Charles Eisendrath, director of the Michigan Journalism fellowship, began with the observation that "considering diversity is really a meditation on life itself, how many viewpoints can we all take into account?

"How much time is there between research and reflection and the need to go into action? When there's a judgment call between your head and your gut, which one do you use? Which one do you go with?"

"This is what every thoughtful journalist does before he or she or they sit down or stand up to do their story. So at least in my opinion, diversity is at the very center of our profession and our professional activities, and what we're doing today is simply bringing it to the fore and discussing it in a new way.

Lee C. Bollinger, President of the University of Michigan, argued that diversity was connected in most of American intellectual history to the notion of truth, that it had been reinforced in the constitution and the rulings of the Supreme Court, but was suddenly under an unprecedented assault.

"A bedrock understanding of freedom of speech in the press is that diverse opinions will more likely lead to the truth... You just can't turn to any page .. in the press in this country without encountering that basic principle. It is in John Stewart Mill [and] John Milton; it picked up when the free speech tradition really begins in this country in 1919 .. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis. .. It continues on up through New York Times vs. Sullivan in 1964, and on to today."

"What's the proof for that idea?...The fact is, none of us could bring forth .. any scientific data" to back it up. "We are simply committed to that idea because of what I would call experiential sort of knowledge."

We also are committed to the notion of diversity out of shame. "Our history is filled with actions for which we feel shame and the need to redress. .. For two or more centuries, there was enslavement of a population in our midst, and there was also deep discrimination against various groups and exclusion of groups."

The connection between free speech and diversity is evident in the Constitution. "The Constitution of the United States has not only a first amendment principle, but also a principle of equality -- the 14th amendment. 'No citizen shall be denied equal protection of the laws,' the so-called equal protection clause. That principle of equality has, of course, also been the subject of powerful interpretation by the U.S. Supreme Court and the courts and by the society. .. Brown vs. Board of Education, the great lone star opinion for this century held separate but equal in education is not constitutional. And Brown vs. Board of Education has launched, for this century, our great project of equality -- trying to redress that history of segregation and .. enslavement, and of discrimination of other groups as well.

"Now today we are under real serious reconsideration of and challenge to these basic principles of freedom of speech and of equality. This University is now being sued by a group, funded and sponsored by a group in Washington, D.C. known as the Center for Individual Rights, trying to prohibit under the Constitution the University from taking race into account as it tries to build a diverse student body."

"The group I mentioned was successful in suing the University of Texas Law School. .. And in California, the Regents of the University of Michigan voted to end any form of taking race into account to build a diverse student body; and the citizens voted in a referendum to follow the same course with respect to all public institutions...."

"The upshot is that at the University of Texas Law School this year for the first time...the number of African Americans .. has fallen from about 50 to about four. The number of African Americans who have entered into Bolt Law School at the University of California at Berkeley, has fallen from about 30-40, to one.

".. It's my hope that we will see in this a retrenchment, a reversal of a century in which we have tried to, under our two great principles of free speech and equality, move to a new level of integration in our minds. But it's also possible that we will, at the end of this century, find ourselves just about where we were at the beginning -- that is with a resegregated system of higher education -- not intentionally segregate, but that's simply a fact."

"What I do know is that since we are so dependent upon our public understanding of these issues of free speech, equality, higher education and how they weave together .. upon .. the media, that what I see as crucial to a good education has to be, in my mind, crucial to a good newsroom."

Walt Swanston, Executive Director of Unity offered a numerical status report on diversity but suggested her own personal history told her that numbers do not really tell the story:

"A status report on diversity in the newsroom can't deal with statistics alone. It has to deal with the climate in the newsroom, the environment. It has to do with how people are treated and how people feel in the newsroom."

"I came from the segregated South. When I was four years old I went to live with an aunt and uncle in Oakland, California, to attend the schools that were not segregated. Eventually I went to San Francisco State, finished with a degree in journalism in the mid 1960s.

"When I was 20, a couple of recruiters from a magazine in Seattle came to San Francisco to see if I'd be interested in moving to Seattle to work for the magazine. .. I, frankly, had some deep concerns about whether I wanted to live and work in an environment in which there were very few people of color, especially people who looked like me. But I did go to Seattle for the interviews, and when I got there, these two recruiters -- both white men .. had arranged for me to talk to members of the black community about what it was like to live there. They had a list of black churches for me. They had places I could get my hair done. They had also come up with a plan of personal development for me, the same plan they had come up with for a young white male reporter who was starting the same time that I did, so that I knew what my expectations were, I knew what training I was going to get in addition to the training I needed to do my every day job.

"That was 33 years ago. There were no models for that at that time. I was very happy. I took the job. I stayed for several years, left only to get married. It was one of the best work experiences I've ever had. ..

"A few years later in 1968 I moved to Washington and went to work as a reporter for the Washington Star... One of the things the Star did at the time was to identify people by race in stories in which I thought it wasn't important. They'd run a story that said, for example, "D.C. Police are looking for a black man, 18-24 in connection with some crime." It seemed to me that that didn't make any sense. It didn't help identify anyone, and all it did at the time was sort of inflame the racial passions that were burning there at the time.

"So I started questioning the policies -- talking to the editors, talking to other reporters, about why that was done, with the idea that we should reexamine the policy or come up with a policy about when race was important in a story and when it wasn't. Those discussions were very productive and a lot of people got engaged in them. And it turned out that we did develop a policy.

"But in the course of these discussions, one morning I was coming in the hallway and a white female reporter who had been at the paper for a long time came right in my face and started screaming at me. 'Who do you think you are? What do you think you're doing here? We've gotten along fine without your kind for a long time and we'll be here after you're gone.'"

"That kind of experience is not common in newsrooms anymore. But what you do have is a lot of unspoken hostility, a lot of anxiety. You have people who believe that they are not being treated fairly -- and that's people of all races. White men have expressed some anger in the past at their perception that they're not going to have a chance to be successful, or they're not going to have a shot at the promotions that they once did. And that's true. The news papers, the news organizations that have made the best strides toward promoting diversity, are finding that they are having the problems more than anyone else because of the mixture of people and because of the emotions that arise when you bring people of different backgrounds, different cultural backgrounds, different ethnic backgrounds, together. Those things are a natural part of growth and development in news rooms, and in some cases, can be very healthy."

"We do have to talk about the numbers a little bit, [to frame] the discussion. [At] newspapers, there are about 54,000 newsroom employees these days: 6100 of them are people of color -- this is in about 1472 newspapers across the country. Of the percentage who are people of color, ten percent are male and eight percent are female. Minority employment in newspapers is highest in the production areas and in the circulation areas. It's lowest in the news and editorial departments -- about 12 percent.

". . . publishers of color equal about one percent of daily newspaper publishers ... That's 16 publishers of color. It's the highest number we've ever had in the newspaper business. They are primarily African American. Latinos are the fastest growing group of publishers. There's one Native American publisher and no Asian American publishers. Slightly over 10 percent are women, about 140 people are women. Most women publishers work at the smallest newspapers. They comprise 14.8 percent of the publishers in the small newspapers, in the newspapers with circulations of 10,000 or below. In contrast, 3.1 percent of women publish newspapers with circulations over 250,000, of the largest paper. Only 3.1 percent.

"In 1997, a survey of newspaper employees showed that while the number of journalists and the number of newspapers declined, the percentage of people of color in the newsroom inched up to 11.35 percent -- up from 11.2 percent in 1996. 11.35 is the current percentage. Forth-three percent of daily newspapers employ no people of color in the newsroom. .. Nineteen percent of people of color in the newsroom are managers.

"In broadcast, among 1118 television stations, in 1996 women made up 37 percent of the television news workforce. The number of women news directors in television was 14 percent -- a three percent decrease from the previous year. So in 1996, it was 37 percent. Women were twice as likely to work in the small markets. Also in television news, people of color increased to 21 percent in 1996 -- up from 19 percent the previous year.

"In radio news, 34 percent of the work force was made up of women. Twenty-three percent were news directors. That represents a three percent drop from the previous year. The percentage of people of color in radio news remained at 12 percent from '95 to '96. In the top radio news jobs, in the news director position, the number of minorities dropped to eight percent, a one percent decrease from 1995.

"So the numbers do mean something. But if you put large numbers of women and people of color into the news environment that had primarily been controlled by white men, there are some inevitable problems. .. The numbers aren't increasing dramatically. Part of the reason is the climate that I mentioned earlier. The climate is not hospitable in a lot of cases. There are widespread assumptions that women and people of color are in newsrooms, especially in the higher positions, because they are women or people of color. Another assumption is they're not qualified.

"Another factor is that women and people of color don't achieve the highest ranks with as great ease as white males do, and therefore, they tend to leave, looking for a better opportunity. The promotions don't come as easily.

Mark Trahant, editor and publisher of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, and a former President of the Native American Journalists Association, is according to the statistics, the nation's only Native American publisher. He argued that the issue sitting below the surface of diversity is whether American culture is dedicated to assimilation or something more complicated, and how that plays out.

"The question (of diversity) was posed in a different way in my favorite guide to what journalism can be -- the good part of journalism -- the 1947 Hutchins Commission Report: (It asked) can the news media represent constituent groups of society?" In other words, "can news media represent constituent groups in a way that makes the stories factual, true, and in a context that gives them meaning?

"Who are the constituent groups? .. It goes beyond racial terms. It goes beyond diversity in cultural terms."

"To me the question that keeps popping up is whether or not this country will believe in assimilation. I come from a country that has rejected assimilation for some time...One of the rallying cries about why we should even enter the news business is partly to make the case against assimilation, (to argue) that we can be many cultures and still be one; that there are ways for people to be different and still serve a common purpose."

"I come from tribal newspapers ... and entered the mainstream a lot later. One of the first things you learn as a tribal editors is the First Amendment does not apply to Indian country. If you start (there) and see how the First Amendment evolves for everybody else, you see how complicated it gets to define constituent groups."

Traci Tong, producer/director of "The World," on public radio stations across the country, is Vice President of Broadcasts for the Asian American Journalists Association national organization.

"From an Asian American standpoint, the (the diversity status) report looks to be a C-minus. We've made some progress, we've seen some change, but .. there's a long way to go. Thirty years ago the Kerner Commission (accused) the mainstream American media of "basking in the white world, looking out of it if at all with a white man's eyes and a white perspective." Thirty years later we're still having this debate...If anything, it's become more contentious in the newsrooms.

".. It is discouraging that .. by the year 2000 .. the newsrooms will not be able to reflect our nation's minority population of, I believe, 24 percent..."

"We are seeing more Asian Americans in roles of newsroom managers, news directors, and positions of influence where it counts. How does this translate into the influence and impact that we have in our newsrooms? (Consider) the recent scandals involving the fundraising activities with the Clinton White House called AsiaGate. Many of you may recall the cover of the National Review which depicted President Clinton, First Lady Hillary Clinton, and Vice President Al Gore with slant eyes, buck teeth, one of them wearing a Coolie hat. And what's even more dismaying was that many of our colleagues couldn't understand why this was so offensive."

"One of the lessons that we have learned and are still learning today is that we now have the opportunity to make good solid news decisions when we tap into the knowledge, into the wisdom, into the cultural experiences of all our citizens and not just a select few."

"A second point is that diversity just makes good business sense. When you have a diverse news staff who understands the sensitivity of the communities that we cover, you reduce stereotypical, superficial coverage. When that happens your readers, your viewers, your listeners, will see and may hear stories that connect to their lives, and that in turn, hopefully, induces loyalty among consumers."

Del Warner, the seniors reporter for WDIV TV and author of a seniors column on coping for the Detroit News, says diversity will likely always be sacrificed for profit. She maintains her job in part because she went out and found a sponsor for her seniors segment.

"I never knew that I would wind up being a minority. I used to think I was a minority when I was the child of immigrants who came from Russia, Poland and Romania, and I was Jewish, but I grew into being a minority -- I'm 73 years old.

"... One of the questions we've been asked -- what is the goal of diversity? You all know that. How close are we? Are we talking about a goal or a dream? So long as the bottom line is the bottom line, it will be a dream.

"Everybody tries to accommodate diversity. When they look for a news reporter, they look for an Asian, they look for an African American, they may look for a Native American. They will try to find a good reporter who may be part of another group because yes, they know, it's good for the public to see someone they can identify with and who they know represents their way of thinking. I like to think that any reporter can cover any story and do it well, but when people know you have a sensitivity, a life experience, they know you're portraying it more accurately.

"Actually the network is better in keeping on older reporters. I see Judy Muller, God bless her, and she has wrinkles and she looks great, and I wouldn't even guess how old she is, but she's there. .. But I don't think anyone is going to go out and hire an older reporter. I don't think anyone is going to hire a seniors reporter in a newsroom."

"I think the reason I'm still there is because I can do it all. I'm a producer, I'm a writer, I find my stories ... I even helped find a sponsor. I don't get a nickel, but so long as that spot is sponsored, I get my crew regularly so I can go out and shoot my story. So I'm protecting my interests. I'm protecting the interests of the seniors."

"Something is wrong in the morning network news. .. The little teeny boppers who produce their segments on what seniors are haven't the remotest idea of what a senior is. (Laughter) They have a vested interest in treating every older person like their Aunt Tilly or their grandmother. There, there, there, just we'll take care of you. To them, seniors have no minds, no voice. They're invisible. Just take a look at what they put on the air, if you watch the morning shows."

"There are things about older people nobody wants to deal with. We do grow old. But we have energy -- I'm here."

Loren Ghiglione, past President of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, suggested that diversity 20 years into the profession's formal commitment to it raises more questions than it once seemed to. Among other tasks, Ghiliogne has been asked by ASNE to study why newspapers won't meet their stated goal set in 1978 to have a minority population by 2000 that reflects the country at large.

"I'm just going to ask a series of questions .. Do newsrooms that are not diverse necessarily make great newsrooms?

"I think back to the New York Times coverage in 1891 which applauded the lynchings of Italian Americans and Italians and treated Italians as a sub-human race. It reminded me of Caroline Martindale's analysis of New York Times coverage of minorities over the last 60 years, which basically said they were treated as invisible, or if not invisible in the case of African Americans, they were portrayed as problem people, 'outside the mainstream of U.S. society.'

"A second question, what are the paradigms we pursue? Desegregation or integration, assimilation or multiculturalism, diversity or unity or both?"

"A third question, is it appropriate to focus the diversity effort almost entirely on ethnicity and the social construct of race? Wouldn't 21st Century America, including its newsrooms, benefit from a broadened definition of diversity that also confronted discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, disabilities -- mental and physical, age, religion, class, social and political outlook?

"Four, why not use the year 2000 census year as a time to invite America's newspapers, all of them, to take a census of their markets and their staffs? This is being done on a piecemeal basis by institutions such as the Maynard Institute and their total community coverage program. I suspect we would find some surprises, that we know less than we think we know about our newsrooms.

"Five, is it necessary to ask at some point in the 21st Century, whether discrimination against people we call black or African American with their history in America of slavery and segregation, needs to be treated differently than say discrimination against Hispanics. A Harvard professor, Orlando Patterson, writes that it's ridiculous that all persons of so-called Hispanic ancestry are considered disadvantaged minorities. The only Hispanics who should qualify are Puerto Ricans of any generation, and Mexican Americans of second or later generations, and so on. It's a question that I ask without the answers.

"Six ..[Can] more diversity in leadership and ownership of U.S. news media be a higher priority in the 21st Century than it has been in the 20th? .. Does this come down to a question of commitment and will?

"Seven, how do we move beyond newsroom diversity workshops and committees to changing the culture of the newsroom...

"I talked with Gary Pomerantz who's the race reporter of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and he talked about no tangible improvement on race relations 'in the ten years that I've been at the paper. Yes, people of color now make up almost 20 percent of the newsroom staff, but no one is 'really trying to work at newsroom integration', a prerequisite for success. The staff separates by race socially after work or at lunch.'"

"Eight, is the provincialism of U.S. news media an issue with diversity as it is with the definition of news?"

"[Finally] in chasing improved demographics and upscale suburban readers, in providing the infotainment that attracts the readership, that attracts the advertisers, are U.S. news media making it more difficult to serve all the people? Are, for instance, zoned editions like the old "News of our Colored Neighbors" sections in southern newspapers 50 years ago, reminders, perhaps even perpetrators of our society's social segregation?"

Karen Louise Boothe, a government reporter at Minnesota Public Radio and the newly elected President of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, said homosexuality poses useful issues to the debate over diversity because the gays and lesbians in the newsroom are often invisible. There are about 22 chapters in the United States and Canada, and affiliates in Germany, and members in the UK, China, and Namibia right now.

"The whole conversation about diversity in the newsroom for us isn't as much about numbers... We don't really know how many gay and lesbian people are employed in newsrooms. It's hard to measure with so many people in the closet and afraid to come out.... Many of our members are not out in their own newsrooms. Those who are [feel] their identities as gay and lesbian journalists are politicized. I know that as the newly elected Board President of this national organization, it is in many ways, in my newsroom and others, seen as an activist role. "Oh, you're Board President of a gay and lesbian group." No, check that. That's a journalist organization.

"The social and political and religious consequences of same gender orientation have captured Americans' attention with unprecedented intensity. This is where the conversation about diversity comes in for gays and lesbians in the newsroom....

"I think most of us in this room can think back to some of the headlines of the past -- "Perverts in the park," for instance, "arrested in a crackdown by police."

"What about the Andrew Cunanan coverage? Remember when the police when into his hotel room and found that perhaps he had shaved, speculated that maybe he was in drag and escaped police by passing as a woman. It never was substantiated... Reuters referred to him as a "flamboyant gigolo". It was never substantiated that Andrew Cunanan was a prostitute."

"The issues of gay marriage, gay families, parenting, adoption, gays in the military .. The battle over sex education in the schools, grass roots national politics, civil liberties, ballot initiatives, gay bashing, violence .. Despite improvements, the level of understanding and commitment to end up in fair coverage of these issues is still an unfinished canvas, however."

Charles Eisendrath: "Is diversity a dream, or is it a goal?"

Loren Ghiglione: "I'm always uncomfortable with numerical goals, but, it seems to me having a goal helps you get somewhere."

Tom Rosenstiel: "It seems to me that one of the things that makes the issue of diversity complex, is that the notion that we bring anything to the newsroom by way of life experience, cultural experience, gender experience, intellectual experience, collides on some level with the notion that all our experience can be subsumed in journalistic technique and convention. To what extent do you think that collision .. is the source of the conflicts .. in newsrooms that have gone the furthest with diversity?"

Walt Swanston: "My background is different from most people's in the newsroom. I don't think the way every other African American reporter thinks. I have a unique perspective. I think that my perspective can add to the overall product. Not that I have a point of view, a particular point of view to pass along, it's just that I think the richness and diversity comes from the difference of opinion, the added perspectives, the different way of looking at the world. I think that's the value that people who represent differences can add to a news product."

Del Warner: "I know that I have been able to .. get stuff out of people whether they're seniors, whether they're Jewish, by virtue of my understanding that group, they sense it. They can tell, and they will give up more in an interview than they would to someone else. I really believe that."

Mark Trahant: "I think the greatest problem with assuming that journalism alone, journalism techniques alone will allow you to fairly represent a constituent group is that you don't have enough context to ask the right question.

"An example of that right now would be the coverage of American Indian gambling. Most reporters who would, well, to use the phrase, parachute into the story, would ask questions about a casino, maybe how it's run, what's going on here. But then they don't have the capacity to pull back and find out one, the context of the history, how we got to that point; they don't understand that most reservation governments do not allow gambling, and that most American Indians live under governments that don't allow gambling. So that lack of context, to me, makes it difficult to go beyond."

Karen Louise Boothe: "I think the point about parachuting in is really critical. Because largely when coverage of gay and lesbian like pride events, a lot of heterosexual reporters would come in and they would see what was so foreign to them and they would focus on that. It wouldn't necessarily be an accurate depiction. I know that I've gone to events that, I know I recently went to an event that was largely heterosexual, it was a college function, it was like this huge fundraiser band, and I found their behavior appalling, quite frankly, and I thought this is heterosexual youth? I mean they're scaring me. And so I thought well, it was sort of the reverse of that. I think lending context.

"I also want to say, though, that a fear for a lot of minority journalists is being pigeonholed. It might not just be your interest. But having a presence in the newsroom, you don't want to be 'the gay reporter", 'the black reporter', whatever. But you lend context and meaning to the newsroom editorial discussions."

Charles Eisendrath: "Does anybody want to take a crack on trying to guess how many diversity targets we should have, or how we handle how many we do have?"

Walt Swanston: "I don't want to be counted as a number. I don't want to be there only because I'm an African American woman... I don't want to cover issues that affect only African Americans. The numbers I have a problem with.

"[But], I think there needs to be some artificial means to increase the numbers because the voices are important. The numbers themselves don't mean a thing. I think that nearly half of the newspaper newsrooms that don't have people of color don't have an excuse not to cover those communities, either."

"So the voices are important. The numbers help get us there, but the voices are important. The different perspectives are important."

Charles Eisendrath: "Let's take a question from the floor.

Joan Smith: "I believe we are seeing or witnessing an assault on majority rule, on majoritarianism. Why must I be ashamed to admit that I have a forefather who came over on the Mayflower?"

Mark Trahant: "To me the first amendment is a metaphor for this country, and I don't think the people who wrote the first amendment had any idea how powerful their ideas were. To me, their ideas are that we can be different and get along."

"Our entire system of government is based on the rights of minority. It is not about majority rule, it's about how we can somehow create a society different than anything that's ever been created in the world, and move forward as a people that are not one.

"There's a series of letters between George Washington and early Cherokee leaders in the 18th Century, and those letters talk about how he would hope that the Cherokees would eventually join the union as a state. Back then, the whole philosophy was you can still bring what you brought, and including that would be the Cherokees who were there first, but still be a part of America....It's challenging, but it really is what makes the potential for this country greater than it ever has been before."

Walt Swanston: "The broad definition of diversity includes everybody... In order for us to make any progress, white men have to be a part of the process of making diversity work....It's an inclusive process. It's a painful process at the moment. It requires everybody to stretch a bit, to give a bit, to listen to each other. But I think the growth, the strength will be because we learn to respect and include everyone.

John Fatal: "How much does the money business of journalism fall into play when editors and publishers decide on stories and how does this affect diversity? In other words, does the readership of a newspaper lend itself to cover more stories where the subscribers might be?"

Karen Louise Boothe: "I might say that the diversity is what's going to ensure the economic stability of the industry....It's either broaden or die."

Vanessa Williams: "Often you see people of color in journalism put in the position of trying to reassure white males ... that we can be fair, that we're qualified....(The implication is) that white males bring no perspective, baggage or whatever to an issue. I would suggest that they do. Certainly upper middle class, white people, probably have a different way of looking at the world than poor white people who....People who had military service may look at the world differently than people who were part of the '60s anti-war movement."

Charles Eisendrath: "I'm a Jewish White American. My family has been here since 1840-something. My grandmother did not consider herself, or me for that matter, particularly white. In the 1950s in this state in the resort communities, there were places where we were not welcome, I was not welcome. ..

"Is there a unique perspective? Of course there is. And it's varied all over the place. So maybe one of the contributions of this conference may be to parse the question a little bit, to break it down into constituent parts, or realize that these blanket categories may not be terribly useful, but we've got them, that's for sure."

Alice Tate: "I'd like to know in a business that prides itself on precision and precise use of the English language, why the media continues to refer to groups as minority and minorities?"

Walt Swanston: "The word minority means something less than. And truthfully in this country now there are majority minority communities...."

Mark Trahant: " There are a couple of issues that will continue to be important in the new media. One is access. Not all people in all communities have access as easily as people who live in urban areas. .. The second part of it will be as the Internet becomes more and more corporate, how are you going to make sure the diversity of voices gets out there?"