NAACP rates TV’s efforts

The four major television networks have made progress in increasing roles for African Americans, but have fallen short in honoring their pledge to hire and promote black writers, producers, directors and executives, NAACP President and Chief Executive Kweisi Mfume said Tuesday.

“In the past year, there have been modest gains in the on-screen employment of African Americans and others,” Mfume said during a Washington, D.C., press conference where he released the civil rights organization’s 2003 TV Diversity report on the TV and movie industry. “But with some notable exceptions, these gains have been offset by behind-the-scenes losses that remain virtually frozen demographically.”

The report summarizes the last three years of diversity efforts at ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox, which all signed an agreement with the NAACP and other advocacy groups in 1999 to boost minority representation in front of and behind the camera.

The study comes two weeks after a coalition of the other advocacy organizations released their own evaluations of the progress the networks are making.

Those “report cards” were more critical of the networks than the NAACP study, much to the surprise of some industry insiders. The Multi-Ethnic Coalition in its study applauded the increasing visibility of blacks and Latinos in front of and behind TV cameras, but lamented the continuing invisibility of Asians and Native Americans.

Executives from CBS, ABC and Fox said they were pleased by the NAACP report, adding that they are committed to improving their efforts. NBC executives said they were also moving forward aggressively with increasing diversity.

The NAACP report, titled “Out of Focus, Out of Sync, Take 3,” heavily criticized TV and cable news operations, saying that they have done poorly in terms of diversity. “Show anchors, guests, reporters and so-called ‘experts on the subject’ continue to be overwhelmingly white,” the report said.

Mfume added that he was particularly frustrated by what he called the lack of diversity within the motion picture industry: “Ironically, television entertainment divisions have made more progress toward diversity than the movie industry. While over 30% of movie audiences are African American, Latino or Asian American, the motion picture industry has forever been a closed door society generally looking the other way when the topic of diversity and employment opportunity arises.”