Illustration by Mike Padilla

Steve Doig has spent the past three years researching diversity in the newspaper industry and criticizing newsrooms where the racial makeup of the journalists does not reflect the demographics of the communities they serve. "It's pretty grim," said Doig, the interim director of ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, noting that the industry employs an average of 12 percent of minorities compared to the general minority population of 32 percent in the United States. "There are not enough journalists of color, not enough professors, and not enough students."

So, when an accreditation team issued a report critical of Arizona State University's top-ranked journalism school for its lack of diversity among the faculty, it must have hit particularly close to home for Doig.

For the record, ASU's journalism school has not lost its accreditation yet. The team that visited the school last semester recommended provisional accreditation for one year at which time the school will undergo another review. The full accreditation council has yet to vote on whether or not to adopt the team's recommendations.

Rui Wang Columnist

At both ASU and the UA, the process of hiring faculty must follow mandatory methodology defined by the federal government in order to ensure that diversity goals are being met. In fact, both schools have very similar affirmative action recruitment methods - networking throughout the journalism field and specifically targeting minority press publications.

Fortunately for the UA, the journalism department has not had the same perceived problems as ASU has had when it comes to diversity. In fact, Jacqueline Sharkey - head of the UA journalism department - states that "accreditation teams have always praised our commitment to this important issue." The department has been especially successful in recruiting female faculty.

One of the most important factors in the journalism department's continuing success in attracting a diverse faculty may prove to be proactive student participation - particularly minority and female student participation - in the media. Students themselves have the potential to wield more power in determining the success of diversity goals than any hiring committee at the university.

For example, the UA has the only journalism department in the country where students produce a bilingual newspaper that circulates within a real community. El Independiente has served the South Tucson population, which is 83 percent Mexican-American and 10 percent Native American, for nearly 30 years. Student efforts like this are invaluable. They enrich the curriculum and benefit the community, but also reflect the impact of students on the higher echelons of academia.

It's a trickle-up theory. A student publication that celebrates diversity encourages a more diverse group of students to join the department, because it creates a welcoming place and a chance to work on a publication that highlights minority issues. As time passes, the department incubates a growing number of minority students who go on to become journalists and professors, strengthening the quality of networking ties to the university. In turn, these ties can help attract high caliber minority faculty to the school and foster diversity in the curriculum and student population.

Ties to the minority community can help public schools like the UA and ASU compete in a faculty market where well-qualified minority candidates are scarce and private institutions beckon with unmatchable paychecks.

The longevity of student operations such as El Independiente also benefits the school when accredited representatives come around. The accreditation process doesn't just happen every six years, but reflects a continuing commitment to quality and diversity: "It's like preparing for the SAT; you can't wait until 12th grade to (start to) study for the SAT," said Doig.

Diversity in the area of journalism - in the newsroom and in the classroom - still has a long way to go. "Certainly no one would argue that there is a problem with diversity in the newsroom and that the efforts being made by all types of news media have not been adequate to really address the problem," said Sharkey. She cites a number of factors for the persistent shortage of diversity: slowly changing attitudes towards racism and sexism in the newsroom, unconscious social biases that feed into the institutional media, and corporate glass ceilings.

Even the Wildcat is a microcosm of the journalism world. Some parts of the Wildcat newsroom are diverse, while others - such as the members of the opinions section that you are reading right now - are not as diverse. If you ever read the newspaper and think that your concerns are not being heard or addressed, make an effort to participate in the press, especially if you are a minority or female student. Making your voice heard and taking a proactive approach today will ensure a more reflective and relevant media tomorrow.

Rui Wang is a third-year law student. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.