Minorities are greatly underserved in the field of journalism. Myself being a minority journalist, I was a little upset to find out last week that more than 20 urban journalism programs that attract minority high school students to journalism and give them training would no longer carry racial preferences as a result of a class-action lawsuit settlement. This may be old news to some but in case ya’ll slept, the case was brought up after a 16-year-old girl was denied acceptance to the Urban Journalism Workshop at Virginia Commonwealth University because she was white.

This, in a way, is good news. All jobs and special programs, especially those that offer beneficial training to budding young minds, should not be exclusive. However, newspapers are supposed to reflect their communities. Racial diversity is a major issue for journalism and there are many scholarships and internships exclusively to serve this purpose. If we’ve got growing minority populations, yet predominantly white newsrooms, what is produced is less likely to represent and reflect the community at large, as it does and has done for centuries. So how do we attract more minorities to journalism? Through programs like these.

As one would expect, some are claiming this as a victory, others see it as a crippling blow.

Eugene Kane, columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was quoted in Richard Prince’s column:

“Without the Summer Program, many of us would have never been hired for our first jobs in newsrooms. Why? Because most editors back then — just like now — would insist ‘we can’t find anyone qualified.’

“My prediction, without these types of minority journalism programs, many newsrooms will go back to that tired lament.

“We can’t find anyone qualified.