Diversity at Work

When the National Association of Hispanic Journalists announced earlier this month that it had a $300,000 budget shortfall, people began tweeting the news and expressing concern over the group's financial woes. One NAHJ member, Mo Krochmal, tweeted that the shortfall is an indication that "at some point, minority journalists orgs are going to have to merge to save funds."

But Rafael Olmeda, former Unity president who stepped down from his leadership role last week, disagrees. He tweeted a response to Krochmal, who he knows from NAHJ: "The minority journalism orgs do not need to merge any more than the beat journalism orgs. Adapt? yes. Merge, no."

As membership in many of the 40 or 50 journalism associations in the U.S. declines, more question just how these groups will adapt and whether some will merge.

Olmeda, who said he gave up his presidency for professional and personal reasons that included the death of his brother and a desire to spend more time with his newborn son, addressed this question in a recent phone interview. ...

Remember before the Summer of 2009, when we were still living in post-racial America?

Between the arrest of Harvard University's Henry Louis Gates Jr. in July, and Joe Wilson's "You Lie" comment during Obama's health care speech last month, it's tough to figure out how to have a productive conversation about race, whether in the news media or in a classroom.

Philip Rucker of The Washington Post illustrated this idea recently when traveling along the road that divides Wilson's (mostly white) district and Democratic Rep. James E. Clyburn's (mostly black) district. Rucker found that views on whether Wilson's outburst had to do with Obama's race were sharply divided.

I wanted to show my students at American University's School of Communication how it was possible that people living on either side of one road could see recent events in radically different ways. In preparing to teach them, I asked Jennifer Woodard, an assistant professor at Middle Tennessee State University, what she thought. ...