Minority-group journalists tend to disagree with their white colleagues over the treatment of certain groups in the newsroom. A 54 percent majority of blacks, for instance, say people of color are treated unfairly in their newsrooms, compared with only 12 percent of the whites. Thirty-eight percent of Asian Americans and 29 percent of Hispanics also rate the treatment as unfair. Majorities of all ethnic groups but blacks agree that men and white people are treated fairly in the newsroom. Fifty-four percent of the black journalists say men are treated better than others, and 57 percent of blacks feel that white people are treated better than others.
Differences emerge over the commitment of papers to diversity and fairness.
Significant portions of the black and Asian American groups also rate their paper's commitment to fairness on issues of sexual orientation as inadequate. As for assessments of the overall quality of their own paper, however, ethnicity makes no difference. Management Styles Minority groups differ in some important ways from the white majority in the views of how the newsroom ought to be run. Not so for blacks, Hispanics and Asian Americans.