Minorities Press for Newsroom Diversity : Journalism: ‘Unity ‘94’ conference is largest of its kind. Members call for greater numbers in management, more accurate news portrayals.

ATLANTA —  More than 5,000 minority journalists, in their largest gathering ever, came here this week determined to pressure the nation’s news executives to increase their numbers in management ranks and to offer more sensitive and accurate portrayals of blacks, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans.

Their conference, dubbed “Unity ‘94,” comes after a 15-year period in which the number of minorities in the newspaper business has risen steadily, from less than 4% in 1978 to 10.5% last year.

But the racial and ethnic makeup of those who report and edit the news still falls far short of mirroring America. Minorities account for one-fourth of the U.S. population and 43% in California.

“We have made some inroads, but I would not call it progress,” said Dorothy Gilliam, a Washington Post columnist and president of the National Assn. of Black Journalists. She said that African Americans are too often portrayed in the media “with a criminal face.”

The leaders of groups representing Asian American, Latino and Native American journalists said that their communities are treated in the media either as “invisible” or as the source of a particular problem, such as immigration. The key to more accurate treatment of minority communities, they said, is to hire more minorities to report, edit and broadcast the news.

“A media that does not reflect its community eventually will not survive,” Gilliam said.

That message certainly has reached the top ranks of the news business. Executives from every major television network and the publishers of many of the largest newspapers will be here.

On Tuesday night, the top executives of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and the Seattle Times answered questions in a town hall meeting that was also broadcast by satellite to Washington and San Francisco. Perhaps even more important to the journalists attending the meeting, the top executives brought with them 400 recruiters to interview job applicants.

The publishers and news executives were criticized for everything from printing too much “bad news” to portraying older persons as “greedy geezers” and reporting that “Muslims” carried out the bombing of New York’s World Trade Center.

“It’s our job to be pounded on,” said Peter Prichard of USA Today.

For the last decade, the minority journalists have met annually in four separate conventions. Besides the black journalists, the groups are the National Assn. of Hispanic Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Assn. and the Native American Journalists Assn.

This year, the four groups, while maintaining their separate identities, decided to join forces in a single conference.

“Our common goal is to have better portrayals of our community,” said Evelyn Hsu, a Washington Post editor and president of the Asian American journalists.

Despite years of warnings, racial and ethnic stereotypes “continue to infect journalism,” concluded a study done at San Francisco State University and sponsored by Unity ’94. The 55-page report analyzed news coverage of racial and ethnic minorities.

The study found that in photos, through headlines and in news footage, blacks were often portrayed as “rap stars, drug addicts (or) welfare mothers,” Latinos as “aliens and foreigners,” Asian Americans as “inscrutable, manipulative” invaders of U.S. business, and Native Americans as “Indian drunks.”

The report faults the use of stale metaphors, such as “on the warpath” and “circling the wagons,” that offend Native Americans. It also calls for an end to the use of the term “illegal aliens,” which one analyst said “conjures up images of menacing, greenish creatures who are invaders from another planet.” The term “illegal immigrant” conveys the same information, without the pejorative connotation, the group said.

While the study focused on such common complaints about the press, it is not at all clear that most members of minority groups are troubled by the news coverage they see.

A Gallup Poll released Tuesday found that blacks were most disturbed about crime coverage. For example, 55% of blacks who were surveyed said that blacks are treated unfairly in crime coverage on national television, while only 14% of Asian Americans and 34% of Latinos were found to be similarly concerned about how they are portrayed.

For local newspapers, the figures were about the same: 47% of blacks said that the crime coverage is unfair, compared to 30% of Latinos and 10% of Asian Americans.

Overall, the survey, conducted for USA Today and Cable News Network, found that most minority viewers and readers are satisfied with news coverage. Asked about local newspapers, 72% of the Latino respondents, 61% of the Asian Americans and 48% of the blacks said that they were satisfied with the coverage. National television news fared even better, as 76% of Latinos, 74% of Asians and 58% of black viewers said they are satisfied with the coverage.