In partnership with the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Maynard Institute, APME created the program in 1999 to help newspapers explore ways of bringing diverse voices into news coverage as well as the newsroom.
In its first two years, APME shipped Time-Out For Diversity packets to newspapers across the country encouraging newsrooms to host brown-bag diversity lunches and offering ways to stimulate discussions related to diversity in the newsroom and news reporting. However, this year's Time-out for Diversity III program also included one-day content analysis trainings in five cities, where attendees learned about content audits and were given a chance to conduct a practice audit using their own newspapers.
After the data was collected and processed, attendees saw similar patterns of news coverage emerge:
- a predominance of white male voices
- a lack of female voices
- a lack of photographs of seniors
- a lack of youths used as sources
- a lack of lower income people used as either sources or subjects of photographs
"I learned that we need to think through every story we do, from briefs to takeouts, and look at who we interview, what relevance they have to the story, what angle we take on a story," said Julie Aicher, Albuquerque AP Bureau Chief. "We're trying to stay away from talking to the same people who are "experts" on a subject and instead searching out new views and opinions."
Aicher said her bureau is also "trying to stretch our story ideas, making sure we include input from everyone in our office instead of relying on a ‘top-down’ story assignment structure."
Besides learning about content audits, the trainings included a workshop -- conducted by the Associated Press -- on how to use the 2000 U.S. Census numbers to gauge changing demographics in their individual communities.
The trainings also consisted of a Maynard Institute Fault Lines discussion, in which the "fault lines" of race, class, gender, generation and geography were used as the framework for each of the content audit training sessions.
This year’s Time-Out III trainings were held in Columbus, OH; Seattle, WA; Hartford, CT; Atlanta, GA; and Phoenix, AZ. More than 100 individuals representing 50 newspapers took part in the training. Participants were encouraged to conduct full content audits at their own newspapers following the workshops.
The results of some of these audits will be discussed at the 2001 APME National Conference in Milwaukee on Oct. 12, 2001. Maynard Institute President Dori Maynard will moderate a panel examining how news organizations are using data derived from Maynard’s content audit tools to reshape news coverage to better reflect their communities. APME has also published a Time-Out III program book which will be distributed to conference attendees.
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