If Bill Lueders were dead, he'd be rolling in his grave with news that ever more people are eschewing newspapers in favor of getting their news online. Despite the migration of newshounds to the Net, a Pew poll shows that television remains the "leading source of news" for Americans.
My interview with Mr. Lueders noted the decline of the newspaper here in Wisconsin. However, I now read that the Chicago Tribune has laid off 80 people recently with one guy who'd been given walking papers claiming the layoffs included a "a disproportionate number of journalists of color".
Does anyone know how many journalists of color there are at the papers here in Madison? I'm thinking of the State Journal, Cap Times, and Isthmus. I honestly have no idea how many there are. Capital Newspapers won't disclose any information about minority journalists on their payroll but did say that they did not lay off any minority staff members involuntarily when The Cap Times stopped being a daily. However, our self-described "progressive" paper doesn't appear to have a single columnist of color. Why is this? Ditto for the State Journal. Remember when copy editor Raymond Johnson left The Cap Times this past spring as the paper ceased daily publication? He said, "Madison's not my kind of town, and I didn't want my daughters to grow up there. Smug, phony-liberal, deep-seated prejudice...obvious to any black person or non-white minority." I'd be interested to know how many co-workers of Mr. Johnson's were people of color.
Do I think our papers are racist for their lilywhite cavalcade of columnists? No. However, I would love for Madison to have someone like Eugene Kane. I don't agree with his every point, but it would be great to have someone helping generate the kind of conversations he does. It would just be nice to have a greater mix of voices.
What got me going on this was the absence of any reports about Africa Fest last weekend. I attended but only for a couple hours and was hoping to find out what it was that I had missed. The only post mortem I've seen is in this week's issue of The Madison Times. I was very disappointed as the organizers of the fest invested a lot of time and effort to put on an event which puts cultures very different from our own on display and to reach out to the community. It would have been nice had more of us reached out to them.
While having journalists of color is no guarantee of a heterogeneity of views, moving towards a plurality of voices is a worthy goal. As it is, we're left with The Madison Times, The Capital Hues, and other small papers to give a consistent voice to Madison's minorities.
5 comments:
Very few at present. Several have passed through the dailies and gone on to better jobs. Lee Hawkins, for example, has been at the Wall Street Journal for several years. Couldn't say about
Isthmus, although Anthony Shadid was an student intern there. He, of course, went on to win a Pulitzer for reporting he did in Iraq.
Anon,
Thanks for the comment.
The WSJ runs two African-American columnists weekly on the opinion pages, the incredible Leonard Pitts and the learned Cynthia Tucker. I'm not sure of the count, but there have been several African-American journalists (including Ray Allen, which might surprise some) I have happily worked with here over the years and have had mixed emotions when they are snapped up by larger media and much better-paid and normal-houred positions.
Mr. Hesselberg,
Thanks for having left your comment. I am certain that I've read the columns of Mr. Pitts and Ms. Tucker in the WSJ. However, I was thinking more along the lines of a fellow Madisonian who would opine on local issues.
When journalists of color have left in the past, does news coverage become "whiter", so to speak? Does coverage of Madison's minority communities decline?
Anon - if you read this, are you able to answer the above questions or have an opinion?
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