Equipoise

In an honest look in the mirror, NPR ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos explores its newsroom and audience:

To see if Latino, black and Asian listeners find programming that appeals to them, I broke down NPR audience figures by higher education and income. I discovered that within these categories, the levels of representation of the minority groups and whites are not far apart. Minority staffing in the newsroom and on air, meanwhile, continues to improve. NPR does significantly better than the industry averages in radio, television and newspapers. But then, we expect NPR to do better…

…But I do have a… caveat. To look at race and ethnicity does not mean that I believe NPR should write any goals into stone. Race and ethnicity still matter in America, but less as time goes by. I used to teach immigration policy at Harvard, and that background tells me that the United States is the single most successful example in world history of a multi-racial and multi-ethnic society. Sociologists and market researchers today have identified what some call “a new mainstream” in which the educated and the young identify with each other more than with their ethnic and racial roots, though the roots don’t disappear.

Read through for the details.

There are things I like and don’t like about this article. I like how he compared apples to apples and looked at diversity within the college educated segment. I like how he pointed out that it doesn’t require a diverse journalism crew to present news on the full spectrum of diversity. Actually, I thought his whole analysis on diversity within NPR and journalism was great. My one caveat is his one paragraph on the importance of diversity in America, the one posted above. I don’t have the qualifications of being a former Harvard professor, so here’s just my two cents. Saying that race and ethnicity will matter less over time is the same thing as saying we are becoming more homogeneous over time. In order to be the success story of a multi-ethnic society, race and ethnicity must matter. I think the word that is missing here is equality; over time, one hopes, the issue of race and ethnic equality with disappear. The ideal America is one in which all are treated equally and also one in which cultural differences bring richness to life.

And one last thing. Just based on personal experience, but while I have friends from many racial and ethnic backgrounds, my closest friends have always been those with whom I share cultural and ethnic ties. So I don’t know if the statement that youth these days relate more to each other than their cultural roots quite applies. I am still relating to my peers, but I am also relating to them because we have similar cultural upbringings.

(via npr)