Last year, according to editor John Temple, the Rocky Mountain News announced its intention
to establish a training program for Hispanic journalists here. The goal was to improve coverage of the nation’s fastest-growing community and to help increase the number of Hispanic journalists in our newsroom and the newsrooms of other newspapers owned by our parent company.
We called it the Scripps Academy for Hispanic Journalists, or SAHJ, which echoed the name of the nation’s most influential Hispanic journalism organization, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, or NAHJ.
What happened next is unique, or at least rare, but it should not be.
But once the program became public, we learned that good intentions aren’t everything. My own editorial board raised questions, and then an out-of-state public policy group pointed out that in their view the program should be open to all groups, not just Hispanics. (After all, even NAHJ is open to all races.)
Upon reflection I realized that the way we had cast the program didn’t comport with the philosophical principles of the newspaper that I run.
That’s not a comfortable feeling.
So, with the help of the Virginia-based Center for Equal Opportunity and our local Hispanic community advisory committee, we’ve restructured the program.
It’s now called the “Scripps Academy for Hispanic Journalism, a training program at the Rocky Mountain News.” Admission will be made without regard to an applicant’s race, color, national origin, religion, etc.
We’re looking for early-career journalists with a four-year college degree. They need to have had journalism internships while attending college or practical experience in the field. Deciding factors in offering admission include fluency in Spanish and English, college course work relating to the study of contemporary Hispanic culture and heritage, prior employment, internship or volunteer experience pertaining to Hispanic issues and other pertinent experience.
If there were a DISCRIMINATIONS award for sober second thoughts on race and ethnicity, John Temple and the Rocky Mountain News would be its first recipient.
