Leadership in Diversity: New Models for Growing Audience, Talent and Revenues

• By: ASNE staff
• On: 06/03/2011 13:47:00
• In: Leadership in diversity sessions

The news industry in the United States is urgently trying to find ways to respond to rapidly growing ethnic changes. In an effort to address some of these issues, ASNE is coordinating two working sessions on diversity in the news business – one in conjunction with the annual convention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in Orlando in June and another in New York in September.

The sessions, entitled Leadership in Diversity: New Models for Growing Audience, Talent and Revenues, will involve top news, digital and business executives, and non–news executives whose companies have executed successful efforts to reach communities of color.

The Leadership in Diversity sessions are also intended to provide new insights into and new tools to help news organizations strengthen existing efforts in order to ensure that American citizens have access to information that reflects their interests and concerns and helps them make informed decisions about their lives and their government. Newsroom diversity is key in this effort because it enhances the accuracy of reporting, and is thus a part of the effort to increase news literacy at a time of an abundance of information, not all of it credible.

The point here is clear. We want to repurpose the news diversity argument from the context of a social experiment to a business opportunity. We want news organization business leaders to learn from those who have found real financial gain through diversity.

The first Leadership in Diversity sessions will be held Tuesday and Wednesday, June 14 and 15, at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort and will focus on developing content that will inform diverse audiences on issues affecting their lives. Key to this process are recruiting, hiring, retaining and promoting people of color at all levels. The sessions will be held at the convention hotel from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. There is no fee to participate.

A second Leadership in Diversity session will be held Monday and Tuesday, September 19 and 20, at The New York Times. This session will allow media company executives to brainstorm with non-media company executives to focus on how innovation and digital strategies can be used to expand opportunities for reaching communities of color.

Participants will leave both of these two-day sessions having worked with and learned from other media and non-media company executives the advantages of serving audiences of color, and with new information and tools about how to reach those new audiences.

While the sessions are being convened by ASNE, partners in the planning process are the leaders of several newspapers and news organizations and the Associated Press Managing Editors, the Newspaper Association of America, The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, Unity: Journalists of Color, its' member associations and the National Association of Black Journalists.

The Leadership in Diversity sessions were developed as part of ASNE's diversity initiative. The ASNE Diversity Committee is co-chaired by Ronnie Agnew, Executive Editor, The Clarion-Ledger, Jackson MS and Karen Magnuson, Editor and Vice President/News, Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle.

ASNE was founded in 1922 as a nonprofit professional organization, and focuses on leadership development and journalism-related issues. ASNE promotes fair, principled journalism, defends and protects First Amendment rights, and fights for freedom of information and open government.

The Leadership in Diversity sessions are funded by the Ford Foundation, McCormick Foundation, ASNE Foundation, the Philip L. Graham Fund and Gannett Foundation.

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