altDiversity

Here’s a great idea the rest of us should borrow for our papers: New America Media is featuring a story by Hispaninc Business that explores whether President Obama stiumulus funds are reaching minority-owned businesses in California:

Meanwhile, during a press conference on Thursday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke — the first Chinese-American to hold that post — acknowledged that the federal government is a “huge bureaucracy.”
As a result, he said, minority-owned firms often don’t know how to access federal resources set aside for them.

“I know what a struggle it is,” he said during the teleconference. “I had to work in my dad’s grocery store for many, many years. … My dad was a small-business owner, and was constantly struggling.”

He said minority-business owners interested in applying for contracts from the Economic Recovery Act should visit the Web site of the Commerce Department’s “Minority Business Development Agency,” as well as .

Content, Do It Now, Story Angles Business, Latinos, New America Media, Stimulus

I often hear editors say that they can use some cold, hard numbers to help them argue the need to get support to more deliberately pursue diversity in hiring, coverage and newsrooms culture. Here is a random list of “evidence” I’ve used in diversity talks, starting with a bit of a “duh” statement from Keith Woods of Poynter, one of my favorite media-diversity evangelists:

“[I]f most of the country’s traditional news outlets have a prayer of maintaining their relevance over the coming decades, they will need to make drastic strides in understanding and reflecting the country’s emerging ethnic and racial diversity.”
— Keith Woods, Poynter Institute Read more…

Business of Diversity African Americans, Buying Power, Creative Class, Demographics, Ethnic Media, Guy Garcia, Keith Woods, Latinos, Readership Institute