Key Quote from this IM Interview with Dr. Mercedes Lynn de Uriarte:

Dr. Mercedes Lynn de Uriarte, an associate professor at the University of Texas, Austin, makes the case in this IM Interview that “there’s not much intellectual diversity in the newsroom.” Indeed, her argument, backed by research, is that newsrooms are culturally anti-intellectual and that journalism classrooms have lots of room for improvement too.

I decided to do an IM Interview with de Uriarte after she gave me an earful about the title of our year long project Journalism and the Public: Restoring the Trust.

She has a had a long productive academic and professional career, including eight years at the Los Angeles Times, where she was an assistant editor of the Opinion section and a staff writer on urban affairs. In 2003 she was co-author of a major study entitled Diversity Disconnects: From Class Room to News Room. So let’s get started.

Leonard Witt: Normally I start these interviews with a real time question, but in this case I am going to backup in time to when I asked you to be a moderator for one of our Journalism and the Public: Restoring the Trust conference panels. Here was your salvo back to me:

Mercedes Lynn de Uriarte: Even the title of this gathering makes an assumption that may not be valid. What public trust are we talking about? Certainly minorities have been complaining for more than 100 years about their treatment in the news.

They still represent only a tiny fraction of the participants who produce the news. Women have complained almost as long. Yet the title assumes that they (presumably part of the public) have trusted until only recently…Surveys continue to show the press is still white male dominant and that for some time its primary audience has been that group of a certain age.

Are we concerned now because they no longer trust? However, I think that given the track record historically of censorship by omission …and the ongoing distortion of news about minority populations, leaders and issues, the mono-perspective content, the press has long failed its mission to inform. Moreover, members of the press were incredibly complacent as the press became a corporate entity charged with developing a news product.

And journalism educators overwhelmingly educate students for the fit of mainstream; alternative press options are rarely, if ever, provided at journalism education job fairs according to survey research. Yet alternative news has long led the mainstream in augmenting news perspective and correcting press errors…

Witt: Now we are back to real time, de Uriarte responds to her earlier comments:

de Uriarte: Well, if you remember, our earlier conversation, a month or so ago, began with that question. And with the assumption that the public was inclusive in its perception of the press. But minorities, and I would say many women, have never trusted the press. In fact, a key finding of the Kerner Commission in 1968 was that blacks perceived the press as the white press and a conclusion of the Kerner Commission was that in its “coverage” the press had “contributed to the schism” between black and white communities. I think that the more you know, the less you trust the mainstream press. And certainly, from my nine years with the LA TImes, I heard experts scorned as “eggheads;” newsrooms seem to be culturally anti-intellectual… There are all sorts of discouragements to contextualization. But context (among other things) builds trust. The press is a skimmer.

Witt: A skimmer? What do you mean by that?

de Uriarte: They skim off the surface of events. They do not provide depth and in newsrooms often rationalize that by saying that they provide news, not history. So what they wind up doing is marginalizing or omitting a significant percentage of the population (a growing percentage) and censoring by omission much of what they include for their audience. This is often done to make certain that they travel within a familiar “comfort zone.” Over the years, as the press has redefined itself as an entity that provides a product rather than one that is protected by the First Amendment in order to provide civic purpose, they have cheapened the profession and made it non-courageous.

Witt: Whew, those are hard hitting comments. Can you back them up with any concrete examples, statistics or research , perhaps from the in-depth Diversity Disconnect study you did a couple of years ago?

de Uriarte: Well, there are now so many documentaries and an increasing number of speeches by well established press people that it is hard to know where to start. Bill Moyers has given several speeches, some of which are available on line. The weapons of mass destruction episode is but one; the soft treatment of the nominees for various administrative posts that have been convicted in the past of lying to Congress during our covert wars in Central America in the 1980s–activities we all knew about at the time, but couldn’t get into our papers. The scapegoating of well-know journalists for telling “unpopular, but accurate” stories about US backed actions by death squads–like Ray Bonner of the New York Times.

As an editor at the LA Times for years it was my job to build a “stable” of writers for Opinion pieces (1200-word Sunday expansions of newsworthy topics). My intellectual beat was US-Latin American relations, issues dealing with US minorities. I quickly learned that the alternative press was ahead of the mainstream press by months in covering controversial topics. And Soldiers of Fortune told me more about what was going on in Central America than did the foreign pages. But I think most importantly, not until the UN Truth Commissions published their findings about what went on in these poor, majority rural nations did the US own up to its actions, many of which were found to be war crimes by the World Court. The citizens of this nation have a free press that is charged with keeping us informed so that we can govern with enlightenment. And we are not holding the press accountable to do that. Corporate America has become the power behind the pen. I grew up in a nation without a free press (Mexico) and I am stunned by the willingness to give away one of the most powerful protectors of freedom–an independent press.

One of the research activities of the project that produced Diversity Disconnects was to explore the intellectual vigor of members of the press. We made more than 1500 calls to get 615 open-ended interviews that asked reporters, editors and news directors where they went for information. What they read, what memberships they held in professional organizations, what they watched, etc. etc.

What we found was circular reinforcement. 96 percent read themselves and each other; 85 percent watch anchored news. 16 percent read conservative press; 12 percent read liberal/progressive press and 5 percent read race or ethnic target press. So how does one expand ones perspective on events? Locate knowledgeable sources outside the comfort zone? Only 25 percent listen to NPR and 15 percent watch PBS. 72 percent belong to professional organizations, but only 14 percent belong to race or ethnic specific professional organizations, even though membership is open to all in all professional organizations and minorities are expected to belong to “white” press organizations. Doesn’t seem to me that there is much exposure to other points of view. So how can this be either a pursuit of accuracy or an inclusive canopy of coverage? And without those elements how can the press be trustworthy?

Now we have packaged videotapes from government direct to news outlets presented to audience as news…this is trust building? I certainly hope not. Most Americans do not knowingly pay taxes for the production of propaganda or expect to be hoodwinked by their local news channel. So where’s the courage in this sort of collusion? Why did other nations doubt the weapons claims, but not the US press which is one of the best educated, best equipped and highest paid?

Witt: So when you say all that to members of the news media, what’s their response?

de Uriarte: A growing number of researchers, writers and organizations in the association for Media Reform (with a very large attendance already signed up for their convention in St. Louis in May) are saying these things to the press. Historically, they plead deadlines, inability to find “reliable” sources, editing, space, but they have never really addressed the case studies by Gans, Altschull (30-year professional journalist) Chomsky, Solomon, Black, Pedelty, et al… And from their perspective, why should they? They define accuracy and objectivity. But as I tell my students, when you define a news story as objective, anyone’s news story, you have just defined your own parameters of bias and are obligated to look further. But the stats from Diversity Disconnects indicate that the press doesn’t look far from its circle of decision makers, the majority of whom conform to a certain profile. There’s not much intellectual diversity in the newsroom.

Tough questions are not in vogue at the moment neither by the press nor to the press by the majority. The idea that the press is accountable to the public seems to be in an “off-line” position.

Witt: Most of your examples of news media ignorance or blind spots seem to be leaning toward leftist causes. What about the right’s charges of liberal bias?

de Uriarte: Accuracy is neither left nor right. Preventing US support of death squads in El Salvador or Contra in Nicaragua is neither left nor right; preventing the bombing of innocent civilians in Panama or Iraq is neither left nor right.

Which corporate owners of the press are you defining as liberal?

Witt: I am torn about saying this because it can put the brakes on a logical discussion. But you know some people are going to read this and say not only is the news media filled with bleeding-heart liberals, so is academia. Instead I want to talk about your statement: I am stunned by the willingness to give away one of the most powerful protectors of freedom–an independent press. Could you expand?

de Uriarte: That charge of bleeding hearts and right wing pundits is so threadbare it hardly merits response. The academy is supposed to be a forum for the free exchange of ideas in the interest of developing critical thinking skills. And if you read the Hutchins Commission (and significant bodies of ethics codes since their 1947 standards were set) you find that standard 3 states that the public can expect the press to provide “a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism.” So how do we do that if we have not developed critical thinkers?

Whenever questions become “irreverent” or hard to respond to those labels of bleeding hearts and liberal bias get tossed out as silencers. No wonder in 25 years the press has not been able to diversify. That’s one of the silencers to minority points of view.

I think that the citizens of this nation are not insistent enough that the press live up to its obligations to serve the cause of democratic self governance. As Altschull writes and documents in his work Agents of Power, press performance is shielded by the mythology of a watchdog role. The compression of press ownership into five basic owners of all significant forms of media (though not quite of all products) should have been resisted long ago.

Ben Bagdikian, former editor at the Washington Post, started warning Americans about the implications of this in the 1970s. In doing so he was echoing the warnings written by the Hutchins Commission in 1947. That’s more than 35 and 57 years ago. Kerner wrote about exclusion of whole populations more than 40 years ago…there’s a willingness in slow learning also. It’s called denial in some circles, but in the end the result is the same. And I think the Carnegie Report that finds a flight from newspapers (where space could allow context, unlike the sound bite) and the spike in US subscriptions to British press after 911 and to date is another testimony of untrustworthiness.

That concludes Part I of the Interview, where de Uriarte has laid out some problems. For Part II which will be posted soon, I am interested in finding out what, from her point of view, can be done to fix some of the problems. For example I have this question:

You talked about the need to developed critical thinkers in the newsroom. In your Diversity Disconnect study you laid part of the blame the newsroom problems on journalism education. What can we as educators do to fix journalism education? Given the track record historically of censorship by omission …and the ongoing distortion of news about minority populations, leaders and issues, the mono-perspective content, the press has long failed its mission to inform.

Part II of the Mercedes Lynn de Uriarte interview. A key quote:

Leonard Witt: Hi Dr. de Uriarte. Thanks for coming back to Part II of our IM Interview. You did an excellent job of outlining some of the problems. Let’s now talk about what newsrooms and individual journalists can do so solve the problems. You mentioned censorship by omission, meaning the journalists just ignore certain populations. How would you fix that?

Mercedes de Uriarte: The fastest solution is probably to assign regular “beat” coverage of areas not usually covered. In the 1980s the LA Times had a marketing map of Los Angeles that showed display advertisers areas where the Times did regular coverage and where they had compiled extensive demographic data. Each section was color coded. In the center was a large blank area…the minority concentration section of the city. When I read newspapers that don’t have regular coverage of all its communities I see that map in my mind’s eye. But beat assignments are not enough.

Any contemporary journalist should emerge from college with a hefty understanding of minority history in this country. But the required courses are often as white as the newspapers. So aspiring journalists, like professional journalists, have to invest in their own intellectual growth. They should be learning about these things on their own. Otherwise what we get is a domestic version of parachute coverage. A little stand-up in front of some symbolic site and a little surface treatment. That’s why the research for Diversity Disconnects did the extensive survey interviews seeking to determine the intellectual foundation on which news stories about minorities are built. No news story begins on the day it is assigned, just like no revolution begins with the first sign of violence. There are historical context of build-ups and backdrops of other events leading up to the point that something becomes “newsworthy.”

Newsrooms could do more top down on this as well. I once spent several years working with a local newspaper whose editor wanted content change. We began with regular noon seminars for the decision makers. I always thought that was a wise executive editor. The intent was to lower the tensions between minority journalists proposing stories and editors dismissing them as evidence of bias because they were unfamiliar with any of the history related to the event that provided context. But as corporate America turns newspapers into products instead of civic investment, coverage tends to become more aimed to please the most affluent consumer base.

In my experience growing up in Mexico and my subsequent experience covering stories in Spanish-language nations, most mainstream/corporate foreign correspondents needed translators. Sometimes it seems that many reporters covering minority communities are equally culturally illiterate.

There are significant differences in the responses that minority journalists and their white counterparts, especially editors, make on surveys of newsroom environments, a reality they both share. So it is not surprising that they often see minority areas, events, issues differently. If I were looking to make change in my newsroom, I’d take those gaps seriously and wonder what lenses were at play and what they implied in terms of content.

Witt: So where do we start to fix the cultural ignorance? I did an interview with Davis Buzz Merritt in which he said change in newsrooms is generational. Today’s student in 20 years will be tomorrow’s newsroom leader. However, if we wait 20 years there might be no newsrooms. How do we jumpstart this now?

de Uriarte: I think we have to admit that the diversity industry has not been as effective as necessary to make change. I think we are going to have to provide incentives and reward journalists who take action to acquire additional eduction on these populations. This can have many options besides taking a formal class. But I think that there has to be a signal that this is professional, important and rewardable. I think editors and other decision makers have to be willing to make this investment in themselves to model its importance. In the end, it is democracy that the press is empowered to protect, not selected sections of the population’s preferences. Even a book club or a documentary circle where individuals agreed to read/see something and come together to critique it could be useful.

In 20 years, the nation will no longer have a white majority. So content is definitely something that we can wait for time to change. Moreover, if you read what is going on in J schools and department that is documented in Diversity Disconnects after we reviewed 300 syllabi that had been given to the accreditation teams to prove that they were meeting the standards to educate for diversity, you find that there is a real absence of educational vigor in this regard as well. Some syllabi did no more than state. “Course encourages diversity in student assignments…”

Witt: Given that, do you think the minority populations are just going to fragment away from the mainstream media, ignore it and produce their own media? Is it too late for the mainstream media to engage with populations it has for so long ignored or covered poorly?

de Uriarte: I hope that does not happen. I am not sure how one maintains a democracy of fragments. But I also think that targeted media gives mainstream media an excuse to continue to fail its obligations. The protection and the power that the press enjoys obliges it, as well, to serve the nation. As the Hutchins Commission said, “Free expression is therefore unique among liberties: it promotes and protects all the rest…Civilized society is a working system of ideas. It lives and changes by the consumption of ideas.”

Too much of mainstream news is predictable and repetitive. The familiar squeezes out space for the rest–for the less known. But as that Commission also said, “An idea should not be stifled by the circumstances of its birth.”

To improve the press, journalists should be interacting with a lot of ideas, especially those that are fresh, new and come from different directions.

Witt: I find it interesting that critics like you and Dori Maynard, who one would think would be marching off to form alternative media, are saying you want the mainstream media to survive.

de Uriarte: Most people who read newspapers rely solely on mainstream papers. So while I strongly support alternative press and require students in my classes read it, I expect (I think we should demand) mainstream to improve itself and the press to take pride in its ability to do so.

Witt: I know you have to run, but you imply a lot of the problems here are a result of a deficiency in journalism education programs, where do we start making fixes there?

de Uriarte: Oh, Leonard…what a task! Frankly, I think that j education (jed) has done the least to make the kinds of changes in curriculum, student body and faculty that would lead to a quality change in j education that would impact press content.

For one thing j education is a house divided mostly dominated by the academics (PhDs) whose primary interest is not in teaching practical skills. This is well documented in Betty Medsger’s study Winds of Change. Hiring, tenuring and promoting too often comes to require duplicating what the PhDs do rather than excelling in the professional field. I say this with a PhD and a significant track record on both sides of the house, but I think this division too often weakens the professional side of jed and in the end, leads to undermining democracy itself.

This nation needs a strong, courageous, independent, inclusive press to protect democracy. And that should me the first concern of j education.Any contemporary journalist should emerge from college with a hefty understanding of minority history in this country. But the required courses are often as white as the newspapers.