Broken Promises, Dreams Deferred: Journalism's Quest for Parity

Abstract

In 2007, newspapers in America stood on the brink of the 30th year since the American Society of Newspaper Editors pledged to ensure racial parity by 2000.

A year before judgment day, ASNE saw that it was nowhere close to reaching the goal and pushed the deadline to 2025. This thesis offers accounts on the Sisyphean task of editors to make good on promises made to nonwhite journalists since the pledge of 1978.

This research presents testimony from journalists on what it will take to realize the dream of parity nearly 40 years after stepping out of the shadows of the 1968 Kerner Commission report, which called the news industry to account for its coverage of minorities and to boost its hiring of minorities.

Through a qualitative method of surveys, first-person interviews, press histories and news releases, the research highlights the many rises and falls along the road to 2025.