Journalism From Milwaukee to Minneapolis
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Journalism From Milwaukee to Minneapolis |
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Related Links
Read Elizabeth Flore's award winning photographs with story
on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Web site. Kenny Irby, a visual journalism group leader at the Poynter Institute,
answers questions about diversity to News Watch Web site.
Email Toyama for comments and suggestions
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Diversity in photo departments needs improvementBy Yasko ToyamaUW-Eau Claire Journalism Seminar Student Wednesday, May 15, 2002
While photographers are making dramatic and rapid changes, there are still much less female and non-white photographers when comparing the percentage of female and non-white employees to reporters, copy editors and city editors. The results from the UW-Eau Claire class survey shows that 18 percent of photographers who answered are female, and only four photographers out of 38 respondents who identified as a photographer are not white, while 41 percent of reporters and 48 percent of copy editors are females who responded to the survey.The number of female photographers are balanced with that of male photographers in Minnesota, but there are more male photographers in Northwestern Minnesota, said Matt Miller, a photographer for the Rochester Post-Bulletin and the president of the Minnesota News Photographers Association. Although there are non-white news photographers in Minnesota, almost all of the photographers who are working outside of Twin Cities area are white, Miller said.
The benefit of having diverse staff is that there will be more variety of perspectives, said Mark Hoffman, deputy photo editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Though the ideal demographics in newsroom should reflect the community, it is difficult to determine that the paper should think about Milwaukee as the community or think about Wisconsin as a whole, he said. Diversity in a photo department is not necessarily important because quality of over all photographs are depending on what kind of a person the photographer is, said Elizabeth Flores, a photographer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. However, the paper would be able to report, understand and get access to communities that are different from their own if the paper has diverse staff, Flores said. “I think we would be able to get a better perspective on other cultures coming from a diverse newsroom.” |
