The KCABJ membership will meet at 11 a.m. Saturday Jan. 26 in the third-floor conference room at The Kansas City Star. Officers for 2002 will be elected, reports covering 2001 will be presented and an agenda set for KCABJ programs for 2002. KCABJ officers for 2001 were Benita Y. Williams, president; Tanyanika N. Samuels, vice president/print; Natalie Moultrie, vice president/broadcast; Joi Preciphs, secretary; and Lewis Diuguid, treasurer. Persons who want to run for a 2002 seat should call Benita at 234-5908.

KCABJ has only two annual functions. They are the KCABJ Urban Student Journalism Workshop at Rockhurst University and the KCABJ Media Awards program. The student workshop helps attract and train young people for the profession, and the media awards program honors the best news stories and media depictions about people of color. The membership in the first month will determine whether it wants to take on other projects, which in the past have included a black film festival during Black History Month, community forums based on events in the news and media awareness programs to help people learn how they can get the media to cover things involving their church, school, business or group.

Reports will be presented on the financial well-being of KCABJ and the outcome of the banquet in November.

News From Elsewhere

A new study found that a lack of professional challenges and limited opportunities for advancement were the key reasons journalists of color are leaving newsroom jobs.

The American Society of Newspaper Editors commissioned the study, and it was funded by The Freedom Forum. The study prompted ASNE to forge new alliances with minority journalists organizations to keep journalists of color from leaving the industry.

"Journalists of color are not convinced that they have equal opportunities for advancement or that they are being judged by the same evaluative criteria as white journalists," according to the research study conducted by researcher Larry McGill.

The results of the study were presented to the ASNE board and diversity committee members and leaders of the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Native American Journalists Association, UNITY: Journalists of Color and the Asian American Journalists Association.

ASNE initiated the study after the annual ASNE survey of newsroom diversity in 2001 found that the number of minority journalists working at daily newspapers fell from 11.85 to 11.64 in 2000 even though newsrooms hired more first-time minority professionals than in any of the past 10 years. The main cause of the drop -- the first in 23 years of record-keeping -- was the departure of a large number of minority journalists. Blacks, Asians, Latinos and Native Americans constitute about a third of the U.S. population.

ASNE in 1978 had set a goal to have the number of jobs in newsroom throughout America equal the percentage of minorities in the population by 2000. That goal was pushed back to 2025 in recent years when it became obvious that the increase in the number of minorities filling newsroom jobs as occurring too slowly to keep up with the rapid growth of minorities in the population. Minorities held only 4 percent of the newsroom jobs in 1978. Today about 40 percent of the daily newspapers in America still employ no minority journalists.

McGill reviewed 13 surveys of minority journalists conducted from 1989 to 2000. McGill discovered:

-- Between one-fifth and one-third of journalists of color interviewed have indicated that they do not expect to remain in journalism over the long term. Journalists of color indicated a much stronger likelihood of leaving the field than white journalists.

-- Minority journalists cited a lack of advancement opportunities as being a key motivation for them leaving the profession. White journalists in comparison ranked advancement opportunities last among the reasons they might leave the field.

-- Newsroom supervisors must strive to create an atmosphere that demonstrates that the contributions of journalists of color are equally valued and rewarded.

-- Newsrooms need to go beyond ``fair'' and become ``self-conscious.'' Managers need to ensure that committee representatives, story selection, story assignments, promotion opportunities, communication of information and career development include journalists of color.

The Kansas City Call reported in December that 36 civil rights groups, including some black media organizations, have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the Federal Communications Commission's equal opportunity recruitment requirement.

The action is in response to a federal appeals court last January throwing out the FCC's new gender and minority recruitment rules. Without the guidelines, stations are under no obligation to maintain staffs that include journalists of color or women.

The black organizations that signed the petition include the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, the National Association of Black Media Professionals, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

A new book is out called Coloring the News. It's by John McGowan. It received positive reviews from The Wall Street Journal. McGowan blames the national erosion of newspaper circulation on the industry's efforts to reach out to people of color. Wayne Dawkins, a columnist with the Daily Press in News Port News, Va., debunked McGowan's premise, saying the country and the press are better off when the newspapers expose myths and assumptions especially involving diversity.

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists in December released a report titled ``Network Brownout 2001: The Portrayals of Latinos in Network Television News, 2000.''

Its findings include that of the 16,000 stories on ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN, only 84 or 0.053 percent were about Latinos. Stories on Elian Gonzalez were not included in the overall total. Out of 12,000 news stories that aired in 1999, only 162 stories, or 1.3 percent, were about Latinos. The number of story topics about Latinos also dropped from 18 in 1999 to nine in 2000. The length of time for stories about Latinos also declined from two minutes and 45 seconds in 1999 to one minute and 50 seconds in 2000 -- a substantial and significant drop of almost a minute. The report concludes, saying Latino stories continue to be seriously underrepresented in television news and their portrayals are often stereotypical and highly divergent from the true essence of Latino society and culture. Black and Latino civil rights organizations have for the last three years pointed out deficiencies within the television media in hiring people of color for news and other programming jobs both on and off camera. The report can be found at www.nahj.org.

The Hook-Up