After this and this from India, we have two interesting reports.
The first one is from the US (link via Pradeepkumar):
...[The] percentage of minorities working in newsrooms crept up from 13.42 to 13.87 percent.
Though newspapers are increasing their hiring and retention of minority journalists, newsroom diversity is falling behind the nation’s rapidly changing demographics. A third of the U.S. population is now minority, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
There's a lot of data available from the same organization; they can be accessed from this page.
The second is from the UK. Hasan Suroor writes in today's op-ed in the Hindu:
[Sutton Trust's] research, released last week, shows that a whopping 54 per cent of Britain's top newspaper and television journalists — editors, columnists, anchors, executives — were educated at expensive private schools, which cater for only seven per cent of all school-going children in the country. Thirty-three per cent came from grammar schools where admission is based on selection, and only 14 per cent from state-funded comprehensives that 90 per cent of the country's children attend.
Among the journalists who went to university, nearly half the top brass went to Oxford or Cambridge.
4 Comments:
Small clarification-
25% of the US population is minorties and not 1/3rd which would be 33%.
Why is diversity important?
Confused: The ASNE seems to be quoting the 'latest census figures', and I have no idea who all are included under 'minorities' in the US.
Abi:
As per latest 2004 US census estimate, the total US population was 293.6 million. It included 68% White, 13% Black, 14% Hispanic, 4% asian and 1% Red indians/Native americans.
Only blacks (african americans), hispanics (from south america) and red indians/native americans are considered as minorities. These ethnic groups were selected as minorities based on political consideration and guilt associated with the past treatment meted out to them.
Under affirmative action program, leading universities and companies tries to match the number of students/workers same as general population. This has nothing to do with reducing social unequality. It is more to show the organisation as diverse one (an IN thing) and to avoid possible law suits.
Thanks,
Yogesh K. Upadhyaya
chemical 1977, IT-BHU
New Jersey, USA
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