Monday, Dec. 19, 1988

Aiming Beyond White Readers

By Laurence Zuckerman

Well-intentioned newspaper executives have long bemoaned their generally poor record in recruiting minorities. Now they are discovering a compelling reason to hire minority reporters and give more space to minority issues: the bottom line. As the country's growing racial diversity is reflected in newspaper- readership studies, news executives are realizing that they must appeal to minority readers or risk losing them.

The Quincy Patriot Ledger (circ. 87,000), for example, has hired three Chinese-speaking reporters and a photographer to improve the paper's coverage of the Boston suburb's fast-growing Asian community. But editor William Ketter, who is chairman of the minorities committee of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, believes newspapers have to go further. They must, he insists, make a "deliberate and conscious effort" to reflect the diversity of their communities in every part of the paper, including graphics and comic strips.

No news organization has embraced this ethic more enthusiastically than Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper chain and publisher of USA Today. Credited with one of the industry's best records for hiring and promoting minorities and women at its 88 daily newspapers, Gannett has mounted a campaign to combat what Charles Overby, the vice president for news, calls "the insidious stereotyping that tends to take place by white male managers."

Known as mainstreaming, the Gannett policy urges editors and reporters to include minorities in stories in which their race, sex or ethnic background are unrelated. For example, quoting a black professor in a story about Black History Month does not qualify, but citing a black economist in a story about the budget deficit does. "Mainstreaming," explains Overby, "is affirmative action in the news columns."

; Gannett editors are encouraged to include photographs of minorities and women on their front pages, and several Gannett papers have compiled handouts for reporters listing minority sources. Each year reporters are evaluated on their performance in a number of different categories, including "news of minorities." The company offers an annual All-American award to the paper that has done the best job of weaving minorities into its pages.

Most Gannett reporters give their bosses high marks for sensitivity, but some are worried that such high-pressure incentives can lead to the worst type of tokenism. "To put a black face on the front page because you haven't had a black face on the front page for three weeks, that's insulting," says USA Today reporter Mike McQueen. Others say the push to represent minorities in mainstream stories too often replaces solid minority coverage. "Mainstreaming won't persuade minorities to buy the paper if we don't cover them and their issues," says one reporter.

But Gannett editors stress that mainstreaming should never conflict with sound news judgment. "You don't have to compromise to follow this policy," says USA Today editor Peter Prichard. "It's just a question of trying to broaden your vision." With a smaller percentage of white male readers in its future, Gannett has clearly seen the light.

With reporting by Naushad S. Mehta/New York