DOCUMENT RESUME ED 447 540 CS 510 457 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (83rd, Phoenix, Arizona, August 9-12, 2000). Newspaper Division. INSTITUTION Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. PUB DATE 2000-08-00 NOTE 352p.; For other sections of this proceedings, see CS 510 451-470. PUB TYPE Collected Works Proceedings (021) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC15 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Advertising; Agenda Setting; Bias; Diversity (Institutional); Higher Education; Internet; *Journalism; *Journalism Education; Journalism Research; News Reporting; *Newspapers; Organizational Change; Political Issues; Presidential Campaigns (United States); World Wide Web IDENTIFIERS Computer Assisted Reporting; Media Coverage; Online News; School Shootings ABSTRACT The Newspaper Division section of the proceedings contains the following 12 papers: "Diversity Efforts at the 'Los Angeles Times'.: Are Journalists and the Community on the Same Page?" (Richard Gross, Stephanie Craft, Glen T. Cameron and Michael Antecol); "Setting the News Story Agenda: Candidates and Commentators in News Coverage of a Governor's Race" (Frederick Fico); "The Jasper Newsboy: Reportage and Reconciliation in the Texas Dragging Death" (Barbara Friedman); "Daily Newspaper Use of Web Addresses: Longitudinal Analysis of New Content Form" (Jean M. Trumbo and Craig W. Trumbo); "Two- Topic Teams and How They Grew: Education and Public Life at 'The Virginian-Pilot'" (Leslie-Jean Thornton); "A Functional Analysis of New Hampshire Presidential Primary Debates and Accompanying Newspaper Coverage" (Bryan Reber); "To Quell the Quarrels--Examining 'The Philadelphia Inquirer's' Israeli/Palestinian Coverage" (Judith Sylvester and H. Denis Wu); "Computer-Assisted Reporting in Michigan Daily Newspapers: More Than a Decade of Adoption" (Lucinda D. Davenport, Fred Fico and Mary Detwiler); "When the Shooting Stops: A Comparison of Local, Regional and National Newspaper Coverage of 1990s School Shootings" (Michael McCluskey); "Reader Mindset and Bias: A Closer Look at the People Who Say We Skew the News" (Deborah Gump); "Online Newspapers: Collating Banner Advertising with Editorial Content" (David R. Thompson and Birgit Wassmuth); "Information and Interaction: Online Newspaper Coverage of the 2000 Iowa Caucus" (Jane B. Singer); and "Talking the Talk: Expressions of Social Responsibility in Public Newspaper Grous" (Diana Knott, Ginny Carrol and Philip Meyer). (RS) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (83rd, Phoenix, Arizona, August 9-12, 2000). Newspaper Division. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS CENTER (ERIC) BEEN GRANTED BY This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. frl_c_6 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. 71- TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES CD Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) official OERI position or policy. tf 1 a:. BEST COPY AVAIL LE Diversity Efforts at the Los Angeles Times: Are Journalists and the Community on the Same Page? By Richard Gross, M.A., M.S. Doctoral Candidate Missouri School of Journalism Stephanie Craft, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Missouri School of Journalism Glen T. Cameron, Ph.D. Professor Missouri School of Journalism Michael Antecol, Ph.D. Post-Doctoral Fellow Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention Correspondence concerning this manuscript should be addressed to Glen T. Cameron, Gregory Chair in Journalism Research, 134-B Neff Annex, Missouri School of Journalism,Columbia, MO 65211. Office phone: (573) 884-2607, home phone: (573) 446-4521, office fax: (573)882-2890, Internet: glen cameronajmailjour.missouri.edu Diversity Efforts at the Los Angeles Times: Are Journalists and the Community onthe Same Page? Abstract Survey data from Los Angeles Times editorialemployees and residents of Los Angeles County were gathered to determine respondents'views of the newspaper's efforts to increase minority coverage, specifically with regard to the"market-driven" nature of those efforts. How respondents perceive market-drivenjournalism and the extent to which newsroom and community perceptions of it are similar werespecifically addressed. Results suggest that people, whether journalists or readers,neither dismiss nor embrace market-driven journalism outright. Diversity Efforts at the Los Angeles Times: Are Journalists andthe Community on the Same Page? Introduction In 1999, The Missouri School of Journalism andits research arm, the Center for Advanced Social Research, were commissioned bythe Los Angeles Times to study the impact of the newspaper's ethnic and racial diversity program onthe Times' newsroom and the perception of that diversity program onTimes' readers. The study took several methodological forms.Initially, scripted, taped interviews were conducted with 76editorial staffers who volunteered to participate, withthe paper's encouragement. Several questionsprobed the staffers' attitudes about Times management's motivation for the diversity program,their knowledge of market-driven journalism and the relationship between the two.Gross, Curtin and Cameron (1999) reported an initial analysis of the newsroom interviewdata. A second component of the Los Angeles Times study wasthe administration of surveys to members of thepaper's editorial staff and the community to determinethe extent to which newsroom employeesand community residents hold similar views concerning the Times' diversity effort and thepaper's motives for effecting it. Is it intended to create a better newspaper, to improve thepaper's bottom line, or both? To what extent do both groups observe the samephenomenon and agree on its motivations? The perceptions of readers in the coverage area's manyminority communities are of particular interest, given that management'sstated motives are to improve coverage of minority communities and create a newsroomwhose composition mirrors the diversity of the community it serves. Diversity Efforts at the Los Angeles Times: Are Journalists and the Community onthe Same Page? Background Market-drive, diversityandtheLos Angeles Times The proliferation of media channels and the resultingcompetition among media for the same advertisers and audience members is believed tohave led many newspapers to place profit high on their list of organizationalgoals (Demers, 1996a). Readership research has become a standard tool used to aid newspaper managementin making content decisions (Schoenbach and Bergen,1998). TheLos Angeles Timesis among the most prominent and largest newspapers in thenation that have chosen to use readership research as one way to craft a paper reflecting the concerns ofthat readership. As part of the process of recasting itself, the newspaper's managementhas put into place a program to increase ethnic and racial diversity in the newsroomin a way that reflects more accurately its Los Angeles readership. Newspaper managementis also examining the content of the paper. A more detailed explanationof that process, which relates to the changing face of Los Angeles and the changing fateof theTimes,is reported in Gross, Curtin and Cameron (1999). Boasting a staff of 1,100 journalists, 13 domestic and 24 internationalbureaus and circulation of approximately 1.1 million for the daily edition, theTimesis the nation's largest daily metropolitan newspaper, and among the world's largest newsorganizations. Its circulation area is the size of the state of Ohio. Along with its size, theTimes'quality as journalism is equally impressive, with 23 Pulitzer Prizes awarded. In 1989, theWashington Journalism Reviewanointed the Timesthe "paper to watch for the 90s." In 1957,Time Magazinehad dubbed theLos Angeles Timesone of America's 10 worst newspapers;by 1964, one of the nation's 10 Diversity Efforts at theLos Angeles Times:Are Journalists and the Community on the Same Page? best. In a few short years, the Times had seemingly gonefrom worst to nearly first, growing in influence through the 1970s and the 1980s.The late 1980s were a difficult time back east, with the boom-boom of themiddle of the decade having succumbed to bust. It seemed even The New York Times mightsurrender its crown to the Los Angeles Times as the nation's newspaper of record. Then, quite unexpectedly, the U.S. economy paused and thebottom fell out of the California economy. At the Los Angeles Times, rounds of layoffsfollowed a hiring freeze. Some editions were trimmed, others droppedaltogether. So-called "excess circulation," copies that cost more to print and deliver thanthey returned in revenue, was abandoned (Prochneau, 2000, p. 61). By 1995, the LosAngeles Times had surrendered nearly 20 percent of its 1990 circulation. Though the paper'scirculation was still 1,013,000 and its circulation area was huge, large amountsof advertising revenue had been lost, along with the panache of much of its nationaladvertising. Then, just as quickly as the economy had soured, it againexploded with cyber- opportunity that dovetailed with the Clinton ascendance to thepresidency. California's future was once again bright, and a new wave of immigrantsfrom East and South Asia and Mexico joined westward moving job-seekersfrom