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ADRIAN BRUNE
Friday, August 06, 2004
Its bright multi-colored logo comprises the symbols of four powerful minority
journalist associations, representing black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian
American journalists from across the country. But despite years of lobbying,
several other prominent journalist groups, including the one for gay meda professionalists,
will remain silent partners in Unity’s quest for newsroom diversity.
As more than 7,000 journalists gather in Washington, D.C. for the massive
Unity: Journalists of Color 2004 Inc. convention, nearly 100 members of the
1,200-member National Gay & Lesbian Journalists Association plan to actively
participate in the five-day event, holding panel discussions, intermingling
at receptions and staffing an information booth.
They do so unofficially, however. After repeated requests to formally join
Unity, the organization uniting journalists of color has decided not to extend
the parameters of its big tent past its founding mission.
Leaders of NLGJA and the South Asian Journalists Association — the other
minority group that appealed to Unity for official recognition — say
they have gradually come to accept their second-tier status. Both still have
a place at the table, they say, although it might not be marked too well.
“We don’t have that piece of paper that makes us official, but
we’re still doing almost everything the main organizations are doing,” said
Pamela Strother, the executive director of NLGJA.
“Right now there is not a push to make it official. Unity is supportive
and welcoming of our ideas for collaboration, and we are a presence at chapter
events beyond the convention.”
This year’s Unity conference — its third in 15 years — takes
place at the Washington Convention Center through Sunday and promises to be
its most celebrated event. The convention features President Bush, who turned
down appearances at the nation’s largest black and Hispanic civil rights
groups earlier this year, and Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry among
its speakers.
Shortly after former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Will Sutton, who is black,
and Juan Gonzalez, a Hispanic writer for the Philadelphia Daily News, formed
Unity in the late 1980s after forging a bond over beers and a shared idea to
join their disparate minority organizations, NLJGA sought an equal partner
role.
However, the Unity Board nixed that idea almost immediately, voting to exclude
all but the original four minority journalism associations — the National
Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists,
the Asian American Journalists Association, and the Native American Journalists
Association.
Then, in 1998, Unity incorporated under the “Journalists of Color” name.
After that happened, the NLGJA said in a statement that the name change discouraged “hopes
that the organization and NLGJA might ever merge.” The best the organization
could achieve was official affiliation under the Unity umbrella.
A year later it came knocking on the door of Unity’s second convention
in Seattle with a proposal granting NLGJA that designation.
Unity’s board pledged to take up the proposal at its annual meeting
that fall and the NLGJA leadership left the convention sure that its 19 chapters
in the U.S. and Canada and eight percent ethnic minority membership guaranteed
at least an alliance. But the board ultimately rejected the NLGJA’s proposals
and allowed the association a presence, but not an official one.
After a decade of trying, the NLGJA says it is ready to move on.
Leroy Aarons, a journalist who helped establish both groups, said that some
of the NLGJA’s goals serve Unity’s mission in supporting racial
and ethnic inclusion. However, he asserted that the NLGJA is a mature enough
organization to stand on its own without the help of Unity, according to the
convention’s daily newspaper, the Unity News.
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