Gannett at UNITY: Diversity Hiring Increases
McLEAN, VA – Approximately 30 percent of the people hired in Gannett newspaper newsrooms in the past 12 months have been people of color, the company said today as the UNITY 2004 convention got underway in Washington, DC.
“Gannett is committed to diversity and our hiring record proves it,” said Douglas H. McCorkindale, chairman, president and CEO of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI). “We have been the leader in hiring women and people of color for a generation because diversity is smart journalism and smart business.”
Gannett is participating in the UNITY convention by sponsoring tonight’s Town Hall meeting on the subject of “The New Multicultural Dynamic in Entertainment,” printing the convention newspaper and supporting other events connected to the meeting. UNITY is an alliance of four national minority journalist associations, including the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ); the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA); the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ); and the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA). The group holds a convention every five years.
This year, the convention is being held through Aug. 8 in Washington, DC.
Gannett and the Gannett Foundation have been sponsors of UNITY since its inception. The company and the foundation also support the individual organizations.
At a meeting at Gannett headquarters of more than 300 Gannett employees attending UNITY, the company reported that in the 100 community-newspaper newsrooms, people of color now make up 18.6 percent of the professionals in newsrooms, up from 18.3 percent in June 2003. The percentage of managers of color in the newsroom increased to 18.6 percent, up from 16.9 percent the year before.
At USA TODAY, people of color represent 12.8 percent of the newsroom managers, up from 11.1 percent in June 2003. And to date, people of color make up 19.6 percent of journalists at Gannett Broadcasting’s 22 television stations, up from 19.3 percent in 2003.
Nearly 33 percent of the journalists promoted to their first, or to a higher, management job are people of color at Gannett’s community newspapers, according to the company.
“We had a good base last year and we have made good progress over the past 12 months,” says Phil Currie, senior vice president of news for the Newspaper Division. “This is very important, because a more diverse staff helps us better provide more diverse content with the aim of reaching more readers and better reflecting our whole communities.”
Earlier this year, a Knight Foundation report of newspaper companies ranked Gannett No. 1 in having staffs that best mirrored the number of minorities in individual communities where the company has newspapers.
Gannett Co., Inc. is a leading international news and information company that publishes 101 daily newspapers in the USA, including USA TODAY, the nation’s largest-selling daily newspaper. The company also owns more than 500 non-daily publications in the USA and USA WEEKEND, a weekly newspaper magazine. Gannett subsidiary Newsquest is the United Kingdom’s second largest regional newspaper company. Newsquest publishes more than 300 titles, including 17 daily newspapers, and a network of prize-winning Web sites. Gannett also operates 22 television stations in the United States and is an Internet leader with sites sponsored by its TV stations and newspapers including USATODAY.com, one of the most popular news sites on the Web.
Gannett’s Unity Web site can be found at www.gannett.com/unity.
For more information, contact:
Tara Connell
Vice President of Corporate Communications
(703) 854-6049
tjconnel@gannett.com