Many current and former KCABJ members presented a strong showing at the UNITY Journalists of Color Convention in Washington, D.C., this month.

They included KCABJ Vice President/Print Tanyanika Samuels, KCABJ Secretary Eyobong Ita, KCABJ Treasurer Lewis Diuguid, past president of KCABJ Anita Parran, members Joi L. Preciphs, Eugene Scott, Norma J. Martin, Steve Penn, Yvette Walker, Pamela Spencer, Jenee' Osterheldt, Fatimeh El-Sherif, Liliya Karimova, Kesha Moorefield, Lisette Garcia, Melanie Coffee, Andre Jackson, Kathy Times, Jennifer Sanchez, Malecia El-Amin, Stan Austin, Gromer Jeffers, Terrence Harris and Gregory Fields.

KCABJ member Jenee' Osterheldt led a session on attracting young readers, which was attended by about 70 journalists. President Bush and Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry addressed the convention.

Bush's speech opened some old wounds as Unity attendees were accused of being less than professional in the polite reception they gave the president vs. the enthusiastic applause that Kerry received. But NABJ Vice President/Print Bryan Monroe points out that no similar criticism from the press was leveled at journalists attending this year's American Society of Newspaper Editors/Newspaper Association of America convention when "mainly white audiences of journalists" gave Bush a standing ovation and a toast.

Secretary of State Colin Powell and Time Warner Board Chairman and CEO Dick Parsons also spoke at the Unity convention.

Increasing newsroom diversity was the primary goal of the convention, which was a combination of the National Association of Black Journalists, National Hispanic Journalists Association, the Asian American Journalists Association and the Native American Journalists Association. About 7,500 people attended the convention. Unity conventions have been in 1994 in Atlanta and 1999 in Seattle.

Also during Unity, NABJ members voted to reduce its board of directors from 19 to 14 members. The membership also decided to let the constitution and bylaws committee serve as a clearing house for all constitutional amendment proposals before going to the ballot. Before, members could just submit a measure to appear on the ballot.

NABJ also announced during Unity that it has 4,721 members. Yet only 192 voted in the election.

The Unity News, the newspaper reporting on the convention, said that the Indiana University School of Journalism conducted an American Journalist Survey. It found that of the 1,500 journalists from all media sectors polled that the median salary for U.S. journalists rose to $43,588 in 2001. That was up more than $12,000 over 1991. But the study found that journalists had less buying power than they had in 1970 when the median income for journalists was $11,133.

The Unity News also reported that the convention failed to meet its fund-raising goal of $2.5 million, which resulted in some programming cutbacks. The expected net income for Unity was $1.7 million.

The convention newspaper also reported a drop in the number of women in print and broadcast journalism. The American Society of Newspaper Editors reported that in 1999 women held 36.88 percent of the newsroom jobs. But that fell to 36.88 percent by 2003. In television, the Radio-Television and News Directors Association reported that women held 40 percent of the jobs in 1999. But they were in only 39.3 percent of the TV newsroom positions in 2003. In radio, women held 35.6 percent of the newsroom jobs in 1999, but only 22.4 percent in 2003.

The Unity News reported that a recent study found that the Washington press corps is nearly all white. Only 10.5 percent, or 60 of the 574 journalists covering Washington for major newspapers, were journalists of color. Minority journalists only constitute 12.94 percent of all journalists in the newspaper industry. Minorities make up only 21.8 percent of the television industry, according to a July study by the Radio-Television News Directors Association.

The Call of Kansas City reported in its July 30 edition that the racial and ethnic diversity of the people in print and broadcast industry jobs continues to lag pitifully behind the diversity of the nation. Journalists of color in the print industry only hold 12.9 percent of the newsroom jobs compared with U.S. minorities constituting about 33 percent of the nation's population of 291 million people. The American Society of Newspaper Editors taken an annual newsroom census since 1978, when minorities held less than 4 percent of the newsroom jobs in America. ASNE's goal is to have the percentage of minorities in newsrooms equal the percentage of people of color in the U.S. population by 2025. The previous deadline was 2000.

Media Awards Deadline

The KCABJ membership decided at the July meeting to extend the deadline of the 13th Annual KCABJ Media Awards to Aug. 20.

So far, 25 entries have been received. Several persons and media companies have contacted KCABJ officers saying they also planned to enter. The KCABJ Media Awards honor journalists and the media in Greater Kansas City for enterprise stories, pictures, artwork, advertising, commentary, new media and messages that focus on the lifestyles, struggles and successes of African Americans and other people of color.

The KCABJ Thumbs Down Award goes to the media or persons in the media who have done the most to negatively affect the image of people of color. All entries will be added to the KCABJ Media Resource Center at the Black Archives of Mid-America Inc., which began in 1992. KCABJ will present the awards on Nov. 13 at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center. Also at the awards program, KCABJ will name its scholarship winners from the 2004 KCABJ Urban Student Journalism Academy.

About the academy, all of the students' stories have been through the first wave of editing. They now go to KCABJ member Pamela Spencer, who will do the final editing and design the pages for the 2004 KCABJ Journal. That newspaper is due out in time for the awards program. The Kansas City Star has annually published the student newspaper.

KSHB-NBC, Channel 41 contributed time and resources to producing the student newscast.

Media Stereotyping

A new study by a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher found that people who watch TV crime news are quicker to judge suspects who are African-Americans than those who are white when the suspect's mug shot without a name is displayed or when the suspect is shown wearing handcuffs.

The study by Glenn Leshner, MU associate professor of journalism, found that respondents were quicker to judge African-American suspects of a serious crime in a television story when the suspect was shown in a dehumanizing way. The study also said respondents were quickest to judge white suspects when they were depicted in a nondehumanizing way but were slower about judging black suspects positively.

Leshner said the results suggest that the dehumanizing depictions encourage participants to rely more on cultural stereotyping when making evaluations than the nondehumanizing depictions. Persons who participated in the study also were asked to evaluate the credibility of each story. The study showed that the respondents determined that the least credible stories were the nondehumanizing stories involving African-American suspects. But the most credible stories were the nondehumanizing stories involving white suspects.

Leshner said in a prepared statement, "Perhaps journalists can view their role, in part, as deconditioning cultural stereotypes in the media by presenting less inflammatory images in their newscasts, even at the risk of losing credibility." The study will be published soon as a chapter in the book, "Multidisciplinary Approaches to Communication Law Research."

News Worth Exploring