Northwestern pushing for more Black journalism students
The dean of Northwestern University's journalism school just got back to Evanston from his fourth professional convention since he was appointed to the job in June.
"I think I'm the only dean in the country to attend every minority journalism convention this summer," said Loren Ghiglione, 60, a former newspaper editor and publisher, who said he is on a quest to increase minority enrollment at the Medill School of Journalism, one of the nation's top two or three training schools for aspiring reporters and editors.
"At the National Association of Black Journalists meeting in Orlando, I talked with people about possible openings here as potential faculty members and potential students," he said.
Ghiglione said it's his goal to increase minority enrollment on Northwestern's picture postcard lakeside campus, where nearly every graduate journalism student receives financial aid.
"High school students should know that we are trying to encourage more students of color to come to Northwestern," said the former head of the diversity center of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Northwestern's undergraduates are admitted on the basis of traditional standards and criteria, such as test scores and high school grade point averages, but in his effort to recruit African American students, Ghiglione said he wants to start emphasizing writing ability and reporting skills to evaluate candidates.
This fall, 24 percent of Medill's 163 undergrads are minority students, 11 of whom are Black. Last year, 23 percent were minority, including eight Blacks. In 1999, 29 percent were minority, with 14 Black students, and in 1998, it was 25 percent minority, 12 Black.
Journalism educators want to see more Blacks reporting on life and issues in minority communities, but the experience of newspapers and broadcast stations shows it's been a serious problem keeping them on the job.
"Many Black journalists are hired, but at some point in their careers, they opt for public relations jobs where they can earn more income because as you get older in journalism not everyone can be a boss," Ghiglione said.
That's not such big news, but there is an ominous factor behind many departures by Blacks from journalism.
"I don't know whether they feel opportunities are as available to them as they are to white reporters, whether it's conscious discrimination or not," he said.
"Certainly, people feel more comfortable with folks who look like them. Everywhere in society, including in newsrooms, discrimination is not necessarily conscious," he said, although its existence can be found almost everywhere.
He described the possibility of unconscious discrimination as "a question of separation or social segregation," but, he said, journalists are less culpable than most people.
"I think journalism is better than many fields in this respect. It has to explain (segregation) as well as serve a larger community," he said.
"If you talk to the Chicago Defender as well as to the Chicago Tribune, African American reporters, they will tell you there are issues (of segregation) in every institution in our society, newsrooms not excluded," he said.
In no way suggesting that minority students should look elsewhere to remedy the discrimination problem, he said human beings are fallible and at best, they can try to be "reflective" about the issue.
"Journalists, as much as I love them, are not members of a priesthood. Priests have been known to have problems, too," he said.
Ghiglione headed a company that owned a chain of New England newspapers and said the problem of profitability of a news organizations is a complex issue. He cited high earnings of news executives such as the Tribune Co.'s chairman's $6 million paycheck last year as fair in a business where shareholder value is as important as share values in any business.
"I'm not prepared to editorialize about amounts paid" to news company executives such as Gannett Co.'s chairman's $9 million in pay last year, he said.
"There has always been a need for news organizations to make a profit. Those that don't don't survive," he said, adding that young people who aspire to become reporters can make a good living, although without spectacular earnings.
"I think reporters at metropolitan newspapers are able to lead good lives and send their children to college. These things are all relative," he said.
Charges that standards are declining as TV and newspaper journalism becomes more entertaining don't bother Ghiglione.
"There has always been a lot of the low culture element in journalism. I used to refuse to print an astrology column because it's like professional wrestling," he said.
"But I know it's in the Tribune and it's there to lure people to read entertaining things as well as the serious stuff," he said.
While the very nature of journalism is changing as a result of broadcast media and changes in retailing, people will always have a need "to connect" through news vehicles serving their communities, he said.
"The metropolitan dailies used to not report anything about people of color except crimes, entertainment and sports," he said, but that's changed.
"I always like to see more voices because that's valuable to ethnic and racial groups," he said.
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