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The Values of Diversity ¹
by Gregory Favre

We should make diversity a company-wide policy at every newspaper; infuse it into our values just as we infuse our journalistic standards into these values.

We should conduct regular content reviews, constantly asking ourselves if we are being inclusive, if all voices are given an opportunity to be heard, if others unlike us are reading about themselves or seeing themselves in our news and advertising columns, if we are eliminating the stereotyping that sadly still appears in too many newspapers.

We should identify and nurture minority candidates, reaching as far down as our elementary grades to encourage young people to join our craft and help them with scholarships and internships. We should make sure that journalism schools are part of the solution, because journalism graduates fill 87 percent of all entry-level jobs.

We must create a welcoming environment at our newspapers, create mentoring programs internally and externally, partner with other organizations in our communities to make the transition easier for those who join us, provide training for everyone in our buildings so that they can relate in some way to the multicultural, multiethnic, multiracial society of today. We must work harder on retention and promotion of minorities, shattering those glass ceilings that most of us in this room have never had to deal with and, therefore, don't know how it feels to not be given a chance because of race or gender.

We must direct our energies toward achieving these goals rather than expending our energies trying to affix blame. There is enough blame for all of us to share. And, finally, we must make sure that people do not have to forget who they are in order to become what they want to be.

1. Gregory Favre, a past president of The American Society of Newspaper Editors and executive editor of The Sacramento Bee (Calif.) gave this excerpted speech last April during the Newspaper Association of America convention held in Dallas, Texas.