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Walking the Walk?:
The Disconnect Over Minority Professional Development in the Newsroom
By
Johanna Cleary, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
University of Florida
Submitted to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
Minorities and Communication Division
April 2005
Please address correspondence to:
College of Journalism and Communications
3104 Weimer Hall
P.O. Box 118400
Gainesville, FL 32611
(352) 846-0226
[log in to unmask]
As the traditional audience continues to erode, American broadcast
news directors are challenged to find ways to attract and serve a
growing minority population. Industry leaders agree it is important
to hire representative newsroom staffs which mirror the nation's
population, partly to help supplement the disappearing viewer base.
At the same time, these newsrooms need to include managers who also
reflect the country's demographic makeup. While upper management has
long complained of a lack of qualified minority staff to promote into
news management positions, surveys of newsroom staffs, especially
minorities, have shown that they are frustrated by a perceived lack
of advancement opportunities and management support for training to
prepare them to advance. Through the use of two web-based surveys,
this study examines the contrasting views of minority and White news
directors and producers on professional development training and its
potential impact on minority staff retention.
Since 1994, the Radio-Television News Directors Association
(RTNDA) has conducted annual newsroom staffing and salary surveys to
track hiring, retention and promotion of minority staff. The 2004
survey showed that ethnic minorities hold 21.9% of all jobs in
television news, including those at Spanish-language stations
(Papper, 2004, p. 21), up from 18.1% in 2003. In radio, minorities
hold only 11.8% of all news positions. Additionally, in television
and radio newsrooms, the number of minority managers increased only
slightly from 2003 to 2004. RTNDA President Barbara Cochran (2001)
wrote, "There is a critical need for more minorities in management
positions. To keep making progress, we need to identify the rising
stars in the nation's newsrooms and give them the opportunity to
succeed" (RTNDA, 2001). Among the recommendations made by the
Columbia University's Workshop on Journalism, Race and Ethnicity
(Gissler, 2000), was to aggressively track and develop minority
journalists and to diversify newsroom management.
Many argue the problem is not that qualified minorities don't
enter the field of journalism, but that they don't stay in it. For a
number of reasons, minorities appear to leave the field at much
higher rates than their White counterparts (ASNE, 1997), but one of
the key factors identified as a reason for leaving the industry by a
Freedom Forum survey of minority journalists was a lack of promotion
opportunities (Freedom Forum, 1999).
Newsroom employees of all races repeatedly cite the
opportunity for professional training and development as a key factor
contributing to their job satisfaction (Cook & Banks, 1993; Council
of Presidents of National Journalism Organizations, 2002). Yet,
while news managers recognize the importance of a well-trained staff,
most spend only a fraction of their budgets, if that, on professional
development (Miller, 2001). Various recent surveys indicate that
news managers in the U.S. are spending, on average, less than 1% to
4% on training staff (Giles, 2002; Miller, 2001). A significant
factor contributing to a productive and responsive newsroom culture,
training has numerous benefits that provide a return on
investment. Robert Giles, a former editor and publisher of the
Detroit News, and currently the curator of Harvard's Nieman
Foundation for Journalism, recently noted:
A culture that values training and education does more than
improve the quality of news coverage. It contributes to higher
levels of satisfaction on the job and to lower turnover not to
mention the prospect of increased trust among readers and
viewers (2002, p. 5).
Giles went on to say that while the benefits of investing in the
intellectual capital of news workers was obvious, news managers, by
and large, were not making those investments, even in a time of
unprecedented profits.
Review of the Literature
A recent study from the Council of Presidents of National Journalism
Organizations, titled "Newsroom Training: Where's the Investment?"
(2002), produced four major findings: (1) the nation's journalists
say a lack of training is their major source of job dissatisfaction,
(2) more than two thirds of working journalists say they receive no
regular skills training, (3) news companies have not increased their
training budgets in the past decade, and (4) news executives say they
should provide more training for their journalists, but time and
insufficient budgets are the main reasons they do not. A study by
the American Society of Newspaper Editors (1997) found that lack of
professional challenge and a perceived lack of opportunity for
advancement were the reasons print journalists of color most often
gave for deciding to leave the newspaper industry.
Researcher Lawrence T. McGill (2001) reviewed 13 studies related to
minority journalist retention. This meta analysis of studies
conducted from 1989 to 2000, found that (1) between one-fifth and
one-third of journalists of color did not believe they would remain
in journalism for the long term, (2) pay increases would not be
enough to keep minority journalists in the field, and (3) having
positive mentoring relationships with supervisors was important, but
not sufficient, to keep minority journalists in the field. This
research indicates the importance of studying ways of satisfying and
retaining employees, particularly minority employees, through any
means possible, including the use of systematic professional development.
The subject of minority staffing of newsrooms has been of interest
to communication researchers since at least the late 1960s. Most of
those early studies focused on the newspaper newsroom staffing levels
of minorities (Trayes, 1969, 1970, 1979; and Davis & Westmoreland,
1974). Other studies examined the enrollment levels for African
Americans in college journalism schools (Trayes, 1969) on the
assumption that these programs would eventually feed employees into
newsrooms. The earliest research offered mostly discouraging news,
with minority employment and enrollment percentages numbering in the
low single digits.
The lack of coverage of various minority communities by the
mainstream press has been well documented by scholars (Cropp, Frisby
& Mills, 2003; Martindale, 1985, 1990; and Pease, 1990). Coverage of
minority groups often focuses on negative aspects of the community,
including crime stories, or, at the opposite end of the spectrum,
"stereotypically positive ones" that concentrate primarily on
entertainers or sports figures (Barnett, 2003; Alvear, 1998;
Woodruff, 1998; Gist, 1990; and Roberts, 1975). As Entman and
Rojecki (2000) noted, both print and broadcast media have largely
failed to provide a balanced view of racial minorities in their news coverage.
The importance of minority staffing in influencing editorial
content is also well established. A recent study pointed out that
"local television news continues to report from a mostly White
perspective and fails to report on the activities and concerns of
African American, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans"
(Poindexter, Smith & Heider, 2003, p. 534). Gist noted, "Whether the
issue is race, cultural diversity, gender, age, economic class or
religion, the determination of what is news is heavily
subjective. Further, news judgment inevitably reflects the
perceptual biases and cultural anchors of those making the judgment"
(1990, p. 56). Veteran journalist George Benge was quoted in a
University of Missouri (Missouri School of Journalism, 2000) report:
"There's no substitute, really, for having people on your staff in
numbers who have lived a life and who've walked a walk and talked a
talk in minority shoes. Until you have that it's very difficult, on a
daily basis, [to deal with] the ebb and flow and the give and take of
the thousands of things that occur in a newsroom" (pp. 5-6).
From an editorial content standpoint, there is a strong theoretical
basis supporting the hiring of a representative news staff. Entman
(1993) wrote of the role of framing in shaping the way journalists
approach and report stories. His premise was that every communicator
constructs a world view through which he or she sees events. The
frame is a result of the experiences and perceptions of the
individual and it differs from the frames constructed by others with
different experiences. That has been backed up by other studies
including those examining race and television news which found that
racial minorities are often neglected, misrepresented or stereotyped
(Gandy, 1996; and Wilson & Gutierrez, 1995).
Framing theory, combined with White's (1950) classic study of gate
keeping, illustrate the importance of the role of journalists in
deciding what readers and viewers see. A recent study by Johnston and
Flamiano (2002) found that while progress has been made in
diversifying newsrooms, there is still wide disagreement about how to
diversify staffing and what diversity actually means for news
organizations and news content. Even the appropriateness of diversity
is up for discussion. In Coloring the News, McGowan (2001) argued
that media outlets have become so overeager to increase diversity in
their news staffs and content that it has sometimes resulted in a
distortion of the news stemming from "political correctness." While
there is no universal agreement on the strategies, or, in some cases,
even the desireability of creating diverse staffs, these studies
illustrate the pressure to have a diverse group of news workers in
place to make content decisions for an increasingly multicultural audience.
As organizational behavior research shows, employees with
interesting, satisfying jobs are more likely to feel affective
commitment toward their company, according to Meyer and Allen
(1991). When employees believe their expectations are met by a
company, they are more likely to continue to feel positively toward
the employer (Wanous, 1976). Commitment can also be increased when
companies reimburse or pay for professional training for employees,
thus enhancing their skills, preparing them for advancement, and
signaling that they are valued by the company.
While applied in only a limited way to date, much of the
organizational culture literature is relevant to newsrooms. As Giles
(1991) pointed out, there are numerous factors that contribute to
employee morale, many of which have not been adequately addressed by
news employers. Included in that body of literature are theories
aimed primarily at individual motivating factors, including
Herzberg's Two-factor Theory (1968), which says when employers
provide "needs motivators," including recognition, achievement,
responsibility, advancement and rewarding work, it tends to inspire
workers to give better performances. In one of the few
journalism-based studies related to this theory, Harold Shaver found
that journalism graduates from seven universities selected
"possibility of growth" as the most important satisfier and the
second highest dissatisfier (1978). The message was clear: if
employees are to remain loyal to a company, they have to believe they
have the tools and the chance to advance there. Herzberg's theory
implied that one of the best ways for employers to signal to valued
employees that they do have a future with the company is to provide
consistent professional development opportunities.
The evolving body of literature on Psychological Contract Theory
argues that employees have certain expectations, whether overtly
stated or not, that they will receive benefits from their employers
as part of the work relationship (Levinson, Price, Muden, Mandl,
& Solley, 1962; Schein, 1965; Rousseau, 1989; Rousseau and McLean
Parks, 1993; Robinson,1996; Wolfe Morrison and Robinson, 1997; and
Turnley & Feldman, 2000). Those benefits may include providing
training and opportunity for advancement. If those perceived
contracts are broken by the employer, it can result in employee
dissatisfaction.
The combination of these theories, particularly those that examine
the role of employee disenchantment with the workplace, are important
when considering the potential costs of not providing employees with
professional development opportunities. Not only does the employer
lose out on having a better trained worker, but, if the employee
believes that the absence of training is indicative of a general lack
of opportunity for advancement with the company, it is highly likely
that the employer will soon also lose benefit of the worker. In the
case of hard-to-find minority staff, this loss can be especially
devastating. Studies have found the cost to replace a worker
averages 25-35% of that employee's annual salary (Parker, 2003), not
including the additional costs of training new staff. These costs
could be even higher for skilled knowledge workers. Therefore, the
financial incentive for hanging onto trained and productive staff
members should be high for broadcast companies.
A recent major survey titled "Newsroom Training: Where's the
Investment?" was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates
for the Council of Presidents of National Journalism Organizations
and found that news companies were "lagging behind other
knowledge-based companies and generally failing to meet professional
development needs." It also found that training in the news business
was "still too often thought of as an isolated frill" (Kees, 2002, p.
9). While Fortune's Magazine's list of "The 100 Best Companies to
Work For" shows that the 10 highest ranked companies average 67.6
hours of training per year per employee, only 10% of the respondents
to the PSRA survey "would even consider allowing a staff member that
much training" (p. 12). As the report pointed out, spending for
professional development of American journalists dropped in the wake
of the September 11, 2001 attacks as news organizations exercised
cuts in training budgets to try to offset increased costs of coverage.
Methodology
The study included two Web-based surveys of news directors
and producers comparing their perceptions about professional
development and its relation to job satisfaction and retention
issues. For this study, the researcher identified an initial group
of 149 potential news director participants, and another 149
producers for a matched pairs sample representing the universe of
U.S. commercial television stations. The participants were initially
identified through a randomly generated sample of the approximately
1,110 commercial broadcast newsrooms in the U.S. Because of the
importance of minority participants to the surveys, several affinity
groups for minority journalists were contacted and requested to
notify their membership about the project through a message
soliciting volunteer participants. Some agreed to post a message on
their listserv notifying their membership of the project. Through
these channels, approximately 10 additional respondents volunteered
themselves as participants.
The survey was distributed and completed in December 2003
through January 2004. Due to the rapid turnover within the broadcast
industry, the final N for the producers' list was 115 and 118 for the
news directors' list. There were 52 usable news director surveys
completed, resulting in a 44.0% response rate from that group. There
were 65 usable producer surveys completed during the same seven-week
data gathering phase for a response rate of 56.5%. The overall
combined response rate for the two surveys was 50.3%.
In this study, "minority" was defined as racial and ethnic
minorities. The concepts of "professional development" and
"training" were defined as "on-going and regular efforts, funded by
the employer, to provide job-related education to newsroom
employees." The term management was operationalized as "news
directors" since they are the highest ranking management figure in
the newsroom and likely to be the ones who make decisions about the
station's commitment and approach to professional development for the
news department. "Newsroom workers" were defined as "producers,"
employees with significant daily editorial responsibility who are
often considered to be on a potential management track because of the
scope of their responsibilities and skill sets.
Findings of the Study
Overall, 15.7% of the participating producers identified themselves
as an ethnic minority (See Table 1). In comparison, annual figures
compiled by RTNDA in 2003 indicated that ethnic minorities hold 17%
of all jobs in television news, excluding Spanish-language
stations. (This study also eliminated exclusively Spanish-language
stations.) There is no known census looking only at local broadcast
producers, so the general RTNDA newsroom figure was used as a
benchmark for this study. Those figures would indicate that the
survey sample is slightly under-representative of the full population
of minority newsroom employees, although it could be argued that
minorities are likely under-represented among producers in general
because most recruiting efforts aimed at minorities have focused on
the most "visible" on-air positions such as anchors and reporters.
There were 40 media companies represented by the 65 producers who
answered the survey.
The overall percentage of minorities responding to the news
director survey was 10.7%. In comparison, figures compiled by RTNDA
in 2003 indicated that ethnic minorities held only 6.6% of all
television news management jobs, including those at Spanish-language
stations. The RTNDA annual census was used as a basis of comparison
and that would indicate that this survey is representative perhaps
even over representative of the population of ethnic minorities
currently working in television news management. There were 33 media
companies represented among the 52 news director respondents.
Table 1
Demographic Profile of Respondents
Male
Female
White
Black
Asian
Hispanic
Average Age
Years in Journalism
Producers (N=64)
48.4
51.6
84.4
7.8
1.6
0
33
9
News Directors
(N=52)
75
25
89.4
4.3
2.1
0
44
20.7
Availability of Professional Development As Perceived By Minority Staff
(R1) Do minority managers and employees have different perceptions
concerning available professional development opportunities than
majority managers and employees?
H1: Minority producers perceive their professional development
opportunities as less available and less significant than do their
non-minority news directors.
The percentage of minority representation in the sample population
closely tracked the numbers of minorities currently working in local
broadcast news. However, at times, the relatively low raw numbers
made it difficult to state statistically significant
findings. Nonetheless, the results are reported because they may
indicate something important about how minority employees and their
supervisors view the issues.
The first question explored whether producers and news directors
believed that employees wished to receive more professional
development from their employers. In the full sample, there was near
universal agreement that employees did want additional training. When
separating the groups into whites and non-whites, the results were no
different, as indicated in Table 2. The variation was not
statistically significant.
Table 2
Do Employees Want More Professional Development Training (By Race)?
Yes
No
Producers
White
92.5%
7.5%
Non white
100%
0%
News Directors
White
100%
0%
Non white
100%
0%
(Directors: ?2 = .726, df = 1, p<.394; No chi square was computed
for "producers" since it was a constant.)
There was not a statistically significant difference in how
producers and news directors generally viewed the availability of
professional development training. In the case of both the news
director and producer groups, the minority respondents believed that
professional development was offered less frequently than did whites.
As indicated in Table 3, minority producers were the least likely to
say they had received professional development while with their
current company. Minority news directors said that training was
provided less frequently than did the White news directors. Without
controlling for race, 96.1% of all news director respondents said
that training had been provided while they were with their current
company. When including race as a variable, only 80% of the minority
news managers said that training had been provided during their
tenure at their current company. Employee longevity may be an
explanation, but considering that the tenure of a majority of news
directors is less than four years (Stone, 2002), this does not bode
well for training availability.
Table 3
Training Provided While You Were At Your Current Company?
Yes
No
Producers
White
51.9%
48.1%
Non white
40.0%
60.0%
News Directors
White
97.6%
2.4%
Non white
80.0%
20.0%
(Producers: ?2 = .474, df = 1, p<.491; Directors: ?2 = 3.305, df = 1, p<.069)
While the differences were not statistically significant, they
suggest there could be an important variation either in the amount of
professional development available to minority versus non-minority
news workers, or in the perceptions about the availability of those
opportunities. In either case, it begs the question of whether
training is being fairly distributed among employees and, if it is,
why it is not perceived that way.
When controlling for race, there was general agreement between
producers and news directors as to the number of professional
development training opportunities offered. Across the board,
minority and white producers and news directors agreed that the
average employee had received one to three professional development
opportunities within the previous year. Differences emerged when the
two groups were asked how aware employees were about the professional
development training opportunities available to them. When
controlling for race, there was a significant difference in how aware
minority and white producers believed they were about the training
offered by their companies. About a third of the white producers
believed they were aware of "all available professional development
opportunities" supported by the company, and two thirds believed they
were not, as shown in Table 4. However, 100% of the non-white
producers believed that they were not aware of all the opportunities
offered by their company. The difference was statistically
significant (p<.05).
Table 4
Are Employees Aware of Training Opportunities?
Yes
No
Producers
White
34.9%
65.1%
Non white
0%
100%
News Director
White
53.8%
46.2%
Non white
66.7%
33.3%
(Directors: ?2 = 3.953, df = 1, p<.047; No chi square was computed for
"producers" since it was a constant.)
Also of interest is the fact that, again, news directors were likely
to assume that their employees were aware of the professional
development opportunities available to them and the employees were
considerably less convinced they knew about those opportunities. It
appeared that, regardless of race, managers believed that their
staffs were informed about training opportunities while the staff
said they felt "out of the loop."
There was not a statistically significant difference between
minority and White producers and news directors on the question of
whether they believed their company would offer additional
professional development training. All the news directors (100%),
regardless of race, believed their company would offer more training
to employees. However, the White producers split nearly evenly on
the question and minority producers expressed more confidence than
their White counterparts that additional training would be
forthcoming, as shown in Table 5. Overall, H1 was supported.
Table 5
Do You Believe Employees Will Receive More Professional Development Training?
Yes
No
Producers
White
52.9%
47.1%
Non white
62.5%
37.5%
News Directors
White
100%
0%
Non white
100%
0%
(Producers: ?2 = .255, df = 1, p<.614; No chi square for "directors"
was computed
because the variable was a constant.)
Professional Development As A Factor in Promotion of Minority Employees
(R2) Do minority news directors and producers perceive professional
development differently than White managers and employees as a factor
contributing to promotion?
H2: Minority producers perceive professional development training
to be more important in contributing to promotion than do their
White managers.
Three specific questions measured this issue. The first asked
producers to use a seven-point Likert scale to rank their agreement
or disagreement with the statement "I believe participating in
professional development activities will generally help me advance in
my career." News directors were asked to agree or disagree with the
statement "Participating in professional development will help my
employees generally advance in their careers." Probably because of
the relatively low number of minority participants responding to the
survey, the t-tests performed were not statistically
significant. However, the direction of the findings were in line
with the hypothesis, indicating that minority employees were more
likely to agree with the statement than Whites.
Controlling for race, the second question asked producers and news
directors whether they believed employers would consider
participation in professional development activities when making a
decision about promotion. (See Table 6.) White producers were the
least likely to believe that their bosses would consider whether
employees had participated in professional development training when
deciding if they should be promoted. Non-white news directors were
the most likely to believe that it would be considered. Since this
group was also the most likely to believe that professional
development was not going to be offered, it suggests that there is
reason to be concerned about how minority employees perceive their
opportunities for advancement with their current company. However,
there was not statistical significance in the finding.
Table 6
Does Participation in Professional Development Influence Promotion?
Yes
No
Producers
White
30.8%
69.2%
Non white
33.3%
66.7%
News Directors
White
43.6%
56.4%
Non white
60.0%
40.0%
(Producers: ?2 = .022, df = 1, p<.881; Directors: ?2 = .481, df = 1, p<.488)
The third question, controlling for race, asked producers and news
directors whether they believed that professional development played
a role in the supervisor's promotion into management. (See Table
7.) The results were not statistically significant but there were
some interesting differences between the two groups. Both White and
minority producers were less likely to believe that professional
development training had played a role in the promotion of their
supervisors. However, White news directors were evenly split on the
issue. Minority news directors were the only group to believe that
professional development played a role in promotion into management.
Table 7
Did Professional Development Play a Role in Supervisor's Promotion?
Yes
No
Producers
White
15.4%
84.6%
Non white
25.0%
75.0%
News Directors
White
50.0%
50.0%
Non white
60.0%
40.0%
(Producer: ?2 = .435, df = 1, p<.510; Director: ?2 = .178, df = 1, p<.673)
This finding indicates it is important for companies to consider the
regard with which minority employees view professional development
when considering whether it is "worth the investment." Overall, the
results failed to support H4.
Job Satisfaction as Perceived By Minority and White News Workers
(R3) Is company-provided professional development more important in
contributing to creating job satisfaction for minority producers than
White producers?
H3: Minority journalists who receive company-sponsored professional
development training are more likely to feel supported by the
company, and are more likely to stay there for longer periods of time
than those who do not.
In the first question, producers were asked if receiving
professional development training would have any impact on their
decision to stay with their current employer. News directors were
asked if they thought training had any influence on their employees
deciding to stay with their current jobs. Results were not
statistically significant, likely due to the relatively low number of
minority respondents. There were mixed results from the two groups.
(See Table 8.) Both White and minority producers said that
professional development opportunities would not have any influence
in making a decision about staying in their current jobs. However,
both groups of news directors believed that the availability of
professional development would have some influence on their
employees' decisions to stay in their jobs.
Table 8
Does Professional Development Have Any Influence on Staying in Current Job?
Yes
No
Producers
White
38.8%
61.2%
Non white
40.0%
60.0%
News Directors
White
65.5%
34.5%
Non white
100.0%
0%
(Producers: ?2 = .005, df = 1, p<.942; Directors: ?2 = 1.505, df = 1, p<.220)
This result indicated that news directors attach importance to
professional development as a contributor to job satisfaction.
However, the reaction of the producers leaves some question as to how
significant the opportunity for company-sponsored professional
development may be in keeping them in that job. Whether this is the
result of diminished expectations on the part of the producers, or if
there is another factor at work is not clear.
The second question in this group asked producers and news
directors, controlling for race, whether the availability of
professional development training was a deciding factor in employees
staying in their jobs. (See Table 9.) Three of the four groups,
both White and minority producers and White news directors, agreed
that it was not a deciding factor. However, the minority news
directors said that it was a deciding factor in employees considering
whether to stay in their current jobs.
Table 9
Professional Development a Deciding Factor in Staying in Current Job (By Race)?
Yes
No
Producers
White
10.4%
89.6%
Non white
22.2%
77.8%
News Directors
White
40.9%
59.1%
Non white
100.0%
.0%
(Producers: ?2 = .981, df = 1, p<.322; Directors: ?2 = 2.579, df = 1, p<.108)
Again, it appears that minority news directors were especially
attuned to the value of professional development as a factor in job
satisfaction. When that result is compared with the fact that
minority news directors believed that their employees were less
likely to receive this kind of training, it indicates that there
could be a significant level of dissatisfaction with training
availability among minority news directors themselves.
The third question in this series asked producers whether they
inquired about the availability of professional development training
when interviewing for their jobs. News directors were asked if, in
general, potential employees inquired about professional development
opportunities when interviewing for their jobs. There was agreement
that potential employees did not generally ask about professional
development opportunities during job interviews. (See Table 10.) The
answers were consistent across categories.
Table 10
Ask About Professional Development When Interviewing for the Job (By Race)?
Yes
No
Producers
White
11.5%
88.5%
Non white
11.1%
88.9%
News Directors
White
31.7%
68.3%
Non white
40.0%
60.0%
(Producers: ?2 = .001, df = 1, p<.970; Directors: ?2 = .139,
df = 1, p<.709)
This finding begs the question: if employees believe this is an
important aspect to their job satisfaction, why they are not stating
it up front? Perhaps Psychological Contract Theory holds some of the
answer: employees may believe that there is already an implied
promise that they will receive training as part of the job. However,
in the case of minority employees and managers, it seems even more
important that they ask for professional development training and
make sure it registers on the "radar screens" of their employers
early in the recruiting and hiring process. H3 was not supported.
Conclusion
This study indicated there are differences in how minority and
majority news directors and producers view the availability and
importance of professional development in American broadcast
newsrooms. Some of the key findings included:
* minority producers were less likely to think training would be
offered to them.
* minority news directors were less likely to say training was
offered to their staff.
* minority producers were the least likely to say they had received training.
* minority producers believed they were less informed about available
training than their White counterparts.
* professional development alone did not lead to greater job
satisfaction for minority producers.
While the results do not necessarily indicate a direct, linear
relationship between professional development and job satisfaction
and retention, it does appear from respondent comments that those who
do not feel confident about advancement opportunities in the
workplace are more likely to voice frustration and potentially move
to other positions that may give them that chance. News directors
also have picked up on this employee desire for work situations that
will offer advancement opportunities. In fact, at times, the news
directors seemed to articulate that desire more clearly than their
employees did.
The results indicated there might be a gap in organizational
commitment theory which should account for a more proactive role for
employees who want to advance. The results of this study showed that
while producers were assigning value to the concept of professional
development, they were not actively pushing that agenda.
Specifically, while producers said they wanted professional
development, they also reported that they were not inquiring about it
during job interviews or being very aggressive about demanding it
from their supervisors. It may be that another one of the marks of a
true high achiever is learning to advocate effectively for
themselves. This theoretical proposition could be explored in a
follow-up survey inquiring about attitudes and agendas of
producers. Further, it would be of value to study some of these
questions in a work situation utilizing "knowledge workers" rather
than the more traditional manufacturing atmosphere where so much
workplace research has taken place.
The chairman of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, Bob
Salsberg, recently wrote that one of the key problems facing those in
the broadcast industry trying to recruit and retain more diverse
newsrooms is "the pipeline problem the real or perceived absence of
a large enough pool of minority candidates for newsroom positions,
both on-air and management" (2004, p. 14, 16). Salsberg asked: "Are
young minority employees leaving the business early, perhaps
frustrated and disillusioned by a lack of training, mentoring and
opportunities for advancement?" That is a key question explored in
this study and the industry must continue to wrestle with if it is
going to solve the dual problems of creating and maintaining diverse
newsrooms that truly represent the communities they aspire to cover.
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Extra Stuff
In this study, news directors indicated that their
organizations are often open to paying professional memberships, but
producers did not report the same thing. In addition to paying for
management's membership in RTNDA and similar groups, media companies
should consider paying for news worker and management membership in
organizations like the Asian American Journalist Association and the
National Association of Black Journalists. These organizations often
offer professional development seminars that could be used as a
source for employee training. They also offer managers, including
non-minorities, an additional recruiting outlet. Membership in these
organizations averages $55-135 annually and it would seem to be a
relatively inexpensive way to stay in touch with valuable potential
training and recruiting sources. For organizations that do not
already have large numbers of minority staff, it could provide a
source for mentoring opportunities to minority employees. This
appears to be a relatively low-cost "perk" that could pay off in very
tangible ways for management.
These suggestions would require significant changes in the way
journalism management is practiced. They suggest placing a tangible
value on concepts like diversity and retention that have been largely
thought of as "intangible." However, as Thomas and Ely (1996) noted,
a significant change in the approach to workplace diversity "requires
a high-level commitment to learning more about the environment,
structure, and tasks of one's organization, and giving
improvement-generating change" (p. 90). As they argued, a more
diverse organization will increase effectiveness, and "lift morale,
bring greater access to new segments of the marketplace, and enhance
productivity." In short, "diversity will be good for business" (p.
79) and will contribute to an atmosphere in which learning,
creativity, flexibility and organizational and individual growth can
take place.
The results of this study suggest several additional research
questions which could be explored on the topics of professional
development, newsroom diversity, and retention and promotion. They include:
(1) A study from an organizational communication standpoint
deconstructing the messages sent and received between news managers
and their employees.
(2) A study examining the use of Individual Development Plans in newsrooms.
(3) A quantitative comparison across professional fields to identify
and catalog the amounts of development training offered by different
industries employing "knowledge workers."
It is not a simple matter, or inexpensive, to implement these
changes, but there seems to be a real need. At a minimum, they offer
ideas company owners should consider. It is clear from this study
that professional development training is not a panacea for all
problems related to the retention of broadcast news staff, minority
or white. Respondents reported that the availability of professional
development training alone would not be the "make or break" factor in
deciding if they would take or stay in a job. Producers also did not
see training as directly affecting their chances at promotion,
although news directors said it was something they would consider
when making those decisions. And it appears that there is a fair
amount of skepticism from producers both minority and White that
training is even going to be made available to newsroom
employees. Still, in large numbers, broadcast journalists reported
valuing and desiring professional development training from their employers.
The chairman of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, Bob
Salsberg, recently wrote that one of the key problems facing those in
the broadcast industry trying to recruit and retain more diverse
newsrooms is "the pipeline problem the real or perceived absence of
a large enough pool of minority candidates for newsroom positions,
both on-air and management" (2004, p. 14, 16). Salsberg asked: "Are
young minority employees leaving the business early, perhaps
frustrated and disillusioned by a lack of training, mentoring and
opportunities for advancement?" That is a key question explored in
this study and the industry must continue to wrestle with if it is
going to solve the dual problems of creating and maintaining diverse
newsrooms that truly represent the communities they aspire to
cover. While it is not likely to be the final word on the subject,
this study suggests several avenues that could be pursued to achieve
responsive and vibrant newsrooms where all employees feel challenged
and appreciated.
Judging by the results, the issue of retention of minority
journalists is one the industry still struggles with. There are
additional steps that should be taken, including:
(1) Increase the industry's commitment to professional development training.
(2) Place more emphasis on retaining, not just attracting,
minority journalists.
(3) Put an emphasis on creating Individual Development Plans (IDPs)
for minority journalists and share those plans with employees.
(4) Pay for employee and manager membership in minority journalist groups.
(5) Encourage journalism educators to teach aspiring journalists how
to advocate for themselves in the workplace.
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Walking the Walk?: The Disconnect over Minority Professional
Development in the Newsroom
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