the 735 hours they look at will have no African Americans in them: “It’s not like there’s a lot dealing with African Americans on the networks.”

Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, is due back in Los Angeles in November for a second round of meetings with each of the four major networks. Specifics about the summits remain under wraps. Mfume began the dialogue in August after publicly calling for a strategic reaction to the new fall shows during the NAACP annual meeting in July.

The civil rights organization is still evaluating information received from the networks about minority employment and will soon make a decision about its next step, according to an NAACP spokesman.

Network executives maintain they are ready to discuss the issue. “This is an important topic, and no one expects it to go away,” said an NBC spokesperson. “We are willing to discuss it with them.”

Mfume had expressed disappointment after his initial conversations with the networks, saying that while executives acknowledged there was a problem in terms of diversity, they were far from establishing specific policies to change the status quo. If this round of talks does not represent progress, Mfume has indicated, on the horizon are his plans for advertiser boycotts and other actions designed to affect network stock prices.

Separately, the Writers Guild of America West is undertaking its own discussions with networks, TV producers and studios on the question of adding minorities to the writing staffs of prime-time shows. Preparations for the discussions began after a guild leadership meeting in August, according to Writers Guild spokeswoman Cheryl Rhoden.

“We’ve done discussions like this before, but never with the concentrated focus that we have now,” she said.

Adding to that sharper focus is a recent survey of the racial makeup of prime-time comedy and drama staffs conducted by the local NAACP chapter and a group of African American writers. Among its findings: Of 839 writers currently employed on prime-time shows, only 55 are African American, 11 are Latino, and three are Asian American. There were no Native American writers, it said.

One of the key issues the Writers Guild intends to put on the table is the tendency for minority writers to be overlooked for shows with predominantly white casts. Most of the 55 African American prime-time writers worked on shows with primarily black casts. White writers, however, routinely make the crossover to write on shows with predominantly minority casts.

“We need to change that pattern,” Rhoden said, “and send out the word to agencies that this is something that has to change. They need to start sending scripts by minority writers to predominantly white shows.”

Special focus will be placed on comedy shows, where the lack of diversity among the writing staffs is most severe, she said.

Once the main guild meetings are concluded, Sharon Johnson, head of the Writers Guild of America Committee of Black Writers, said she and other minority groups affiliated with the guild, including the Latino Writers Committee, also were hoping to meet with network officials.

Meanwhile, Billie Green, president of the Beverly Hills/Hollywood NAACP chapter, said her group intends to keep up the pressure on the networks, calling for establishment of diversity training programs at the networks and a monitoring system that would track progress.