The former executive editor of the Detroit Free Press compared diversity in journalism to Double Dutch during the Walter Cronkite School’s “Must See Monday” presentation this week, stating that every person plays a role in making diversity work.
Caesar Andrews, the Edith Kinney Gaylord Visiting Professor in Journalism Ethics, shared his views, experiences, and advice on ethics and diversity at the event.
“At its base, it is a rope, a person on one end and a person on the other end, and somebody saying, ‘I’m ready to jump in,’” Andrews said of diversity in journalism.
Andrews said newspapers have made “some progress but not nearly enough,” in diversifying their newsrooms. In 1978 the American Society of Newspaper Editors began conducting an annual headcount of newsrooms. Initially, 3.9 percent of newsrooms were comprised of minorities. The survey released last week found minorities accounted for 12.8 percent of the newsroom population.
Andrews discussed that every individual can contribute in a variety of ways to achieve diversity.
“There are as many ways and paths and possibilities as there are people,” he said.
Some may choose to seek out under reported and unpredictable issues, while others will look for more everyday stories that reflect their audience, Andrews said. News outlets may focus on true, fair, and balanced reporting and find diversity through this method or he said creative people will look for diversity in other aspects such as philosophy, religion or hobbies that define people.
If done well, Andrews explained, any of these methods will add diversity to journalism.
In the evolving field of journalism, the definition of success is being redefined, Andrews said. Diversity plays a key role in the new definition, but ethics also becomes increasingly important.
Journalism used to consist of using phones, fax machines and early networking computers to get out a story by a 4 p.m. deadline.
“Cutting edge — laugh if you will — were people who had beepers,” Andrews said.
Now, stories are published and sent out through print, posts, tweets and broadcasts.
“You have to run faster, adjust to change quicker and know more and think deeper,” Andrews said. “And if you think about it, it’s kind of a job for a comic book superhero.”
After showing a short “Adventures of Superman” clip, Andrews stated the key to great journalism is figuring out how to balance it all. In the future, he added, this may take a superman, or woman, of sorts to accomplish, especially as the gap between the public and the media continues to divide.
Andrews discussed the need for journalists to manage their reputations and maintain integrity.
“The very same people who claim that they exist to chase the truth and do so, of course, in the most accurate way possible are doubted and challenged,” he said.
Ethical decisions then come down to the individual and what he or she believes, Andrews said. Among pressure, confusion and temptation, he added, reporters must ultimately make the decision on what is right for themselves.
Andrews suggested to those students in attendance that in order to better understand how to make these ethical decisions, they must distinguish what makes their work stand out from what others are doing.
Andrews said the public does not always have the time to check every fact — that’s the journalist’s job — but that if a journalist has an outstanding trait, the public will trust his or her judgment.
Contact the reporter at tara.boyd@asu.edu
