July 22, 2008

For a quarter of a century, Neil Foote has been involved in all segments of the media — print, broadcast, online.

He has worked in newsrooms at The Miami Herald and The Washington Post, on the staff of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, in the Internet operations at the Dallas Morning News and at the Belo Corporation, and in broadcast with Tom Joyner’s Reach Media.

Currently, he is president and CEO of Foote Communications, a public relations, Web consulting and multicultural marketing firm. He also is chair of the National Association of Multicultural Media Executives (NAMME).

Recently, Foote answered questions via telephone regarding diversity in the media. The transcript was edited for space.  

Gregory Favre: How do you see diversity playing out in this digital world and what does that mean for staffing and for content?

Neil Foote: The evolution of media from analog to digital doesn’t mean that diversity has to take a back seat. If anything, more than ever, diversity has to play an even more important role in making sure that all coverage, whether in print, online or on air, really reflects the people in all of our communities and around the world.

Just as you projected many years ago about the multicultural nature of this country, we have seen the numbers bear that out, certainly with the increase in the numbers of the Hispanic population and increasing Asian populations in many of our cities and the continued growth of the African-American population. The reality is that all of our cities are changing. The Web becomes a focal point for all media to capture an audience in a real-time way, and it is essential that news managers really look carefully at not only who they have in their newsrooms to cover their communities, but always take an audit of their coverage to make sure it is reflecting what is going on in their world.

What drove the decision to change NAMME’s name from minority to multicultural?

Foote: Great question. The last year or so we have been having this conversation about how we could reinvigorate NAMME as a brand that has been out there for the last 17 years, and one of the ongoing things that came up was an analysis we did of the organization and how the word minority was being viewed even within our diverse communities. It sounded very dated and not really reflecting the real sense of multiculturalism in this country. The move to change NAMME was a strategic move in several ways: to reflect the change in this country, to really send a message that NAMME is as relevant now as it was 17 years ago. And to make sure that all of our constituencies are represented. The great thing about NAMME is that we reflect all of the racial and ethnic groups, we reflect all parts of the business from the newsroom to the business side, advertising, circulation, online. We want to send a message that this group is really needed in the years ahead and that we are positioned to reflect a multicultural sense and not just a minority sense.

Do you see the Web bringing people together as opposed to causing greater isolation in the country where we have virtual communities rather than geographic communities?

Foote: That’s an interesting dynamic. On the one side there is a sense that people are hunkered down in their rooms in front of computers cranking away on Web pages or playing games. On another side is the growth of the MySpaces and Facebooks and the other community elements of Web sites, and being able to be part of a group of like-minded individuals. To me, at the end of the day, that becomes an opportunity to bring communities together, not only in their own ZIP codes of circulation or reach of a television station, but the idea that you can potentially bring together like-minded people from around the state and region and around the world.

Traditional media was talking peer-to-peer and one-to-one in many ways. The opportunity now is that we can have real-time conversations, the ability to talk to many who share your ideas and values and become part of this larger community conversation. The sense of being the town crier, the one place that you can go to find out everything that is going on in your neck of the woods and around the world. The Web now opens that up in many ways.

It has to be managed, it has to be encouraged and there has to be a conscious effort to make sure that groups monitor themselves to make sure that it doesn’t get into some of the negative stuff that we know exists on the Web.

But the real upside is that eventually it will become a venue by which groups that never talk to each other can come together and perhaps discuss issues in a pro-active way.

As you travel around and talk to NAMME members across the country, do you see many young people of color who want to follow journalism?

Foote: I am seeing it from both ends, certainly from the NAMME end. Many of our members have 10-plus years in the business and some at the very senior level, and then those at the mid-career level where we come across them in our career development institute. At the very senior end, those folks who are managing budgets and trying to reinvent their media organizations are certainly encountering the challenges that every media executive, the good, bad and ugly, are facing, trying to come up with numbers and business models that make sense. Their anxiety is more based in the business issues facing all media in general, and not as much tied to the diversity aspect.

As for the younger folks, the opportunity through the institute is positioning themselves for the future. There is still the sense that there is an opportunity there, and it is challenging. Some of them, especially the most enthusiastic ones, have an opportunity to come in with some new ideas and challenge themselves and the companies they work for to be more innovative.

I see it from the a student level, teaching at the University of North Texas, one of our main charges is to teach convergence journalism, as well as some of the basic classes. There is great energy. The North Texas Daily is just as vibrant as ever, covering what is going on in the North Texas community in the print publication, as well as trying to develop the Web presence. There is great energy to learn the skills that they need to not only become good reporters, but the technical skills, shooting videos, understanding how to upload to Web sites.

There is a sense that journalism is a good place to be. It’s changing, but they still want to be a part of the business. It gives me a great feeling that there is still a pipeline there. Our challenge from the educational level is to prepare students for this changing world and the changing skills they may need.

From my NAMME side, I talk to people and ask what kind of people they are hiring. The candlelight is still flickering, maybe the wind is a little stronger and sometimes it might just about be ready to blow out and then the wind comes down.

In these tough times, how do we keep the focus on diversity in a way that we can keep a continued flow into the ranks of media executives and in what way can we do that in this era of layoffs and buyouts? We have a group of diverse executives that have 15 or 20 years of experience which puts them at the high end of career and age and salary spectrum, exactly where many companies are looking to do buyouts and reinvigorate the newsroom. Unfortunately, I am seeing some brain drain of diverse talent in our media organizations because of these tough times. It will be critical that we really look at what we can do with this talent that has lots to offer but may not be fitting in line with where the company may need to go. How do we best transition them to either other parts of the media organization or to other media organizations that might be able to use their talents in other ways?

In your work with the popular Tom Joyner show, what have you learned?

Foote: What I learned was that Tom Joyner had built up a lot of credibility as a person who was out with his audience. He hammered every day that the most important person to him was the listener and the audience. He would say we have to super serve that audience and that individual customer because those are the people who got me where I am. He would refocus the staff: How is this good for my listeners? How does this help them out?

In my years in the media before, we would have some of those discussions, but never as pointedly as that. And when that is done you see people becoming very loyal to the show and to the brand. It empowers his audience to want to participate, to want to reach out to touch him wherever he goes. He inspires people to feel good about themselves and do the right things and get involved in their own communities and into broader activities. This is a tremendous model and if channeled by many media organizations it would be a very powerful thing.

Has the media created a culture that recognizes, respects and values our differences?

Foote: To a certain extent yes, more because the marketplace has dictated some of that. What we have seen and what we will see over the next six months, between now and election day and beyond, will be a real test of the question about the real character of the country in many ways. Also the real character of media to really be as aggressive as it needs to be in covering the presidential election, to be as aggressive and thorough as possible, to also be very, very careful about falling into the trap, and this is where some of the negativity of the Web and digital media come into play, because information can rapidly be distributed.

As a longtime leader and teacher of young people, are you encouraged or discouraged about the future?

Foote: I have always been an optimist, even back during our ASNE days when we fought through all sorts of things to make sure that our colleagues understood why we felt so passionately about the issue of diversity. Whether discussing diversity or the future of media, I make no bones about it when I talk to my students or my peers in NAMME  that the world is changing, media is changing, and it is not going back to where it was. We have to adapt. Who could have imagined back in 1981 when we were using proprietary computers and we had electric typewriters on our desktops, that access to information would be extremely fast and global?

What I like to do on a blank sheet of paper or a white board is just list ways you can now reach a reader or a viewer. It’s multidimensional and that is powerful. You can engage and educate and inform folks in ways that can be extremely powerful. How can we get everyone to say, “OK it is changing and this is how we are going to change with it”? How can we continue to be a vital part of our communities? There is no need to hang our heads low. Let’s create new ways to talk to citizens instead of figuring out ways to scale back. I remain enthused.

Not long ago, people used to tell me, get out of here you Web guy. You are the devil. We will never lose the lineage and the rate structure will not change. Fourteen years later, we see a complete reversal. If we continue to not look at the realities of the business model then we will be dead. But if we look at opportunities, require restructuring, retraining, even some new ways of leadership, the kind of employees and skill sets we need to bring in, and look at those as opportunities as opposed to something to run from, then it’s going to be extremely fascinating.

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Started in daily newspaper business 57 years ago. Former editor and managing editor at a number of papers, former president of ASNE, retired VP/News for…
Gregory Favre

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