Content-Type: text/html Diversity Efforts at the Los Angeles Times: Are Journalists and the Community on the Same Page? Diversity Efforts at the Los Angeles Times: Are Journalists and the Community on the Same Page? By Richard Gross, M.A., M.S. Doctoral Candidate Missouri School of Journalism Stephanie Craft, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Missouri School of Journalism Glen T. Cameron, Ph.D. Professor Missouri School of Journalism Michael Antecol, Ph.D. Post-Doctoral Fellow Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention Correspondence concerning this manuscript should be addressed to Glen T. Cameron, Gregory Chair in Journalism Research, 134-B Neff Annex, Missouri School of Journalism, Columbia, MO 65211. Office phone: (573) 884-2607, home phone: (573) 446-4521, office fax: (573) 882-2890, Internet: [log in to unmask] Abstract Survey data from Los Angeles Times editorial employees and residents of Los Angeles County were gathered to determine respondents' views of the newspaper's efforts to increase minority coverage, specifically with regard to the "market-driven" nature of those efforts. How respondents perceive market-driven journalism and the extent to which newsroom and community perceptions of it are similar were specifically addressed. Results suggest that people, whether journalists or readers, neither dismiss nor embrace market-driven journalism outright. Introduction In 1999, The Missouri School of Journalism and its research arm, the Center for Advanced Social Research, were commissioned by the Los Angeles Times to study the impact of the newspaper's ethnic and racial diversity program on the Times' newsroom and the perception of that diversity program on Times' readers. The study took several methodological forms. Initially, scripted, taped interviews were conducted with 76 editorial staffers who volunteered to participate, with the paper's encouragement. Several questions probed the staffers' attitudes about Times management's motivation for the diversity program, their knowledge of market-driven journalism and the relationship between the two. Gross, Curtin and Cameron (1999) reported an initial analysis of the newsroom interview data. A second component of the Los Angeles Times study was the administration of surveys to members of the paper's editorial staff and the community to determine the extent to which newsroom employees and community residents hold similar views concerning the Times' diversity effort and the paper's motives for effecting it. Is it intended to create a better newspaper, to improve the paper's bottom line, or both? To what extent do both groups observe the same phenomenon and agree on its motivations? The perceptions of readers in the coverage area's many minority communities are of particular interest, given that management's stated motives are to improve coverage of minority communities and create a newsroom whose composition mirrors the diversity of the community it serves. Background Market-drive, diversity and the Los Angeles Times The proliferation of media channels and the resulting competition among media for the same advertisers and audience members is believed to have led many newspapers to place profit high on their list of organizational goals (Demers, 1996a). Readership research has become a standard tool used to aid newspaper management in making content decisions (Schoenbach and Bergen, 1998). The Los Angeles Times is among the most prominent and largest newspapers in the nation that have chosen to use readership research as one way to craft a paper reflecting the concerns of that readership. As part of the process of recasting itself, the newspaper's management has put into place a program to increase ethnic and racial diversity in the newsroom in a way that reflects more accurately its Los Angeles readership. Newspaper management is also examining the content of the paper. A more detailed explanation of that process, which relates to the changing face of Los Angeles and the changing fate of the Times, is reported in Gross, Curtin and Cameron (1999). Boasting a staff of 1,100 journalists, 13 domestic and 24 international bureaus and circulation of approximately 1.1 million for the daily edition, the Times is the nation's largest daily metropolitan newspaper, and among the world's largest news organizations. Its circulation area is the size of the state of Ohio. Along with its size, the Times' quality as journalism is equally impressive, with 23 Pulitzer Prizes awarded. In 1989, the Washington Journalism Review anointed the Times the "paper to watch for the 90s." In 1957, Time Magazine had dubbed the Los Angeles Times one of America's 10 worst newspapers; by 1964, one of the nation's 10 best. In a few short years, the Times had seemingly gone from worst to nearly first, growing in influence through the 1970s and the 1980s. The late 1980s were a difficult time back East, with the boom-boom of the middle of the decade having succumbed to bust. It seemed even The New York Times might surrender its crown to the Los Angeles Times as the nation's newspaper of record. Then, quite unexpectedly, the U.S. economy paused and the bottom fell out of the California economy. At the Los Angeles Times, a hiring freeze was followed by rounds of layoffs. Some editions were trimmed, others dropped altogether. So-called "excess circulation," copies that cost more to print and deliver than they returned in revenue, was abandoned (Prochneau, 2000, p. 61). By 1995, the Los Angeles Times had surrendered nearly 20 percent of its 1990 circulation. Though the paper's circulation was still 1,013,000 and its circulation area was huge, large amounts of advertising revenue had been lost, along with the panache of much of its national advertising. Then, just as quickly as the economy had soured, it again exploded with cyber-opportunity that dovetailed with the Clinton ascendance to the presidency. California's future was once again bright, and a new wave of immigrants from East and South Asia and Mexico joined westward moving job-seekers from the rest of the nation in a state whose opportunity could once again accommodate them all. It should have been the best of times for the Los Angeles Times. It was not. Return on investment was stuck in the single digits; healthy, but not in line with the double-digit profit margins common in the "dying" newspaper business. Despite population growth, the Times did not recover the circulation it had jettisoned in the brief lean times. Its circulation was stalled at slightly over a million. Staff morale was low. The Chandler family, which owns the Times-Mirror Company, sought help and found it in the person of Mark Willes, a businessman with no newspaper experience. He was appointed chairman of Times-Mirror. Willes holds a doctorate in economics and had been a successful manager, most recently before his appointment with the cereal division of General Mills. He was known for his attention to marketing and the bottom line. In a controversial move, Willes appointed himself publisher of the Los Angeles Times in September, 1997. He began an immediate reorganization that eventually trimmed 900 Times employees, about 20 percent of them from the newsroom. Several sections and zoned editions were eliminated. Willes became a strong proponent of diversity given the changing ethnic and racial nature of Los Angeles, but still dropped a Spanish-language insert, Nuestro Tiempo. Eventually, 10 sections named Our Times were created for different regions of its circulation area, and a national edition of the paper began in October 1998. One of Willes' major goals was to encourage editors and business managers working more closely on sections of the paper. A controversial idea, it has yet to be fully implemented. Willes' actions were greeted with skepticism by some (Prochnau, 2000), but he did succeed in establishing a climate at the Los Angeles Times in which there seemed to be less ideological separation between the newspaper's editorial and business sides (Gross, Curtin, Cameron, 1999). Willes gave up his post as publisher of the newspaper in June, 1999 after a controversial tenure during which few of the empirical business goals he had set for the Times were attained. Kathryn Downing, former president of the paper, assumed the post. Missteps and controversy still dog the Times. A November 11, 1999 article in the Baltimore Sun, a Times-Mirror paper, described a Hollywood tabloid scenario at the Times: A newsroom in revolt, a scathing denunciation of senior management from a legendary former publisher, wall-to-wall condemnation from the journalistic community and readers questioning the integrity and credibility of the newspaper itself. The article, one of many, criticized the Times for failing to disclose a business deal struck between new publisher Downing and the owners of the new Staples Center sports arena. The parties agreed to split $2 million in revenue garnered from coverage of the Center in a special October 10, 1999, Sunday magazine that devoted the entire 164-page issue, over 100 pages of it paid advertising, to the project. The situation was complicated by the fact that new editor Michael Parks had not been informed of the deal. While the climate at the paper has been stormy, it appears that Willes established a market-driven orientation along with a concern for diversity at the Times. Circulation also has improved, though at 1,098,350 daily and 1,385,780 Sunday, it remains well below the paper's all-time highs. Current management remains supportive of market-driven initiatives. The term "market-driven journalism" has been coined to refer to the practice of incorporating economic motivations into journalism decisions (McManus, 1994). While the newspaper of the previous half-century sought to shield editorial staffers from business decisions, often referred to by the journalists themselves as the separation of church and state (Prochnau, 2000), some contemporary journalism practitioners join these two formerly disparate parts into a newly unified whole. Though a more common phenomenon in broadcast journalism (Curtin, 1996; McManus, 1994), the joining together of church and state in the newspaper business has yet to become a well-tilled field for journalism research, though it certainly offers fertile intellectual soil. While it may now be accepted as a business necessity, critics of market-driven journalism assert that journalism's reliance on the tools of marketing to shape content can only subvert journalism's social responsibility function (Bagdikian, 1992; McManus, 1994). Some newspaper management, like that of the Los Angeles Times, expressed concern about this possibility and increased efforts to ensure social responsibility by instituting diversity programs in both the newsroom and the newspaper. The stated motive at the Times is to be certain the news product continues to reflect the ethnic and racial composition of the communities and citizens it serves. Now that those efforts are in place, organizational sponsors are beginning to assess the impact of their diversity programs on the make-up of the newsroom and the paper. In 1999, the Los Angeles Times commissioned a study by the Missouri School of Journalism. This ongoing longitudinal study seeks in part to determine the motives journalists at the paper ascribe to the publisher's stated efforts to diversify: Is the newspaper's motive solely economic concern, is it the desire to improve the journalism of the newspaper, or is it a combination of both? Are the paper's editorial staffers supportive of the diversity effort? And, if so, why? Are readers aware of these diversity efforts, and to what do they ascribe the newspaper's motive? Gross, Curtin and Cameron (1999) reported their initial observations from their analysis of data gathered during the study's first year interviews with 76 members of the paper's editorial staff: editors, reporters and photographers. That data demonstrate that the staffers who were interviewed overwhelmingly believed the publisher's primary motivation to be a concern for diversity itself as one element in improving the paper. Such concern, they claimed to believe, will also result in an improved business climate for the paper (Gross, Curtin & Cameron, p. 18). They see an improved bottom line as an important potential effect of diversity. These observations do not support the microeconomic model offered by McManus (1994). When faced with a choice that can affect only the financial side or only the journalism side of a news organization, argues McManus, business considerations will win out because the news product represents "an elaborate compromise" among the market forces creating it (McManus, 1994, p. 37). The Times appears instead to be dedicating resources to goals staffers believe will primarily improve the paper, while only secondarily improving the bottom line. An important component of the Los Angeles Times study is conducting surveys with members of the newspaper's readership community as well as editorial employees. Researchers seek in part to determine how community members perceive of market-driven journalism and the extent to which their views are similar to those of the paper's staffers with respect to the paper's efforts to improve diversity. To what extent do both groups observe the same phenomenon and agree on its motivations? In a market-driven orientation, such concern is important because the paper wants to communicate, not simply publicize, its concern for its diverse readership. This, in turn, could result in wider readership, increased advertising and a healthier bottom line. All of which would benefit the Times journalism mission. Or so the thinking goes. It has not worked out quite that way to date for the Los Angeles Times. Willes' tenure often led to a focus on him and his motives rather than programs he was putting into place. Controversy in the newsroom about management programs could not be clearly discerned as being about the person or the program. Still, the newspaper's diversity program remains in place and its proponents continue to believe it will benefit the newspaper in the long term. Research Questions In this first consideration of survey data gathered in the Times newsroom and among its readership community, the authors address: 1) the synchronicity between Times' editorial staffers and Los Angeles community member's perceptions of the paper's attempts to increase revenue while improving editorial diversity; 2) whether perceptions regarding the Times are related to the minority/non-minority status of the respondents; 3) and whether respondents make a distinction between the motives of the Times for increasing coverage of ethnic groups and of newspapers more generally. Market-Driven Journalism The most thorough academic consideration of market-driven journalism first occurred with the publication of John McManus' book "Market-Driven Journalism: Let the Citizen Beware?" in 1994. McManus proposes a microeconomic model of news production that draws heavily upon his own experience in the broadcast industry (Curtin, 1996). As the title suggests, McManus casts a wary eye on the possible effects of market considerations on journalism practices and product. He offers a news model based on competition and exchange among four news "markets": advertisers, consumers, investors and sources. McManus asserts that two sets of norms - journalism (editorial) and business - govern the news business and its organizational culture (McManus, 1994). He observes that the interplay between these two sets of norms yields "the least expensive mix of content that protects the interest of the sponsors and investors while garnering the largest audience advertisers will pay to reach" (McManus, 1994, p. 85). In the McManus model, economic rationalism supplants social responsibility. Corporate considerations make it inevitable that the interests of advertisers and especially investors will always win out over those of news sources and especially consumers. Few tests of this model have been attempted. Using discriminant analysis and in-depth interviews with newspaper managing editors, Curtin (1996) did not find sufficient support for the McManus model. Gross, Curtin and Cameron (1999) identified corporate concern for profit at the Los Angeles Times, but found no obvious evidence for concern among journalists who staff that newspaper. Analysis of in-depth interviews with 76 Los Angeles Times editorial staff members (Curtin, 1996; Gross, Curtin and Cameron, 1999) suggests journalists' acceptance of the twin motivations of better journalism and an improved bottom line may be related to concepts known in public relations research as "hedging" and "wedging" (Stamm and Bowes, 1972). In this example, journalists hedge when they show a willingness to embrace both motives, at least in part. They wedge when they choose one motivation and eschew the other. Journalists who wedge would view good journalism and good business as mutually exclusive. These considerations have received more attention in the literature on broadcast journalism, less as they operate among print journalists. Allen (1995) found that news directors at local television stations "emulate the thinking of their general managers" (p. 112), while Berkowitz (1993) asserted that there is a "business-journalism dialectic" separating those who aspire to manage the news from those who gather and prepare it. The Times' environment, diversity and market-driven predictions When applied to the print environment of the Los Angeles Times, it could be inferred that respondents who agreed that the paper's diversity efforts benefit both the journalism mission and business goals of the paper were seeking to "act like management," to say what was expected of those in managerial positions. They were hedging, perhaps fearful for their own jobs given the newspaper's recent past. Researchers found no evidence of this artifact in their interviews. The 76 individuals interviewed occupied various editorial positions and had been employed at the Times for varying lengths of time. Despite the unanimity of opinion regarding the direction the Los Angeles Times was now taking, considerable tension in the Times' newsroom over the past few years has been well documented (Prochneau, 2000). Smith (1988) and McManus (1990) found evidence that conflict between traditional and journalistic values may be a source of tension in newsrooms. Among all the interviewees, not one indicated cynicism regarding the paper's motives for enhancing diversity on either the "just for journalism" or "just for profit" side. Though no questions referred directly to their professional aspirations, none indicated motives related to personal advancement. The interview comments seemed honest, incisive and, at times, highly philosophical in tone. The following was the reply of one editorial employee commenting on management's motivation for encouraging diversity: The history of journalism is a tension between the idealism of the profession and the people who have worked in it_and the fact that we are a moneymaking operation. That's always driven what the newspaper is. The idea that a newspaper could be an objective source of information that citizens could rely on was itself a marketing tool used to build up circulation after years of Yellow Journalism and all that. So, I think there's a dialectic going on here. On the one hand, here there's a huge market that the newspaper has the potential (to reach). The newspaper knows that it has to respond for its own survival. Miami realized long ago that it was becoming a Cuban town. (We) are realizing that, too. At the same time, there are a lot of people who realize that it (diversity) is the right thing to do anyway. That it's more fair, more open_because those are the values with which Americans were brought up. That was what makes us a good country; that's why we should be proud to be American. We open our arms to everybody. It is both a moral and economic issue here. (Gross, Curtin, Cameron, 1999, p. 24) Methodology Sample and procedures The portion of the ongoing longitudinal study reported here consists of a telephone survey administered to random samples from two populations: Los Angeles Times' journalists and residents of Los Angeles County. Journalists were selected from a list of 575 staff members provided by the Los Angeles Times. Times' management encouraged all interested editorial employees to participate; however, anonymity was a condition of the research, and participants were neither rewarded for participating nor sanctioned for choosing not to participate. Community respondents were selected from a randomly generated list of 4,500 telephone numbers in Los Angeles County. Data were gathered for 1,103 respondents, 803 from the Los Angeles community and 300 from the Los Angeles Times newsroom. Of the 1,103 respondents, 508 identified themselves as African American, Asian American, Latino or Hispanic, American Indian or a member of another nonwhite racial or ethnic group; 595 respondents identified themselves as white. Interviewers at the Center for Advanced Social Research at the Missouri School of Journalism administered the newsroom questionnaire from March 22 to April 15, 1999; the community survey was conducted May 9 to July 10, 1999. Interviewers told community respondents they were calling from the University of Missouri regarding a study "about media coverage of diverse communities in the Los Angeles County area." Newsroom respondents were told the study concerned "coverage of diverse communities by the Los Angeles Times." Both groups of respondents were assured of the confidentiality of their responses and told the survey takes about 15 minutes to complete. Neither group was offered any incentive for participation. Variables Group membership (newsroom or community) is the primary independent variable in the study. A dummy variable indicating race/ethnicity (white or nonwhite) also was created. The questionnaire consisted of a number of items related to coverage of minority and ethnic communities by the Times. Three questionnaire items addressing the following issues formed the dependent variables in this study: 1) journalists' motives for covering "sensational stories about ethnic groups," 2) the impact of the Time's efforts to increase subscriptions on coverage of ethnic communities and issues, and 3) whether newspapers are more interested in profits than public service. Respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement with the statements on a four-point Likert-type scale, where 1 meant "strongly disagree" and 4 meant "strongly agree." The wording of the first and second items was identical on the newsroom and community questionnaires. The wording of the third item differed in that journalists were asked whether "daily newspapers in general" cared more about profits, while community respondents were asked about the Times specifically. Findings Table 1 reports the results of a two-way analysis of variance indicating significant main effects for group membership (newsroom or community) and race (white or nonwhite) in perceptions about journalists' motives for covering "sensational stories." There also was a significant interaction between group membership and race. Tables and figures are in the Appendix. Regarding the impact of efforts to increase subscriptions to the Times on coverage of ethnic communities, there was no significant difference between journalists' and community members' perceptions, but a significant difference between white and nonwhite respondents. No significant differences between the newsroom and community or between white and nonwhite responses were found for the questionnaire item addressing whether newspapers place making money above public service. Table 2 reports the results of pairwise comparisons evaluating the significance of mean differences in the dependent variables. These means offer a view of respondents' general perceptions of the motives for and outcomes of market-driven journalism and provide detail on the nature of the differences reported in Table 1. Newsroom respondents disagreed (M = 1.57) and community members tended to agree (M = 2.99) with the idea that journalists report sensational stories about ethnic groups more out of a desire to sell papers than a belief that such stories contain important news. Nonwhite respondents were more likely than white respondents to hold that perception of journalists' motives (M = 2.42, M = 2.14, respectively). As Table 2 indicates, the significant interaction between race and group membership is driven by nonwhite newsroom respondents disagreeing less strongly with this perception than white newsroom respondents. The mean difference between white and nonwhite newsroom respondents is significant; the difference between white and nonwhite community respondents is not significant. Figure 1 illustrates the nature of the interaction on this dependent variable. Overall means on the dependent variable addressing whether efforts to increase subscriptions to the Times are having a positive impact on coverage of ethnic communities suggest no strong feelings, with responses roughly in the middle of the scale (newsroom M = 2.57, community M = 2.61; white M = 2.50, nonwhite M = 2.68). There was a significant difference between white newsroom and nonwhite community respondents, however, with the former tending to agree less with positive impact of subscription efforts than the latter. Respondents were largely neutral, though tending toward agreement, on the item addressing the perception that daily newspapers are more concerned about profits than public service. No significant differences between newsroom and community respondents (M = 2.80, M = 2.73, respectively) or between white and nonwhite respondents (M = 2.74, M = 2.78, respectively) were found. Discussion In posing the research questions, the authors sought to determine whether there was synchronicity between newsroom employees and community residents regarding the impact of the Times' diversity program, and whether responses varied by the minority/non-minority status of the respondents. Taken together, the results support the notion that people, whether journalists or readers, neither dismiss nor embrace market-driven journalism outright. The analysis suggests that while Los Angeles Times journalists and members of the community sharply differ in how they perceive journalists' motives for covering diverse communities, they agree that efforts to improve minority coverage are positive. Differences emerge depending on whether the performance of the Times specifically or of journalism in general is at issue. Moreover, nonwhite journalists are more likely than their white newsroom counterparts to question the motives for some minority coverage. Differences between the newsroom and community groups on the question of whether journalists pursue "sensational stories" about ethnic and minority people because such stories sell newspapers or because the stories are legitimate news were striking. Community residents, regardless of race, "somewhat agree" that journalists sensationalize stories about ethnic and minority people to sell newspapers. These differences were the strongest elicited to any question examined by the authors and demonstrate that, in Los Angeles at least, journalists may have a lot of work to do to convince the community that they are motivated primarily by public service. Given news events in the Los Angeles area in recent years, perhaps this result is predictable. The Rodney King incident, official admission that local police planted evidence on some ethnic and minority defendants to gain several drug convictions, and evidence of racial profiling in routine police traffic stops all give Los Angeles' ethnic and minority communities reason for skepticism about social institutions, including the press. However, this one finding aside, interpretation of the survey results is largely positive in terms of the goal most sought by the proponents of the diversity program among management of the Times: a favorable perception about increasing diversity across ethnic and racial lines. This should be remembered when interpreting the difference between newsroom employees and community residents on the extent to which stories are sensationalized to sell newspapers. The belief in the positive impact of enacting a diversity program in the Times' newsroom suggests that, over time, this is one means by which the press can be seen by the community to be reporting fairly. Responses to the question regarding the impact of efforts to increase subscriptions also support the view that the Times' editorial staff considers motivations that improve the business climate at the Times will have a positive effect on the coverage of ethnic and racial minorities. Further good news for the Los Angeles Times is that the community agrees with this view, and to a strikingly similar degree for both white and nonwhite respondents. At the same time, both newsroom and community respondents "somewhat agree" with the statement that it is profit rather than public service that is the motivation of Times' management in choosing to promote diversity. White and nonwhite staff members hold this view with nearly equal strength. Once again, community responses are similar, although white residents were slightly less inclined to "somewhat agree" than nonwhite residents. It must be noted that the "profit over public service" question is worded differently on the community and newsroom surveys. Newsroom employees offered their views on whether daily newspapers generally emphasized profits over public service. Community residents responded to whether the 'Los Angeles Times' specifically emphasized profits over public service. One possible way of interpreting the "somewhat agree" response to questions worded in a slightly different manner is the phenomenon commonly observed by pollsters in which politicians generally are held in relatively low esteem, but not my political representative. Times' journalists eye newspapers generally with some suspicion, but perhaps not their own. Community residents view the Times specifically with a level of suspicion similar to that held by Times' journalists toward other newspapers. The alteration in the wording of the question makes it difficult to interpret Times' journalists attitudes about the profit over public service motivation of their own newspaper, and the community residents' attitudes about profit over public service motivations of newspapers in general. While the different question wording complicates interpretation of this finding, the results seem to concur with the analysis of newsroom interview data by Gross, Curtin and Cameron (1999). Times' journalists did not identify profit as the primary motive in management's decision to actively promote ethnic and racial diversity. Virtually all newsroom employees who were interviewed said management was aiding the public service mission of the paper by promoting newsroom diversity. It is interesting to note that there is general agreement in the points of view of both newsroom and community respondents and that agreement crosses ethnic lines. Despite some skepticism, all those surveyed tend to agree that diversity efforts will yield positive results. As more cities come to reflect the racial and ethnic changes that have taken place in Los Angeles (Gross, Curtin and Cameron, 1999, p. 11), perhaps these findings can lend support to diversity efforts. The results support the view that a new dynamic may be at work among journalists, at least in Los Angeles. They seem ready to accept the belief that good journalism and good business are not mutually exclusive, and the community appears to agree with them. Future researchers should consider possible implications of this new dynamic. As market-driven journalism gains broader acceptance, what will be its effect on the profession, its practitioners, and its audience? 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