MINORITY HIRING May Be Facing Retrenchment

Will a court-ordered change from mandatory to voluntary hiring of minorities and women change the face of broadcasting?

"BY ALL ACCOUNTS, I should not have succeeded in this business," says Will Wright, news director at WWOR-TV in New York City. "I started off as a product of the quintessential broken home; my father left me when I was three years old. My family was on welfare. I lived in the housing projects of Brooklyn, infested by vermin and gangs." He credits several special minority-oriented programs with giving him and other African-Americans an opportunity. "There was some realization that some people need help to be able to succeed, and I think it's very sad that some now say, `Well, we don't need any help in this area.' Yes we do. I'm proof of it."

Whether that help continues to be available is the question. Not that the broadcast industry mirrors the overall minority population of 28%, but it is far ahead of the most closely allied field--newspapers. Minorities make up 19% of television news vs. 11.6% of newspaper staffs. Interestingly, the percentage of women employees is nearly identical: 39% in TV news and 37% in newspaper. Given that the jobs are so closely related, and many of the new hires come out of the same college communication and journalism programs, what accounts for the difference? Most likely, regulations do--or at least have up to now.

For the last quarter-century, while newspapers have resolved to diversify their workforce, broadcasters have been required to do so. The Federal Communication Commission's Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) guidelines made clear that broadcasters had to take a highly proactive role in seeking out diversity in the workforce. Stations falling well below the guidelines (50% parity of the station's available labor pool) risked fines, losing their licenses, or having the FCC closely monitor their operations. All that's changed.

In the spring of 1998, the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia struck down the EEO guidelines. In an unusual move, the court went on to say that, while the hiring guidelines for women were not being challenged in the case before it, that, if challenged, those, too, would be struck down. The court did not strike down rules against discrimination, only the hiring guidelines and percentages. In the face of a conservative Supreme Court, which has been consistently leery of affirmative action programs, the FCC ultimately opted not to appeal the ruling.

Now what? Will the already 81% white TV news media become even less diversified? According to some of the biggest media companies, they won't.

Mimi Feller, senior vice president for public affairs and government relations at Gannett Broadcasting, says Gannett will "absolutely not" change its showcase policy on hiring and promotion. Gannett's extensive media holdings include 21 television stations. "We already exceed the FCC guidelines on hiring, and we're not going to change our hiring practices at all because of this recent decision. Our hiring practices are such because we think it's good business, and that's how we want to do it."

CBS says much the same thing. In spring, 1999, in the vacuum left by the FCC's departed guidelines, the company decided to adopt the similar rules from the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. The OFCCP guidelines apply to companies wishing to do business with the Federal government, and, while some CBS stations already complied (because they accepted government-paid advertising), CBS decided to implement the program company-wide, including its 14 television and 160 radio stations. Steve Hildebrandt, vice president and general counsel for Infinity/CBS Radio, says that, overall, he's "confident" that CBS meets the FCC's old guidelines of 50% parity in the workforce. "We require our people to report their numbers every month," Hildebrandt notes, "and we beat them up if they don't meet the guidelines."

Clear Channel Communications also maintains that its hiring programs are unchanged. The San Antonio, Tex.-based firm owns 477 radio and 19 television stations. Bill Struck, vice president and general manager of Clear Channel's five radio stations in El Paso, Tex., says there has been "no directive from the company to change anything." Struck states that they have no problems with minority hiring in El Paso, where the minority is a majority. (Hispanics are 73% of the population.)

"Our goal is simply to hire the best," Struck states. Having worked in a number of markets around the country, he knows finding good minority candidates may be easy in El Paso, but that is not true everywhere. Occasionally, it can be tough.

That is what worries some people. Meanwhile, what about the smaller operations outside the national public eye? In some of those places, will stations that are no longer required to work so hard at diversity continue to do it anyway?

Randy Lube, news director at KOLN-TV in Lincoln, Neb., thinks so. "We're of the opinion that you have to have a diverse newsroom, and that's important. You have to have all different sets of opinions, and if you're structuring your newsroom in a proper way, you're going to make sure that you have a diversity of opinion."