For the first time in history, four major minority journalist groups will meet to discuss problems with racism in the media and the future role of minorities in journalism. "Unity '94," a multi-cultural journalism conference to be held at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Ga. July 27-31, will bring together the Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Black Journalists, Native American Journalists Association and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists for a week of activities that look at racial stereotypes in the media, political correctness, minorities in journalism and civil rights leaders. The conference took six years to plan and is expected to draw about 6,000 participants.
"I think it's important for journalists of color to discuss issues such as jobs and advancing in journalism," said AAJA member Benny Evangelista, a business reporter for The Oakland Tribune. who plans to attend "Unity '94." "If we in the newsrooms are not properly covering the ethnic communities, we are not doing our jobs as journalists."
Another person attending the conference is Mary Ellen Butler, the chairwoman of the Minority Participation Committee of the National Conference of Editorial Writers. She will be running a workshop and panel for editorial writers to talk about problems which concern them. "It's a good idea for all four groups to get together," Butler said. "It shows unity."
Part of the convention includes a presention of News Watch, a project of SF State's Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism that studied mainstream news coverage of minorities for about a year. Its purpose was to examine racism and ethnic stereotypes.
"We're looking at slurs, stereotypes and biases," said Jon Funabiki, director of News Watch and founding director of CIIJ. "It (the idea for News Watch) came up as a result of "Project Zinger" (a CIIJ project which looked at stereotypes in news media coverage of Asian/Pacific Americans)."
Erna Smith, a journalism professor at SF State, was the principle writer for African-American issues in News Watch. She believes the media has progressed in their treatment of African Americans in the last 25 years, but still has a long way to go.
"Covered as a whole, the media is not representative of black life in thought and culture," said Smith, who says "Unity '94" shows how far minority journalists have advanced in the past few decades. ̉Some of it (the media coverage) inadvertantly reinforces stereotypes."
Some of the examples mentioned in News Watch were voluntarily submitted by people around the country.
"We looked at about 1,800 submissions," Funabiki said. "It wasn't as big as we hoped." News Watch was funded by a $225,000 grant from The Ford Foundation and other co-sponsors which included "Unity '94," AAJA, NAHJ, NAJA and NABJ. Some of the project's 31 participants were Marty Uribes from KRON, Carolyn Tyler from KGO, KQED-FM news director Raul Ramirez, Helen Zia from Ms. magazine, and Tribune columnist Bill Wong. It will be available for high school and college journalism programs across the United States.