As U.S. daily newspapers continued to encounter additional economic challenges in 2009, the losses of journalists of color outpaced overall newsroom job reductions, according to figures released April 12 by the American Society of News Editors at its annual conference here.

While persons of color make up a third of the U.S. population, they now comprise just 13.26 percent of newsroom inhabitants, the lowest percentage in half a dozen years. Now approaching 16 percent of the country’s population, Hispanics are just 4.4% of the overall total

In the past year, newsroom personnel employed by the daily press declined by about 11 percent, from 46,700 to 41,500. Among non-whites, it dropped 12.6%, from 6,300 to 5,500, down more than 25 percent from its peak of 7,400 in 2006.

During that period, dailies lost 175 Latino journalists, an 8.4 percent decline.

“This is, in a word, frustrating,” says O. Ricardo Pimentel, editorial page editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who is president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Diversity is a “strategic imperative,” he maintains. “We understand the complex factors that contributed to job losses across the board, but we also understand that, particularly in times of deep economic distress, diversity must remain a key strategic goal.”

Julio Morán, executive director of CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California, often a critic of mainstream media’s lack of positive coverage of Hispanics, adds the concern, “As we continue to go backwards, it shows in the product.”

Since 1978, ASNE has tracked its progress, or lack thereof, toward the goal it set that year to have newsrooms reach racial and ethnic parity with the general population. Its first target year was 2000, but when that became an obvious impossibility, it shifted a quarter century ahead, to 2025. It has been falling further and further behind as the population grows.

This year, 914 of 1,422 print and online newspapers responded to the ASNE’s survey, representing 64.3 percent of U.S. dailies. The data are used to project the numbers for unresponsive newspapers in the same circulation ranges.

Outgoing ASNE president Marty Kaiser, editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, calls the numbers disappointing, but maintains that in the past year the organization has “reignited the discussion” about the importance of newsroom diversity.

Incoming president Milton Coleman, senior editor with the Washington Post, declined to comment to Weekly Report on ASNE’s plans to address the parity issue, stating he was too busy prior to his induction as president. “I have to write my speech for tomorrow,” he said.

Barbara Ciara, president of UNITY: Journalists of Color and an anchor at WTRK News Channel 3, in Olso, Virginia, added the question, “Everybody says it’s a priority, but what are they doing on a continuing basis to promote this idea so that it can become a reality? Enough of the lip service.”

Staff cutbacks in the last few years have brought the total of full-time daily  journalists down to 41,500, a low level not seen since the mid-1970s.

“It’s been placed on the back burner,” maintains Rick Rodríguez, former ASNE president and Sacramento Bee executive editor who now teaches journalism at Arizona State University.

Felix Gutiérrez, a journalism professor at the University of Southern California, says that even in the midst of cuts, companies “can find ways to retain people they want to retain.” News organizations are not “digging deep enough” when looking for new talent, he adds.

There were no sessions in the ASNE program that specifically addressed the parity issue, but editor Ronnie Agnew, from The Clarion-Ledger, was named the person in charge of diversity efforts for the coming year.

Asked whether the parity goal was achievable, Bobbi Bowman, diversity consultant for ASNE, stated, “We probably won’t make it, but the goal remains.”

Alfredo Carbajal, managing editor of Al Día in Dallas, Texas, said it is essential “to make diversity the cornerstone of everything we do right now as we cope with the challenges of new technology, new ways of relating to our audience and trying out new and more sustainable business models.”